In short order, the commandant walked Richard through tagging his own dimensional pack. It was easy enough to do, but the cost in Power was high.
“I’m down to thirty-four percent Power, sir,” Richard said.
“Yes,” said the commandant. “That’s unfortunate. You really do have a small Power reserve. But the good news is once you’ve tagged an item, it stays tagged. The Power that actually transports the item comes from the surrounding universe.”
“Oh,” Richard said hoping the commandant would think he understood.
Don’t worry, Rick, said Nickelo. I’ll explain it later.
“All right, then” said the commandant. “Daylight’s burning, so let’s get this show on the road. Take your dimensional pack into the outer office. When you come back, shut the door behind you.”
Richard did as he was instructed. The commandant spent the next fifteen minutes walking Richard through the method for summoning his pack. After he’d successfully summoned his pack a few times, the commandant announced the end of their training session.
“Sir,” Richard said not quite ready to let what might be his last one-on-one training session with the commandant end. “Can I summon my dimensional pack from anywhere?”
The commandant laughed. “Don’t think I don’t know where your mind is going. My mind went in the same direction when I was first taught the technique.”
“Who showed you, sir?” Richard said growing interested.
The commandant laughed again. “Don’t get me sidetracked. Now’s not the time. The armory at the airfield is completely sealed with the best security the Empire can devise. You can’t summon your pack from there, so don’t even try. As far as distance goes, I’ve summoned from a couple of hundred kilometers before. I haven’t had a need to try further. I believe there is a max range, but I don’t know what it is. I do know you can’t summon between dimensions.”
“Yes, sir,” Richard said still unwilling to let the discussion die. “But what if–”
“That’s all, cadet 832,” said the commandant. “I’ve spent more time than I should have with this. Now, you need to get back to the airfield. TAC Officer Myers has you scheduled for extra duty.”
“Sir! Yes, sir,” Richard said jumping to attention.
Richard saluted; did an about face; and walked out the door.
As Richard passed into the outer officer, the commandant yelled, “And make sure you turn in all your equipment to the armory when you get there.”
“Sir! Yes, sir,” Richard said.
Chapter 35 – Ambush
_____________________________________
The car of the hover-tram was nearly empty except for Stella and Richard. Taking advantage of the relative quiet, Richard dozed for most of the hour-long ride back to the airfield. He was already tired from guard duty the night before. He wasn’t relishing the night of guard duty ahead.
Two well-muscled hands shook Richard roughly.
“Time,” said Stella. “We here.”
Richard shook his head to clear the cobwebs. A quick look outside the window confirmed they were pulling into the hover-tram station. It was night, and the bright lights of the station lit up the inside of the car. A large crowd of cadets were milling around on the station’s platform. Richard recognized a few faces. The cadets were in the sophomore class.
Richard stood in front of the car’s door waiting for it to open. When it did, Stella and he stepped out. Almost immediately, cadets began pouring into the car. Apparently, none of them wanted to wait another half hour for the next hover-tram.
Richard turned around and faced the now full car. The door hadn’t shut yet. He recognized a cadet he’d tutored in defensive shields earlier in the year.
“Hey, what gives?” Richard said.
Several cadets quickly looked in his direction. When they saw the voice came from another cadet instead of a TAC officer, they returned to their conversations. The cadet Richard had tutored gave a wave of recognition.
“Hey, 832,” said the cadet. “They’ve changed our training program. We just finished a live fire demonstration by our TAC officers with one of the Leviathan cats. They’re going to start our U.H.A.A.V. training next week. I guess we’ll be moving to the airfield as soon as your class graduates and transfers out.”
Richard started to ask another question, but the door of the car slid shut cutting off further conversation. Richard returned the cadet’s wave as the hover-tram pulled away.
Looking around, Richard noticed the platform was empty except for two of the sophomore cohort’s TAC officers. Richard noticed both of them were staring intently at Stella and him.
“I think we best get moving,” Richard told Stella out the side of his mouth.
“Agreed,” said Stella. She joined Richard in a brisk walk towards the station door.
“You cadets!” yelled a TAC officer. “Hold there.”
Richard immediately stopped and turned around to face the TAC officers. He hit a stiff attention. Stella did the same.
The two TAC officers walked towards them. One of the TAC officers looked suspiciously at Stella and him.
“Juniors, huh?” said one of the TAC officers. “What’re you doing here at this time of night?”
“And why are you in battle suits?” said the other. “Are those live phase rods?”
Richard waited a moment before answering. His hope Stella would answer the TAC officers died when nothing was forthcoming. As the muscles on the TAC officer’s faces tightened in preparation for yelling, Richard answered.
“Sir! Cadet 832 and cadet 37, sir,” Richard said. “Returning from training with the commandant, sir!”
“I know who you are,” said the TAC officer who had spoken last. “And what about those battle suits and phase rods?”
“Sir!” Richard said. “The commandant ordered us to turn our equipment into the armory when we got back to the airfield. Sir!”
“Oh, he did, did he?” said the TAC officer. “And did he also tell you to continue wearing them until you got back? I notice you’re carrying your uniforms.”
Richard didn’t try to explain they’d kept the suits on because they had to run from the commandant’s office to the hover-tram station to make it in time. He supposed they could have changed during the ride back to the airfield, but he wasn’t going to admit it to the TAC officer.
“Sir!” Richard said. “No, sir. The commandant did not specify our continued wear or non-wear of the battle suits, sir.”
“Undoubtedly,” said the TAC officer. “He probably thought you were intelligent enough to figure out for yourselves you’re not supposed to go around flaunting your equipment. Well, your little attempt to impress the lower cadets backfired. You both have extra duty tonight. Report to the staff duty officer as soon as you turn in your equipment.”
“Sir! Yes, sir,” said Stella finally speaking.
“Sir!” Richard said knowing what was coming but forced by the cadet’s code of honor to say it anyway. “Cadet 832 already has extra duty tonight. Sir!”
The TAC officer turned red-faced. “Then you’ll have it tomorrow night. And if you have it tomorrow night, then you’ll have it this weekend. And by the Creator, if you don’t have any free nights before you graduate, then I’ll see to it you get extra duty after you retire. But I’ll get my extra duty. Do you understand, cadet?”
“Sir! Yes, sir!” Richard said as he did an about face and took off double-timing towards the door. He caught a glimpse of Stella’s back as the door shut behind her.
Thanks for the moral support, Richard thought. Then he passed through as well.
* * *
They set a brisk pace towards the airfield’s headquarters building. It wasn’t that either Stella or Richard was eager to report for extra duty. It was just that both of them were too mission-oriented to put things off.
When they were about four hundred meters from the airfield they left the last of the cantonment-area buildings behind and
entered an unlit zone. The colored taxiway-lights ahead were pretty, but they did little to light their path. Both Stella and Richard put their battle helmets in three-quarters mode so they could use their night-vision filters.
When they were just shy of the middle of the unlit zone, Stella stopped. Richard stopped as well.
“You okay?” Richard said a little concerned. He didn’t think his friend had been hurt during their sparring match, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
“Something not right,” said Stella.
As Richard watched, his friend sniffed the air.
“Smell strange,” said Stella.
Sniffing the air himself, Richard only got the smell of old oil supplemented by a stray odor that reminded him of the sewage-treatment plant.
Nickelo intruded upon Richard’s thoughts. Sterilians have a sense of smell a hundred times better than human’s. Maybe we should think about installing a smell enhancer on your battle helmet.
Uh, yeah, Richard thought back as he imagined the stench of some of the environments he’d been in during his life. I’ll get right on that.
Richard started forward again, but he stopped when Stella didn’t follow.
“Radiation filter, Nick,” Richard said out loud. The battle helmet’s filter switched out, and the reddish tint of his surroundings changed to shades of black and white. As he surveyed the area around him, Richard unconsciously checked his Power reserve readout. He’d recharged a little during the hover-tram ride, but he was still only at thirty-eight percent. Tagging his dimensional pack had cost him dearly.
After the trouble at the spaceport, Richard was prepared to see a white blob through his radiation filter. Unfortunately, his filter spotted many such blobs. After eight hundred years, the airfield and its surroundings had too many hot spots from discarded or deteriorating equipment. Richard didn’t see anything specific through his filter he could identify as dangerous. He sensed nothing with his passive scan either. Of course, that meant nothing if magic users or scouts were involved.
Finally, Stella shrugged her shoulders. “Smell gone. Guess nothing.”
Nick, Richard said. I wasn’t paying attention. Did the wind shift direction?
Hmm, Nickelo said. I do believe you’re learning, Rick. As it so happens, what little wind there is was coming from your ten o’clock position. But it shifted to your four o’clock.
Richard gathered four percent of his Power and sent an active scan towards the ten o’clock position. He sensed nothing unusual. Richard tried to sense a feeling he’d felt during his very first mission. A secret room had been hidden by a stealth shield so well that neither Nickelo nor he had detected it. Instead, they’d both just felt an initial sense of strangeness. The sense of strangeness could only be described as a feeling that something should be there but wasn’t.
Stella must have sensed Richard’s concentration, because she said nothing. Her only movement was the removal of two of her phase rods from the utility belt of her battle suit to her left hands. He also heard a slight swish as her battle suit sealed shut.
An area at his ten o’clock position held Richard’s attention. Except for a slight sense of strangeness, Richard noticed nothing unusual. Still, it was enough for Richard. He’d been in danger too many times to ignore his hunches.
With a final thought of ‘I’m going to get in so much trouble if I’m wrong’, Richard reached over his shoulder and pulled an M12 assault rifle out of his dimensional pack along with a bandoleer of 20mm grenade ammo. He handed them to Stella.
Unfortunately, Richard’s actions set things in motion too soon. Before Richard could summon a weapon for himself, all hell broke loose.
The first indication Richard had of trouble was the movement of his battle suit as it twisted to the right. The suit’s legs straightened out and shot Richard to the side just as a stream of plasma rounds passed through the spot where he’d been standing.
Thanks, Nick, Richard thought as he continued the battle suit’s movement with a roll. He came up with his phase rod activated in destructive mode.
That’s what I’m here for, Rick, said Nickelo.
Of course, Nickelo didn’t really say anything. Richard was thankful his battle computer was able to send him all the information he needed to know in a single burst of data in the form of images and feelings. The instant he received his battle computer’s data, Richard sensed the situation in less time than it took for one of the plasma rounds to cross the distance from his attackers to him. The unknown attackers were in an ‘L’ shaped ambush. Twelve lifeforms were spaced out in sets of three located at his nine, ten, eleven, and twelve o’clock positions. The closest group was thirty meters away at his nine o’clock position.
Stella had also dodged the initial volley of rounds. Richard could only assume his friend had previously given her battle computer, Jonathan, override authority as well.
She did, Nickelo said. I advised Jonathan to ask her earlier.
In an instant, Richard decided on a course of action. If Stella and he had been fully in the ambush’s kill zone, Richard figured they’d already be dead. But they weren’t. Because they’d stopped short, a couple of pieces of dilapidated equipment provided partial cover from the attackers located at the eleven and twelve o’clock positions. Only the nine and ten o’clock attackers had clear shots. Since he didn’t have a range weapon, Richard did a marine’s first reaction in a desperate situation. He went on the offensive and charged.
Throwing a defensive shield to his front and angling it slightly to the right, Richard headed straight for the three attackers at his nine o’clock. From the red dot on his heads-up display, Richard could tell one of the three attackers was a magic user. He ran straight for him.
As Richard ran the thirty meters to his target, a stream of plasma rounds from his rear passed a hand’s breath over his left shoulder. Richard didn’t attempt to dodge. Stella was a wizard scout. Richard trusted her not to hit him. The rounds splattered against the defensive shield of one of the bat-winged attackers.
Crosioian scouts, Richard thought.
Affirmative, said Nickelo. There are eight of them in total. I’ve plotted them as orange dots on your heads-up display. The good news is they’re normal Crosioian scouts. They aren’t like the time-commando type you fought last year. There are also four magic users. The strongest of the four is at your twelve o-clock position.
Richard sent an active scan in the direction of the magic user at the nine o’clock position. Richard quickly determined the magic user’s link was too well protected to disable without more time. Richard immediately shifted his scan to the second Crosioian scout who was running to meet him. Spotting a weak spot in the scout’s Power link, Richard used his own Power to block the scout’s link. As soon as the block was in place, the Crosioian scout’s defensive shield dropped.
To the scout’s credit, she continued running at Richard with her phase spear in one hand while firing a hand blaster with the other. Her rounds ricocheted off Richard’s defensive shield. As she drew closer to Richard, the scout raised her spear in preparation for striking. Before she could complete her swing, a 20mm round from Stella’s grenade launcher caught the Crosioian scout in the head. The scout’s head exploded. Since the link to her Power reserve was blocked, she was unable to selfheal. Her lifeless body fell to the ground.
The remaining scout started coming at Richard from the right. She sent out a probe to scan Richard’s link, but he was not concerned. Better adversaries than she had tried and failed to disable his link. Richard maneuvered to keep the scout between himself and the attackers at the other locations. His ploy worked in that the other attackers couldn’t target him without shooting their own scout. Unfortunately, Richard saw multiple lines of plasma rounds heading in Stella’s direction as they shifted their fire to his friend.
Drop you defensive shield, Rick, said Nickelo. You’re already down to twenty-one percent Power.
I can’t, Richard thought back. The magic
user’s getting ready to cast a spell at me.
The remaining Crosioian scout appeared to think the same thing. She appeared to be keeping her distance to give the magic user a clear field of fire. Richard sensed the magic user draw Power from his reserve as he formed it into a ball of energy.
Richard had hoped to close with the magic user before he could cast a spell, but the remaining Crosioian scout had him flanked. Richard couldn’t advance on the magic user without exposing himself to the scout.
The magic user began shouting an incantation while his hands moved to form an intricate design in the air.
This is it, Richard thought as he positioned his defensive shield while hoping it would be strong enough to deflect any incoming spell.
Suddenly, a dark shape emerged out of the ground near the magic user. Since Richard had previously switched back to normal night vision, he saw in clear detail the four-legged wolf-like creature through the red tint of his battle helmet’s filter.
“Tika!” Richard shouted out loud as he recognized the dolgar.
As he watched, Tika grabbed the magic user at the waist with her finger-length teeth. The magic user gave a high-pitched scream as the dolgar dragged him into the ground. The magic user’s scream cutoff abruptly as his head passed beneath ground level.
Richard immediately dropped his defensive shield to conserve Power.
You only have fourteen percent Power, Rick, said Nickelo.
Turning his attention to the second scout, Richard closed the distance. The Crosioian met him halfway. Phase rod met phase spear. As soon as their phase weapons connected, Richard knew his battle computer had been correct. Neither the scout nor her phase spear was in the same class as the Crosioian scout he’d fought last year. The Crosioian’s phase spear gave way to Richard’s upgraded phase rod.
Richard felt an emotion of anticipation coming from his phase rod. The demon essence in the phase rod hungered for the life force of the Crosioian scout. The scout undoubtedly felt the emotion as well, but she didn’t falter. Richard traded half a dozen blows with the scout without hitting her. Finally, he made a feint at her head. When she raised her phase spear to counter, Richard switched directions and brought the end of his phase rod down on the scout’s knee.
Wizard Scout (Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles Book 3) Page 36
