As I sat down at the table, Crivreen was chatting up a storm, asking Ragnar what seemed like a thousand things at once. When he paused long enough to take a bite, I asked, “Crivreen, why all the jumps yesterday?”
“Oh, yeah, I need to fill you in on that. After you left, I decided to use the time to do some overdue maintenance on the ship. Being out here without a proper dock limited what I could achieve to some extent, but there was still plenty to do. While I was working, I found a tracking device on our hull. I removed it and tossed it into space as hard as I could. I didn’t want to risk jumping while you were over there because I did not know what would happen if you tried to gate back while the ship was in a jump, so I just flew away from the tracking device until you came back,” he said.
“Are we safe now?” I asked.
“Safer. If whoever planted the device decides to follow it, they can find where we were yesterday. If we stay here too long they could conceivably track us down, but that would take time and I suspect we will be getting underway today,” he said.
“I thought I asked you to do some research?” I said.
“Yeah, I was going to get to that, but … ” he said.
I just shook my head and cut him off. “You engineer types are all the same. Well, see what you can find out now that you have done some maintenance.” I turned to Ragnar and asked, “How are you doing?”
“Oh, I’ll manage. There is a lot to take in. I can see why you looked so confused most of the time in the forest. Everything is so different here,” he said.
“We will need to get him an environmental suit and some clothes that will blend in better,” said Crivreen.
“Narcion has plenty of armor. I can enchant it, and then it will adjust in size. As for clothes, that will require a stop at a station,” I said.
“We will need to make him an ID in his name,” said Crivreen.
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, that too. Fortunately we have plenty of those and Narcion taught me how to make them, so we can always get more,” I said. “Do you think those IDs the government gave us are still valid?”
“Most likely, why?” he asked.
“We need to go back to Bonair so that Ragnar can do his investigation. I am thinking it will generate fewer questions if we use the same identities that we had the last time they saw us,” I said.
“Good point, but that will also let everyone know we are there,” he said.
“I doubt if that can be avoided,” I said.
“I take it there is someone looking for you who could be a problem?” asked Ragnar.
“It’s just that Narcion has a lot of enemies, so we try to be discreet wherever we go,” I said.
“I see,” Ragnar said quietly.
“If we keep our visit short, it should not be a problem. The local government often hires Narcion to do work for them, and we rescued that station from attack, so its residents should be well-disposed towards us,” I said.
“How quickly can you make his armor?” asked Crivreen.
“With the new tools, and now that I know what I’m doing, I can probably have them made by the end of the day. If not, certainly by tomorrow,” I said.
“We will probably blend in better if he wears the armor on the station while we visit. While we’re there, we can buy supplies and clothes for him,” said Crivreen.
“Okay, plot a course that will take at least three days to get there. That will make it hard for anyone following that tracking device to guess where we are headed, and give me time to make his armor,” I said.
Over the next three days, Criveen worked with Ragnar to teach him what he would need to know to blend in at the station and survive in our universe, while I worked on a set of armor for him. For his part he tried to explain to us the basics of how magic worked, and the reality of there being many different universes, though he only knew of two so far that were like ours and had normal people in them There were other, more exotic ones, but he cautioned us that we could not survive in those without some powerful magic to help us.
When we finally reached the station I said to Crivreen, “You’d better stay on board, just in case we need to make a quick getaway.”
“Good idea,” he said. “Maybe I can work on that research while I wait.”
I looked over at Ragnar and saw that he was armed. “You cannot bring your swords onto the station. They would be confiscated.”
“No problem,” he said and chanted a command word while touching both blades. They soon faded from sight. “Better?”
“You need to teach me that trick,” I said as I once again disassembled my rifle and hid the pieces throughout my armor. “Let’s go.”
As we left Narcion’s ship several of the station guards called out, “Good to see you again, Commander!”
“Well, if we intended to be discreet, we just failed,” I said.
“I suspect it will turn out to be a good thing that the port’s guards like us,” said Ragnar.
“Let’s get the shopping out of the way, then begin your investigation,” I said.
“That sounds fine,” he said. “What do you use for money?”
“Everything is in order with your ID. I loaded it with what should be sufficient funds when I set it up, so you should have no difficulty,” I said.
From there we visited all the normal shops that carried clothing and other sundries. I had some trouble finding him clothes that would make him blend in because he had a unique taste that was not the fashion. Once we had found a compromise, we had the packages delivered to the ship and headed to where Narcion was last seen.
As we approached the place, Ragnar said, “We are being watched.”
“Ragnar, the whole station is constantly watched,” I said.
“No; I mean someone is actively, and specifically, watching us,” he said.
“Crivreen said the same thing the last time we were here, but we were never able to confirm it,” I said. “No matter; the storage room up ahead is where Narcion was last seen.”
Ragnar had insisted that we should not tell him a single thing about the event until after he had completed his investigation. He said everyone has a flawed memory, and he did not want to be pushed down the wrong path by mistake. It would be easier to follow the facts if he had less knowledge going in.
I was surprised to see that the room had two guards in front of it. As we approached I said, “Hello. Please make sure no one disturbs us while we’re in here.” I had learned in my years as a slave that authority was more a matter of how you carry yourself and what you look like, rather than any reality of rank or position. If I were a person of authority, I would not ask permission to get into the room, I would just walk in. So that is what I did.
“Yes, sir!” they said.
Once inside the room, I saw it had been stripped clean. Narcion and Felix had set up barricades in order to shield themselves while they fired upon the enemy, and those were all gone. Gone too were the piles of bones left behind when the skeletons were killed. The walls had even been cleaned of scorch marks. The room looked as if it had never been used. Ragnar did not seem to notice. He pulled out some kind of writing implement and closed his eyes. Soon he was moving around the room, writing on the floor and drawing shapes. After a while it became clear: he was drawing the scene just as it had been when Felix was taken. Every barricade, every box, and he even marked out the positions of Felix, Narcion, and their attackers at the moment that Felix was kidnapped.
“The portal was here,” he said. Then he pulled out the datapad that Crivreen had rigged for him. It would allow him to write in his native tongue with his finger on the screen and save the writing so he could read it later. It seemed the spell I had cast in the woods to teach him our language had only taught him the verbal tongue; he could neither read nor write it.
He then drew a circle on the floor and said, “Yes, here.” Around the circle he wrote something and just as he completed writing it, it began t
o glow softly. After a few moments the writing completely disappeared. “Interesting,” he said under his breath. “Zah’rak, can you take me to some of the other battle locations?”
“Sure, this way,” I said.
As we toured the station random guards would stop us and thank me for saving the station. Never once did anyone ask what we were doing, or even who Ragnar was. They just assumed we were supposed to be doing what we were doing.
Everywhere we went, Ragnar would stop and take notes while mumbling under his breath. I was not sure what he was saying or writing, but he seemed to be very much impressed by whatever it was. He did not write on the floor or the walls like he had done in the storage room, but I guessed he really wanted to. I never met anyone who did as much writing in their entire lifetime as he did on that one trip to the station.
Once I had hit all the high points, I said to him, “Those were all the major battle locations. Do you need to see more?”
“No, this is more than enough to get the feel of the battle. Is there anything else I should see?” he asked.
“Hmm, maybe the garden? Crivreen and I used it as a fallback base,” I said. I thought ‘fallback base’ sound better than “we hid there for a while.”
“Sure; it would be nice to see some nature again,” he said.
“It is the largest botanical garden in the sector, and I very much enjoyed our visit there last time,” I said.
After waiting in line for a while, we eventually got in. Ragnar was not as impressed with the garden as I was; in fact, he seemed a bit disappointed by it. I guessed that was because where he lived previously was far lusher than this garden.
As we headed back to the ship he said, “Your customs are a little different, your dress is odd, and you have a lot of things I have never seen before, but one thing is comforting.”
“What is that?” I asked.
“People are still people. Strip away all your technology and this could be any city back in my realm,” he said.
“I have traveled quite a bit with Narcion, and I would have to say this station is no different from any other. I suppose some things are just universal,” I said.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“Agent Byron, report to the command center immediately,” came over my intercom.
“On my way,” I replied.
I had arrived at the station late the night before and was trying to catch up on some sleep when that call came in. After doing my best to freshen up, I went to the command center. I had no idea why they were calling me, but calls like that are rarely unimportant.
When I arrived, the officer running one of the security camera stations called out, “Agent Byron, sir, Zah’rak is back on the station.”
“Show me,” I said as I moved to his desk.
I watched on the screen as Zah’rak and a stranger approached the storage closet which Narcion had used for cover during the attack. “Who is that with him?”
“I have never seen him before, sir. The ID he is using says his name is Ragnar,” said the officer.
I watched as Ragnar walked through the fight scene and wrote in some strange language on the walls and floor. They moved from there to other locations throughout the station, and everywhere they went the station guards treated them like celebrities. I would have to be careful what I said about them near the guards.
After a visit to the garden they headed back to their ship, and Ragnar made a most interesting comment about “his realm.” I wondered what that meant, and filed it away for future reference.
“Thanks, call me if they come back,” I said. “And mention this to no one.”
“Yes, sir!” he said.
From the command center I went to a private office and called back the commander who had asked me to look into Narcion.
“Commander, I have news,” I said.
“Good, because there has been a distinct lack of it lately,” he said.
“I have found Zah’rak, and he is not alone,” I said and told him about Zah’rak’s tour of the station.
“What do you make of it?” he asked.
“He is obviously still searching for Narcion and has acquired the help of an expert investigator in this Ragnar,” I said.
“That could be bad for us. Based on your work, Zah’rak’s personality profile suggests he would be easy to induce to spill information, but an expert investigator would not be so likely to talk,” he said.
“True, but being an expert with access to Zah’rak and Narcion’s ship, he is more likely to actually find something than anyone else is right now,” I said.
“Which means we need to get him on our side,” said the commander.
“Right, which is why I am requesting you to extend the validity of their government IDs and make them permanent. Also, please create one for Ragnar.”
“Those IDs gave them access to very secure areas. They should have been invalidated already,” he said.
“The access they provide will mean they’ll want to keep using them, making them easy to find if they slip away again,” he said.
“It is too great a risk. I don’t know why they have not been removed already,” he said. “I will fix that mistake right away.”
“Commander, do not cut them off. If you do you will be interfering with an ongoing investigation, and I will have to report that to my superiors,” I said.
“Is that a threat, Byron?” he asked.
I noticed he did not use my title, no doubt with the intention of being insulting. “I am informing you of the consequences of your actions. You will have to decide what you do with that information,” I said. I could not believe he would risk losing our only lead.
“You’re playing a dangerous game,” he said coldly.
“You have no idea,” I said and cut the channel. I then prepared a communiqué to my superiors, telling them to expect the complaint and asking them to overrule any action taken against Zah’rak’s team. I was thankful that as a special agent I did not report to the military, because they were too bogged down in procedures and rules. It was stifling working with them and, while I enjoyed the assignments, I hated the box they tried to stick assignments in.
It took less than an hour for a call to come in from my handler. “Byron, it seems you have upset the bureaucrats in the military again.”
I chuckled, “Yes. I am sure I have. Sir, I think we need to take this case in-house.”
“What is going on?” he asked.
“Zah’rak has acquired the services of someone who I am sure is a special agent of some kind. I am predicting they will be the first to make a breakthrough in this case. If that happens, Zah’rak will rush in without telling us anything, and we will lose our best lead on the attacks.”
“I see. What would your plan be, then?” he asked.
“I want to make them all special agents that report to me,” I said.
“A delta force, then?” he asked.
A delta force was an expert hit team that was assembled quickly on the fly to respond to critical and sensitive situations. “Yes, sir. I think these attacks on our stations warrant it.”
“Well, that might be a good idea; especially now,” he said.
“Why? What is up?” I asked.
“I just got a report a few hours ago: another station is under attack,” he said.
“Give me the word, and I will go to see Zah’rak right now. This attack will be the perfect opportunity to earn their trust,” I said.
“Are you sure about this? They have not really been vetted, especially the newest member of their team,” he asked.
“Sir, have I ever yet steered you wrong?” I asked.
“Careful of that pride, Byron. No one is perfect,” he said. He sighed and then continued, “Very well. Give me an hour and I will have everything in place. From now on you report only to me on this case, and I will deal with the military.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said and then we clos
ed the channel. I had probably earned the distrust of yet another military commander, but if another station was under attack then people’s lives were on the line and I could not waste time playing politics.
I leaned back in my chair for a moment and considered my options. I would have to approach them somehow and gain their trust. Crivreen had been unfairly arrested and imprisoned by a government official, so he was not likely to trust me. Zah’rak’s past had put him at odds with the law often enough to potentially have trust issues, and this Ragnar was an unknown, but unless I missed my guess he was probably smart enough to see through any thin cover story.
While I waited on the IDs from my handler, I retrieved some recordings of them that we had made in the past and watched them again for ideas on how best to approach them. It only reinforced my belief that Zah’rak was still the key; if I could get him to trust me, the rest would follow.
Soon, word came in that the IDs were ready and I could put my plan into action. It was time to see if I was as good as everyone thought I was.
Chapter Thirty-Three
When we got back on the ship, Crivreen said, “Hey, Zah’rak, I was thinking.”
“That could be dangerous,” I said.
“Very funny. Anyway, we need to name this ship,” he said.
“Oh, why?” I asked.
“Well, most ships have names, and it is only fitting that it have one,” he said.
“He has a point,” said Ragnar. “I do not think I have ever seen an unnamed ship of any kind before this one.”
“Shouldn’t Narcion name it?” I said.
“He gave you the ship, and it needs a name. That makes you responsible for naming it,” said Crivreen.
“But I wouldn’t know how to pick a name,” I said.
“It needs to be cool, an action word! Like ‘Ultimate Death Bringer’!” said Crivreen.
“That’s rather dark, don’t you think?” asked Ragnar.
“Maybe, but it’s still cool!” he said.
“How about something less morbid like ‘Light Ray’?” asked Ragnar.
The Sac'a'rith Page 23
