by Chris Fox
He shook his head slowly as he considered the implications. “I can’t leave. Not yet. There’s a lot I can do with just a few more days, things that might salvage a little if it turns out I am right about Mother. I’ve been slowly moving resources, but I need more time. Besides, I’m close to puzzling out Inura’s whereabouts. I think so, anyway.”
“Inura?” There was a single moment of incredible excitement, then Voria straightened and took on what he was beginning to call older-sister face. “Kazon, not even locating a god is worth losing you. If you stay and fight, or even stay and gather, you run the risk of being captured. If they turned Jolene, they can turn you. We’ve seen what Nebiat can do. I don’t know what Skare’s involved in, but binding is nothing to toy with. Get out, brother.”
“As soon as I safely can.” He touched the screen. “Be safe, sister.”
The screen went dark. He needed to move quickly, before Skare finished consolidating power.
35
Level 28
A wave of dust washed through the bright corridor as the tunnel collapsed behind them. Aran waited for that dust to settle, then removed his helmet. The seal hissed open and his eyes adjusted to the bright halogens above. The corridor reeked of smoke, and less pleasant things.
He turned to Tharn, who still wore her silvery armor. “I know you aren’t military, but do you have any idea how they might react to our presence? Or what the layout of this facility might be?”
Before the archeologist could answer, heavy, booted footsteps sounded on the metal walkway. They were moving double time, and he counted a half dozen sets. Marines, most likely. Aran turned to the company. “Lower your weapons and get your helmets off.”
One by one, the squad did exactly that. Tharn was the last to remove hers, and a wry grin creased her age-spotted face. “I like being the one doing the observing. Keeping my helmet on lets me do that. But, I suppose if you kids can do it I can too.”
Crewes popped his faceplate and loomed over the reporter. “Oh, we’re kids, are we?” He grabbed one of her drones and crumpled it between his armored hands. Then he seized the other one and peered into the lens. “How many of these things you got? ‘Cause every time you address the LT as kid, I’m gonna crush another one.”
A squad of soldiers in olive uniforms sprinted into view. They minimized their profile against the walls, and moved with the kind of impressive skill he’d come to expect from Ternus Marines. He recognized their rifles as the same ones Davidson and his men used. They were fully automatic, though he had no idea how many rounds each magazine held.
“Identify yourself,” a harsh feminine voice barked.
“We’re Aran’s Outriders, contracted by Admiral Nimitz,” Aran called out. He took a cautious step closer to the Marines. “Looks like you guys had some Krox tunneling into the facility, so we decided to show them out before introducing ourselves.”
“Excuse me,” Tharn’s voice rang out. She walked boldly up the corridor, and the drone Crewes was holding strained to follow her. He raised an eyebrow, and Aran nodded. Crewes released the drone, and it zipped after the reporter. “Captain? Or Sergeant or whatever, surely you recognize me. I can vouch for these people. Turn on Channel 1 and you’ll see exactly why you want to take these people to your commander immediately.”
The Marine she was speaking too, an impressively muscled woman in her mid-twenties, reached into her pocket and withdrew one of the portable comms Pickus used. She tapped the screen, and a moment later a holographic image sprang up over the device.
“Holy crap,” Bord called. He hurried over to the Marines, who snapped their rifles to their shoulders. Bord stopped and raised his hands. “Hey there, fellas, no need to get testy. I just want to see the footage. That’s me and my girl looking all heroic-like.”
The Marines lowered their weapons, so Aran approached as well. The woman leading the squad wore lieutenant’s bars, making her his rank equivalent. Well his confederate rank anyway. He could probably call himself a captain, or whatever else he wanted to now.
“This is you guys?” the woman looked up at Aran’s face, her hard eyes bathed in the glow of the hologram.
“Yeah.” He nodded, then jerked a thumb over his shoulder at Kheross. “That’s the dragon.”
Her face went white. “You brought a…dragon into Fort Crockett?”
“Yeah, but he’s our dragon,” Aran pointed out. “Trust me when I say we’re going to need him if you want anyone in this facility to survive the next few days.”
“We’ve done all right so far.” The woman’s jaw tightened. Aran’s gaze flicked to the name stenciled on her uniform. Hernandez. “This is the first breach we’ve had.”
“Did you not joost see that missive thing?” Kez stabbed an armored finger at the hologram. “We wiped out hundreds of corpses, and the Wyrms they’d have sent up that tunnel. If they’d gotten in what was your plan? Shoot them with little pieces of metal? What do you think that’s going to do?”
Aran raised a hand and the fiery drifter subsided. “Would you be willing to take us to your leadership? I can share our intel, and they can decide if or how they’d like to use my company. Sound good?”
Hernandez nodded. “Fine by me.”
“Sir,” a stocky man hissed at Hernandez. The muscles in his arms were taut, as if he were still ready to fight. “We sure we want to allow these people in wearing their armor? Shouldn’t we ask them to remove it?”
She shook her head slightly. “If they wanted to use that armor, they could do it right now. There isn’t anything between them and command that would stop them.” She turned back to Aran. “Follow me. And please don’t mention the dragon until I deposit you with high command.”
Hernandez moved up the corridor, and Aran followed. The rest of the company fell into his wake, and Hernandez’s squad fell in behind them. The tension thickened as they walked, and Aran wished he could think of something to say that might break it.
It took several minutes and many corridors to reach a thirty-meter-wide blast door. Four turrets lined the roof over it, and while Aran couldn’t identify the caliber they fired, he was willing to bet he wouldn’t enjoy being hit by them.
Hernandez stepped forward and spoke to a camera set between the turrets. “Sir, we’ve discovered the source of the incursion. Request permission to bring ‘Aran’s Outriders’ down to level 28.”
The camera whirred, and the door began to rise. It exposed a lift with a latticed metal floor. He peeked between the cracks as he stepped on, and saw a shaft descending into the darkness. It extended at least a kilometer, if he was judging the perspective correctly.
“Who are you bringing us to meet?” Aran asked Hernandez.
She eyed him with an unreadable expression for several moments before speaking. “We’re bringing you to meet the joint chiefs and the governor herself.”
“We met a governor back on Marid,” Bord piped up. “So she’s the leader o’ the whole planet then?”
“Kind of.” Hernandez’s tone made no move to disguise her impatience. She slapped a button inside the door, and the lift began to descend. It picked up speed as it fell, and numbers began to flash by on the wall.
“How do you get oxygen down here?” Aran asked. “We’re inside a mountain, right?”
Hernandez gave a put upon sigh. “I’m not a tech. There are airshafts, but I don’t know how they work. They’re too small to be used tactically.”
Aran very much doubted that. They might be too small for a person, but a Krox could employ any number of magical options to exploit a very confined space. He made a mental note to speak to the governor about it, assuming he was given a chance to speak.
Numbers continued to whir by until they hit the 20s, then the lift slowed. It stopped next to a faint, stenciled 28 on a blast door that mirrored the one they’d entered through above. The door slid up to expose a heavily fortified position. Sandbags were piled around a trio of turrets, with Marines using the sandbags for cover. Th
e turrets appeared to be fixed emplacements, but he’d guess the Marines were added after the fact.
A hard-eyed man in an olive uniform stepped out from an emplacement. He had an assault rifle trained on Aran, but his finger wasn’t on the trigger. “Remove your armor, and lay your weapons against the rear wall.”
“Do it,” Aran ordered. He sketched a sigil with his thumb and slid out the back of his spellarmor. Aran reached into his void pocket and withdrew his sword, then turned to the man who’d spoken. “Is it all right if I bring this? If we get jumped by Krox I don’t like the idea of being unarmed.”
“No weapons,” the man snapped. His eyes narrowed, and he very deliberately slid his finger over the trigger.
“Fair enough.” Aran put Narlifex back in the void pocket, then walked slowly to the edge of the lift.
The rest of the squad exited their armor, all except for Tharn, who apparently considered herself exempt. Once they’d finished, they moved off the lift and onto level 28. The Marines behind the barricades didn’t at all share Hernandez’s relaxed stance, and covered Aran as they moved up a narrow corridor.
The entire ceiling was lined with heavily armored turrets, each of which swiveled in their direction. He paused for a moment when he sensed a whiff of…fire magic? “Are we being scryed?” He turned to Hernandez.
“I guess.” She shrugged. “There are magical scanners, but I don’t know how they work. You do see the tag on the shoulder, right? You get that I’m a Marine, not a scientist?” Her words were sharp, but there was no real heat to them. A couple of her squad members laughed.
“LT ain’t no scientist, either,” Crewes pointed out. He moved to stand next to Hernandez, who sized him up like a slab of beef. Crewes seemed oblivious to her attention. “He’s a war mage and a leader. He thinks about problems before they happen. Seems like there might be a lesson you could maybe learn here.”
“Yeah?” Hernandez looked up at him with grin. “Maybe you’ll have to tutor me. I’m a slow learner.”
Bord opened his mouth to say something, but Kezia elbowed him in the ribs and he fell silent with a grunt.
The corridor dumped them into a wide conference room dominated by an oval table. About thirty people were seated around it, most wearing the business suits he’d come to associate with their merchant class. There were also a few Inuran outfits, probably those who held some sort of allegiance to the Consortium. Only three men wore olive uniforms, and Aran recognized the one he’d guess was in charge.
“Admiral Nimitz.” Aran inclined his head at the grizzled man. He had spoken to him since resigning on Shaya. “Voria sends her regards.”
“’Course she does.” He rolled his eyes, then spat suddenly to the side of the table. “I notice she ain’t here though, is she?”
Aran suppressed a sigh. This was going to be fun.
36
Genocide
The first day was the hardest for Nara. The Talon had a pair of cells tucked under the crew quarters, but they’d never had to imprison anybody and so she’d never even seen the cells until being locked in one. She’d briefly considered lying about the Talon’s location, but not giving that particular bit of information was a route to a speedy execution.
Nebiat hadn’t even bothered to inspect the vessel herself, instead placing Frit in charge and going back to her own ship. She had dispatched Kaho to serve as an advisor, but from the little Nara had overheard he had even less love for Nebiat than she did, so perhaps Nebiat had assigned him as a way of eliminating multiple problems at once.
Hours passed in silence and gave Nara the one thing she least wanted. More time to think. Her only solace was her new-old suit. She spent hours practicing its uses, and relearning everything it could do. The suit was impressive, and allowed her to go invisible at will while using almost no magical energy. That alone made the suit invaluable, but there were a number of other toys that proved equally impressive.
Most of those were through the visor, and included pierce invisibility, but also technological toys like the ability to see heat signatures through walls. The combination made the suit devastatingly effective, and she could already envision uses for it in the field.
Her reverie was finally broken when she heard three sets of footsteps approach down the wide curving ramp that led into the brig. The first figure to appear was Frit, still carrying Nara’s staff. Her fiery hair had been bound into a simple ponytail, and the chrome ring Frit had used to bind it glowed orange from the heat.
Behind Frit came Kaho, and then a few paces behind both was Fritara, her hand wrapped around the hilt of her spellblade. Frit and Kaho were chatting together in low tones, and something Kaho said made Frit laugh and…blush? That was new. Fritara eyed both with intense dislike, and she stalked into the brig after them while she glared her hatred.
Frit looked up at Nara, and her eyes softened. It comforted Nara more than she’d ever be able to express. “I’m sorry we left you down here for so long.”
Frit approached the bars, and Kaho moved to stand next to her. Fritara approached, but stood a little distance away. Nara badly wanted to know why she was here, but of course couldn’t ask in front of her.
“What are you going to do with me?” Nara asked.
“May I?” Kaho turned to Frit to ask permission, and Frit nodded. “My mother departed, and while we have been given a task to fulfill, the manner we choose is up to us. That means we can utilize the tools available to us, and you are one of the most potent. This vessel is another.”
“Thank you for that,” Frit interjected. “I know you didn’t have to tell us about the Talon.”
Nara took a deep breath. Her patience was non-existent, and she couldn’t allow it to make her say something stupid. “You’d have found out anyway. So, are you letting me out of this cell?”
“Conditionally.” Frit withdrew a red-gold necklace forged from spirit and earth sigils. “After discussing it with the crew, we’ve decided that we can only let you out if you’re properly bound. You’ll need to wear this. No one will make you do anything, and we won’t give you unrealistic orders, but we want the ability to control you if we have to.”
“Speak for yourself,” Fritara snapped. She moved to stand next to the bars. “I will make you do whatever I need done, whenever I need it done. And Rita might too. It’s time you had a little taste of what it’s like to be a slave.”
“Fritara.” Frit’s tone was dangerous. “I said it above, but let me repeat this for your benefit. If you harm Nara, then you and I are going to exchange more than harsh words. She is my sister, too, and she’s cooperating. And Nebiat placed me in charge, not you.”
“Why she placed a traitor in charge I’ll never know.” Fritara frowned darkly. “You think the only woman to ever take pity on or help us is some sort of demon. Why can’t you accept that she wants to help us?”
Kaho began a sharp, hissing laugh. “Ah, child, I do not mean to be patronizing, but you know far less of my mother than you think. She is quite capable of playing the magnanimous goddess, but I assure you that she will snuff you out like a candle when it is convenient. I’ve seen many of my siblings die, bartered away like scales in a Kem’Hedj match. It will be no different with you.”
Fritara glared angrily from Kaho to Frit, and her mouth worked silently. Then she spun on her heel and stalked back up the ramp.
“That one is going to be trouble,” Kaho rumbled softly. “If you were wise you’d put an end to her now.”
“I’m not going to kill a sister, even as one as annoying as Fritara.” Frit sketched a sigil in front of the cell door, and the glowing bars winked out of existence. “In time she’ll see reason, and if not, I’ll deal with it. Here.” She handed Nara her staff, which Nara accepted gratefully.
“Give me the collar?” Nara extended a hand, and Frit passed her the necklace. Nara clipped it around her neck, and the instant it snapped shut she felt a tingling across her entire body. It was like being stuffed into a shirt that w
as a size too small, except she felt it over her entire body. She blinked up at Frit. “My gods, this is awful. I’m so sorry you had to deal with this for so long, Frit.”
“It can be…worse.” Frit bit her lip, and for a moment she was the scared student Nara had met back on Shaya. “If you need to talk, let me know. Once you’ve proved yourself I’ll make a case for removing the collar.”
“Okay.” Nara nodded. “So what now?”
Frit squared her shoulders, and seemed to be seeking strength. “Now we go to Colony 3, and we murder an entire world.”
37
Traitor
Voria had the bridge to herself for the first time in weeks. Pickus had busied himself coordinating the drifters and their complement of tech mages. They weren’t anything resembling a fighting force, but they could become that given time and attention.
She raised a hand and willed the bridge to shift back to its natural state. The Wyrm Hunter vanished, replaced by a large room with sigil-covered walls. The whole place still filled her with awe, as it had quite clearly been constructed by someone whose understanding of both magic and technology far outstripped her own.
“Are you going to do something cool?” Ikadra piped up in the corner, where she’d set him upon entering the room.
“I hope so.” She turned in a slow circle. “You might be able to help with that. I’m told I can use a temporal matrix to enhance my godsight, and I want to inspect the possibilities around this world and other key targets.”
“That’s why gods have such an advantage. They cheat.” His tone was all proud parent, a tone he adopted whenever she’d done something clever. “Simply using your ability in this room will tap into the latent power of the matrix. When it was designed, the thought was that the user should be able to keep their mind free to focus on the possibilities. I don’t know, though. It means the matrix sees you all the time.” His voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Like when you touch yourself.”
