Resurgence of Ancient Darkness

by Vincent Trigili

  I chuckled, “You do realize that we are still docked, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course, but why should that matter?” he asked.

  “We are two days away from active combat. I don’t think it’s wise to start the games right now. Everyone needs to be well-rested and unhurt,” I said.

  “You’re probably right, Master, but we will start them again at some point, right?” he asked.

  “Yes, Darkstone, we will,” I said.

  As he left Cymeion came up and asked a few random questions about the mission, and then Skryth. After a while perhaps half the crew had come by our table to talk about one topic or another.

  “Now I know why Flame and Shadow eat in their quarters all the time,” I sent to Spectra privately.

  “Yes, but they need this. They need to see us confident on the eve of battle so they feel reassured about it,” she sent back.

  “Still, this is getting to be too much. I think it’s time we retired to our quarters, don’t you?” I sent.

  Her eyes lit up with mischief, and she darted off. I didn’t know what she was up to, but I figured at the very least I should clean up after our dinner and head back to our quarters.

  Chapter Ninety-One

  The trip to the planet passed without any interruptions. As we got closer, Spectra and I headed back to the bridge and I ordered the Shadow Fox to return to full staff levels. While we were settling in, Shadow sent, “Dusty, Phoenix, there has been a change in plans. We are about one hour out from the planet. When we reach it we will launch our attack immediately. Karlith will take the third Dark Conure out to help eliminate the targets in orbit. Dusty, you follow through with your penetration plan.”

  “Understood, Master,” sent both Phoenix and I.

  “Rocky, prepare for launch in sixty minutes,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” said Rocky.

  After months of waiting, that simple order seemed to bring a level of relief to the crew. They were happy for the waiting to be over. “Lythiran, Karlith will be flying the third Conure, so adapt plan Dusty-One to allow for his help.”

  “Yes, Master,” was his response.

  “He must be running a pretty lean crew,” said Rocky.

  “I would imagine so, but the enemy won’t know that, and these Conures can be quite effective even with a skeleton crew,” I said.

  I watched my crew prepare for the launch. Having a full hour’s warning allowed them to work through the final preflight checklist and take their time to make sure it was perfect. This kept them distracted from thinking about the battle in which we were about to engage.

  The enemy’s fast attack cruisers heavily outnumbered us, but we had superior firepower. I was confident that we would be able to clear the targets from orbit, which would give us an unobstructed path to the surface. It would take time, however, to eliminate that many targets.

  The hour passed quickly, and then the command came to launch. “This is it: launch!” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” said Rocky.

  I was almost surprised he did not follow that with a cheer. Everyone was looking forward to this fight because it was against an enemy known to be truly evil. This fight was in support of the core mission of the Wizard Kingdom, which was to remove the sorcerer threat permanently from our realm. With so much of the last year spent guessing and wondering if we were on the right track, a clear-cut battle like this one was a relief.

  “We have cleared the Nevermore and are moving to the attack vector,” reported Rocky.

  “Hold cloak as long as you possibly can,” I said.

  On the tactical screens, I could see our four ships spreading out into a V-shaped attack pattern with the Nevermore leading the charge. Our launches would have given away our existence, but they couldn’t do much now but wait for us to reveal ourselves.

  “Enemy has opened fire!” called out Lythiran.

  “They can’t possibly see us yet!” I said.

  “Master, they are firing a widespread pattern along our last known position, from their perspective,” he responded.

  “Master Shadow’s flight path accounted for that, right?” I asked.

  “Yes, Master. They are missing our fleet, but not by much. They will probably keep widening their spread of weapon fire until they hit something,” he said.

  “Enemy targets coming in to missile range now,” said Rocky.

  Almost at the same time, “Break and attack!” came over the comm from Master Shadow.

  “Rocky, keep us cloaked, and change our attack angle to 30 degrees mark 10,” I said. That would send us wider than they would expect us to come in.

  “Yes, Master,” he said.

  “Lythiran, prepare to lock all of our grand staves on different targets. The moment you have enough in range, open fire,” I said. “Rocky, accelerate to full attack speed.”

  Soon after that that Lythiran called out, “Positive lock, all staves!” and then tactical lit up with our weapons firing off in rapid succession.

  “Spectra, full counter measures,” I said. “Rocky, come around on targets six, ten, and twenty-three. Let’s finish them off.” There was no way to stay cloaked while using our weapons, so we would have to depend on Spectra’s ability to keep them from acquiring a target lock. Their ships might be small, but there were a lot of them, easily enough to overwhelm our defenses if they coordinated their attacks correctly.

  Rocky executed a steep S-turn and plowed back towards wounded ships. As we came about Lythiran quickly finished them off.

  “Dusty, drones coming in on our six,” said Spectra.

  “Keep an eye on them for now, and keep working those countermeasures. Rocky, come about for another pass through their primary pack. Get inside their main group. Sweep through the heart of it and get within grand staff range of as many targets as you can. Lythiran, take them out as fast as you can,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” said Rocky.

  “After you complete that pass, go back in for more. Keep choosing new angles of attack, and see if we can’t cause mass confusion and fear among them,” I said.

  “Dusty, the drones are following us, but have not yet locked on with their weapons,” said Spectra.

  Our missiles were too large to use on the drones, so I could do very little about them until they closed in for the kill. “Spectra, distance to the drones?”

  “Fifty kilometers and closing,” she said.

  “Lythiran, use the two rear grand staves and pick off any drones that get within range,” I said. “But keep up the attack on their cruisers. Those drones are secondary targets.”

  “Understood, Master,” said Lythiran.

  On the second sweep through, the pack started to break up in front of us. “It seems they have figured out the range of our grand staves,” said Lythiran.

  “I don’t want to switch to missiles yet; there are too many targets. Make our path more erratic and harder to predict; also, accelerate by another fifteen per cent,” I said. We were faster, but their pulsar canons had greater range, and their ships were more nimble. Our anti-matter missiles would negate their advantage, but we only had so many of them, and there were still far too many targets to deal with.

  As we began our third sweep through their pack, destroying the cruisers almost as fast as we passed them, a message came in from Shadow: “Dusty, begin phase two.”

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  “Cymeion, Darkstone, suit up and meet us in the pod bay,” I said on the comm. “Spectra, we’re on. Rocky, you have command until we return.”

  “Yes, Master. Good luck!” he said.

  Spectra and I quickly headed down to the pod bay. The Shadow Fox was equipped with four pods for just this occasion. “All right, everyone, grab your gear and load up.”

  As everyone complied Cymeion said, “Let me get this straight: we are slipping packs full of antimatter onto our backs, climbing into missiles, and shooting ourselves at the planet
?”

  He acted like he was joking around, but I could see he was nervous. “The pods are safe. We have done this many times during training. If something goes wrong, just teleport away. Now, we’re running low on time, so load up.”

  “Yeah, and teleporting into the atmosphere a hundred kilometers over the ground is a better plan,” said Cymeion.

  “Look on the bright side: at least you would still have the antimatter with you!” said Darkstone.

  “You’re not helping,” I said. “Now, the longer we delay, the more time for casualties on our side, so load up!”

  Once everyone was secured, I climbed into the last pod. Cymeion was right; it was an awful lot like climbing aboard a missile. Once on board the pod, the anti-inertia gel filled the space around me until I was completely encased in goo. As a fish-based race, I found this very comfortable, but I knew Spectra hated it with a passion.

  “Rocky, we are locked and loaded. Fire at will,” I sent.

  “Firing in five, four, three, two, one …” he sent. As that last number cleared my mind, the displays around me lit up with trajectory and speed information. The gel worked perfectly. There was almost no sensation of movement as we accelerated away from the Shadow Fox. The pods were designed to burn at full speed just like a missile, but with a much smaller signature. Without the inertia-absorbing gel the acceleration could easily kill us, and the sudden deceleration at the end would not be much better.

  “This is exactly like being a missile, just for the record,” sent a still-nervous Cymeion.

  “Don’t worry. With all the antimatter we’re packing, you’re sure to leave a nice mark when you hit,” sent Darkstone.

  “Everyone, just relax. This is the boring part of the trip, and we need to be alert to move quickly after impact,” I sent. I knew Darkstone was just playing, but I couldn’t allow that at this time.

  We whipped through space at an extreme velocity and entered the atmosphere of the planet at a steep angle. The pods were programmed to get us to the surface at the absolute maximum safe speed, so there wouldn’t be much in the way of atmospheric braking on this trip.

  “Brace for impact,” I sent. I knew there really was no way to do that, but it was the best expression I could think of at that moment.

  All four pods slammed into the ground at high speed and ruptured, sending us flying free. “Is everyone okay?” I asked as I teleported to the ground before gravity took over and slammed me down.

  Of to my right I saw Spectra gracefully land on her feet and try to shake off the feeling of the goo. “Ugh! Hate that stuff!” she sent as she continued to try to brush off nonexistent goo.

  I could not see Darkstone and Cymeion at first, but soon they both came running over. The pods were completely destroyed by the impact. The only possibility for a return trip was Spectra’s gate.

  “Dusty, bind here, just in case,” sent Spectra.

  “Good thinking,” I sent back. Once that was done, I wrapped our party in shadows and we began to move out. “All right, everyone: this is no different to the command-and-control games we have played. We infiltrate the sorcerer stronghold, deposit the antimatter, and slip away. A win is defined as all of us surviving and the table being destroyed.”

  “The only difference is that I’m not usually on your team,” sent Cymeion, clearly still nervous.

  “That's okay. Think of this like the rescue operation we ran for Grandmaster Vydor’s friend,” sent Spectra.

  We continued to move quietly through the forest, moving towards where we expected to find the caves that housed the table. We could have simply gated in, but there was too much risk of gating into a trap since we would not be able to see through the gate to the other side.

  “If our maps are right, we should be at the caves in a few minutes. Master, do you think they saw our landing?” asked Darkstone.

  “A blind, deaf, and dead dog could have seen that so-called landing,” sent Cymeion.

  “Yeah, they could have, but I am hoping all their attention was on the big fight in orbit and the attacks on the other tables. The landing was violent, but fast. They could have missed it,” I sent.

  “Either way, our best bet is to move quickly. Time is not our ally today,” sent Spectra.

  As we approached the mountain we started coming across large anti-spacecraft batteries. “This is a good indication that we’re on the right path, at least,” I sent. The defenses that this mountain had were incredible. All of the weapons were state-of-the-art, but appeared to be powered down. I figured the fight was still out of range, and they would not expose these guns until it was too late for any invaders to retreat. I desperately wanted to get a message back to Master Shadow about them, but there was no way to pull that off without exposing our position.

  We continued through the woods until we reached the base of the mountain, then we used basic telekinesis to assist a rapid climb up a sheer wall. About three-quarters of the way up was a cave entrance which we hoped would lead us into the heart of the mountain where the table was.

  As we climbed, I looked up at the night sky. I tried to see the battle that I knew was going on over our heads, but I could only see the pinpoints of stars. The rest of my crew were risking their lives right now to cover our approach. If we failed, they would have to face the sorcerers without my help, and that bothered me more than anything else on this mission. I should have been with my crew, protecting them, but destroying the table was the whole reason we had come to this planet. I could help them best by doing my part here; at least, that’s what I kept telling myself as we climbed.

  Chapter Ninety-Three

  As we entered the cave, our visors’ night vision mode failed to find enough light to operate. While we were outside, the stars and moonlight gave us enough light to work with; however, that light did not penetrate at all into the cave. So we had to risk some low-powered infrared light to see. While using light was risky from a stealth standpoint, it would be more foolish to move through an unknown cave without some way of seeing if the floor suddenly dropped away.

  “So far this has been too easy,” sent Cymeion.

  “I know what you mean. Keep your eyes open,” I sent. I didn’t really expect any trouble yet. I knew they would have to wait until we revealed ourselves before they could do anything, but I had expected there would be more obstacles for us to get around before we got this far.

  We traveled for a while longer and had to backtrack several times before we found what looked like a well-used corridor. Oil lamps lined the walls, and the floor seemed to have been worn smooth by a thousand boots walking over it.

  Before we could move into the corridor, I heard something moving. “Douse your lights!” I sent.

  As we waited, four foul-looking dogs came loping down the hallway. They stank of sulfur, and their eyes had an eerie glow. Their bodies seemed to have more bone armor than hair, and their teeth looked like they could chew through metal.

  “Steady. I don’t know what they are, but they can’t see us. Just let them pass, and we will press on,” I sent.

  “Master, that will put them between us and the exit when the time comes to get out,” sent Cymeion.

  “Yes, it will; but if all goes well we will gate out, and they won’t be a problem,” I sent.

  After the dogs passed we moved on, following the corridor, reasoning that it must lead somewhere important. After a while, we came on a series of doors. “Any guesses?” I asked.

  “The table is in that direction, so maybe try that door first?” asked Spectra.

  “How far?” I asked.

  “Still quite a bit. I’d guess at least another thirty minutes at the pace we have been moving,” she replied.

  “Won’t opening the door blow our cover, Master?” asked Darkstone.

  “Yeah, but I don’t see that we have a choice, so let’s move through quickly and hope no one notices the door opening and closing by itself,” I sent.

  We
slipped through the door as quickly as we could. On the other side of it there was another long hall with many side passages leading out of it, but no one was in sight. “So far, so good. Let’s move,” I sent.

  As we moved through the twisting and turning passages, searching for the table, we came across many more of those dogs.

  “All these dogs will make escape hard,” sent Darkstone.

  “They won’t matter. Remember, we will be gating out,” I sent. Darkstone was a bit nervous now, too. It was taking too long to find the table, and stress was building.

  “We are getting close,” sent Spectra. She could tell where it was, somehow, by our binding to it. I didn’t know how to do that yet, at least not here in the physical realm. In the Spirit Realm it came as naturally as breathing.

  We pressed on through the corridors. I was beginning to tire under the strain of holding a cloak over such a large group. It didn’t help that we were constantly passing through various detection spells and alarm fields. I hoped Spectra was right, because I was not confident how much longer I could keep us hidden.

  A chill went down my spine as we turned a corner and saw a large room with a massive door along the back wall. The door was open, allowing us to see into the room, but all I could make out was an indistinct figure by a large table.

  “The table is just through that door, and he is here,” sent Spectra

  “The area is lit well enough, so keep your lights off and let’s do this,” I sent.

  We slipped into the room and could see the green-hooded sorcerer staring intently at the surface of the table. The liquid that was normally still was spinning and hundreds of images were flashing by.

  “He’s searching for us,” sent Spectra.

  I looked closer at the images in the table and saw they were of the caves and surrounding forest. “He must have seen our landing, but my cloak is holding.”

  That was a big relief, mixed with a new concern. We had to get the antimatter canisters in place and get clear without him noticing us. It would be highly preferable for him to be caught in the explosion.