by John Daulton
Orli had particular familiarity with this latest development as she had been reassigned to the position of first-shift communications officer and was now stationed on the bridge. Unfortunately, the reassignment had less to do with her skill in the area of communications than it did with her being one of the nine remaining officers on the ship. When the calls had gone out to the rest of the fleet for volunteers to re-crew the Aspect, few had taken the offer up. Despite the vaccine having proved successful, there just weren’t many people willing to take a chance in exposing themselves to an alien disease that had proven itself capable of wiping out nearly an entire crew, particularly one that could shift its own genetics seemingly at will. Most expected it was simply a matter of time before the organism adapted to the new vaccine and came at the crew again, although there weren’t many willing to say such a thing out loud just yet. The bottom line, however, was that there had been a few who had agreed to come: a handful of nurses and some engineering folks willing to help out under the condition that they could go about in hazardous material suits at all times and that they were given triple pay, which they were allowed on both accounts. All told, the Aspect was now running on roughly a quarter of its crew and everyone was pulling double shifts and, apparently, would be for a long, long time to come. What couldn’t be done by those onboard or by remote from another ship simply wasn’t done at all.
The captain, in a live address to the assembled crew, and one that completely violated fleet protocol for it was neither recorded nor transmitted to the rest of the fleet, assured everyone that once enough time had passed, the rest of the fleet would see that the disease was in fact gone and would eventually “find their collective balls.” Then relief would come. The address helped a little, but the truth was, nobody believed anyone would come aboard the Aspect now, not in the bottoms of their hearts anyway, likely not even the captain himself. For most though, there was a strong sense of being “in it” together now, and that was something new; they were in it and in it for the long haul. The survivors shared a bond that was stronger and much deeper than what had existed aboard the Aspect prior to the disease. Before, they were simply shipmates—stuck together for over a decade, true, but not so stuck that there hadn’t always been, at least lingering in the backs of their minds, some possibility of a getaway. The occasional inter-ship transfer promised the option of a change of scene, or at least a change of faces, if anyone ever really had some pressing reason to find another place to be. Transfers were an option even though they were rarely done. But now it was different. Nobody was going anywhere, and everyone knew it. Including the captain.
Which is not to say, in giving his address—or in his acceptance of the fact that things aboard his ship were no longer going to be as neat and tidy as he’d always kept them in the past—that he was about to give up his strict sense of military discipline. The realization that the human dynamics aboard the ship were different now did not, for Captain Asad, change anything at all where discipline was involved. In fact, for him, discipline was the very thing that was going to make their new circumstances work. However, he was more willing to forgive past transgressions, and it was with very little hostility that he accepted Orli as an officer on his bridge.
In fact, in the first few days of her reassignment, the captain had been very patient in helping her learn, or relearn, various elements of her new post—elements that she had been thoroughly trained on during her time as a student in the Fleet Academy. Unfortunately, no help that he gave, nor any coming from Roberto, could make her stop wishing she hadn’t spent the entire semester of her coms class flirting with that damnably gorgeous Cadet Fogart rather than paying attention to what was being taught. Besides the fact that Fogart had turned out to be a total jerk, leaving her broken hearted and feeling like a fool by semester’s end, she was now stuck struggling with the results of that distraction, fighting to remember just what the hell it was she was supposed to have learned and what she was supposed to do at this station now that she was here. But the operations were coming back. Slowly. Just not fast enough to make her feel comfortable in the role if the orbs attacked again. If the fight got hot, she did not want to be the one stuck coordinating communication between the five ships currently on the scene. She was still too clumsy for that.
And an attack could come at any time as three new orbs hovered out beyond their ships, clustered together roughly a hundred kilometers away and waiting. Neither Orli nor Roberto was able to determine if one of them was the same one that had run off before, but the captain suspected that the smallest of them was in fact that very one. He said he could “feel” it, and Orli had no reason to doubt that he was right.
“Find out if engineering can muster another missile battery if we use up one that’s loaded now.” The captain’s order came unexpectedly and caught her staring absently at the image of the orbs hovering on the screen.
“Yes, sir,” she said, punching at her panel reflexively.
“Maintenance,” came the voice on the other end.
“Oh. Crap,” she stammered, blushing. “Not you. Sorry. Wrong button.” She killed the link with a stab of her index finger and glanced out of the corner of her eye to see if the captain had noticed. Maybe he hadn’t.
But Roberto had. He leaned near enough to whisper, “God, you suck,” with an evil grin. He straightened himself and went about pretending to study trajectory charts taken from the last encounter with the orbs. Orli knew better than to think he needed those now. She knew full well he’d already analyzed every last movement that the orbs had made and had done so at least a hundred times. He could recite from memory their speed at every moment from beginning to end on every pass, how many milliseconds between surface shifts, the angles—and lack of angles—of each maneuver they made, and the distances maintained from the ship and between one another for every pass. In short, there was nothing he did not know about how they had moved. And yet, even he admitted that “we’re screwed if we get more than three orbs to a ship.” “I can take two,” he’d said. “Three if I have to. Maybe. But four, forget it.”
He’d already given seven ship-to-ship conferences to the fleet’s bridge crews regarding the strategies he’d figured out. “The bottom line is, you need to have multiple attacks going off in perfect unison,” he told them. “You need lasers and nukes in the same place at the same time, so regardless of whether the orb goes soft or hard, you have something nasty to shove right up its ass. And it’s still going to need some luck.” Roberto’s simple sounding plan was much like Doctor Singh’s design for the “three-legged vaccine,” formulated to hit simultaneously whichever organism the disease tried to manifest, disallowing it the opportunity to avoid one through becoming another. The difficulty of Roberto’s strategy, however, was that it could not be computer controlled due to the impossible movements of the orbs, shifting as they did in flight as if not ruled by physical law, and so the gunners were on their own to place their shots. Which was also why Roberto insisted he could only get three.
“Hey, I’m good, but I’m not a magician,” he’d said when Orli tried to encourage him that four orbs were still within his realm of expertise. “Three tops. We only have two lasers. If three come at once, well, we’re going to get hit by one as it is. We can take one hit, if it’s not too hard. And if we can take one orb out right away, then we’re down to just a pair. Then I’m golden. But four just gives them too much opportunity.”
It seemed that perhaps the orbs knew this too, for they continued to hover in the distance for several days after initially showing up. Apparently they were waiting until two more came, which they did. And a sixth showed up the day after that.
“Now I’m worried,” said Roberto as they both watched the recent arrival moving in to join its friends. The Hostiles made no attempt at a formation, and they arranged themselves loosely with nothing to give evidence of structure or hierarchy amongst the group.
“We have four other ships with us,” Orli reminded him. “We should be
fine.”
“Those guys have never done this,” he said.
“They’ll be fine. Have faith.”
“I have faith that those orbs are assholes. Everything else is still up in the air.”
“Necessary chatter only,” ordered the captain, pointing at the blinking orange light above the main console on the forward wall. “We’re at orange, remember?”
“Aye, sir,” they said together. Orli could hear Roberto mutter “asshole” again under his breath.
“Get the admiral’s ship, tell them we have six now,” the captain said. By the time she’d pulled up the channel, he changed the message to “seven.”
Pleased that she actually called the right ship this time, she relayed the message as two more orbs were slipping into view.
“Holy shit, man,” said Roberto. This time the captain did nothing to rebuke him for the unessential remark. Roberto figured he agreed.
“We’re sending Echo squadron,” came the reply from the admiral’s ship a moment later.
“Tell them to hurry; now we’re up to nine,” Orli said before realizing she was technically putting words into the captain’s mouth. Still, it seemed like they should know.
“That’s still two days out,” said the captain. “The Hostiles are reinforcing too fast. Faster than we can. Tell the admiral to get Delta moving too. Frankly, tell him I’d advise gathering the fleet.”
Orli relayed the message. It was ten minutes and two more orbs later that the reply came across the speaker. “Delta on its way. Bravo too. Rest of fleet holding for now. Keep us posted.”
Captain Asad shook his head but nodded grimly. He wasn’t happy with the news. Orli confirmed receipt of the message and terminated contact. The three of them sat in silence staring at the screen. An hour later another orb showed up.
“Damn,” muttered Roberto as it came into view. “That’s a big one.” Orli zoomed the main sensor in on the newest arrival to give them a closer look.
It was indeed huge, at least twice as large as the largest they’d seen before. It almost looked like a small moon. She grimaced as she looked at it and shook her head. Even the captain let out a grunt.
“What the hell am I supposed to do with that?” Roberto asked. “All things being relative, the shaft that comes out of that thing is really going to stick it to us. Seriously. Our lasers aren’t going to push that thing’s projectiles anywhere. No way.”
“You’ll have to use missiles to do it too.”
“They’re too slow. They’ll never make it. Not for the push.”
“Plan ahead.”
Roberto rolled his eyes. “Right,” he said. “I’m on that.” He made no attempt to mask the sarcasm in his voice.
“Lieutenant Junior Grade Levi, if you don’t wish to be an ensign again, I suggest you stow the attitude and focus on your work.”
Orli could tell Roberto was about to pop as he tried to hold back some remark regarding the worthlessness of rank when one is dead, but despite bulging eyes and a screwed up left corner of the mouth, he managed to keep it in, if narrowly.
Two more orbs arrived.
Roberto groaned. “Well, let’s hope they don’t attack until Delta and Bravo show up. Maybe with enough extra lasers we can still coordinate pushing them aside.”
“I’m more concerned that these things stop reinforcing soon,” said the captain. “If they bring many more we’ll have to tell Delta and Bravo not to bother coming at all.”
“Well I hope they don’t attack and they stop reinforcing,” said Orli, agreeing with them both and trying to lighten up the mood. What was the point of being surly and negative in a time like this? It wasn’t like they hadn’t faced death already just a few days before. This was just another round.
“Good call,” said Roberto. “I’ll vote that way with you.”
“Focus,” said the captain a moment later. “Here they come.”
Chapter 34
Three more nights went by before Taot finally came awake. Altin was seated on a crenel staring out morosely from the tower wall, his vision blurred into the green cloud of the Great Forest’s canopy where his thoughts had turned inward on himself. His perch was a fortunate one, for in mid-daydream Taot began to stir. What started as a grunting sort of noise quickly became a tantrum of terrifying might.
The huge beast woke suddenly with the last memories of orcish arrows, spears and icebolts firing in his mind. He roared and blew a reflexive gust of fire across the battlements by which the small hairs at the back of Altin’s neck were singed—a good thing Taot’s head was faced the other way. The dragon tried to heave itself up onto its feet, but its legs were weak and stiff, and one had been turned beneath him long enough as he slept for circulation to diminish, reduced to the point of putting the leg itself “to sleep.” The numb limb collapsed under Taot unexpectedly and brought forth yet another rumbling cry, this time pain and rage. Pebbles rained down from the cliffs as Taot’s confusion rattled amongst the rocks.
Flapping his great wings in what approached a panicked state, Taot again tried to rise, but by this time Altin had begun sending him some telepathic thoughts. He sent images of the ruined village and all the orcs lying dead into Taot’s mind. He sent the sense of a hot desert wind and a full stomach along with that as well. He sent the sense of calm.
Taot flopped about a moment longer, reluctant to believe at first, but finally his dragon’s brain caught up with his instinctive body and both began working in the present again. Altin quickly filled in the history of what had happened since the dragon’s fall, and included as best as possible the nature of his wounds and the many visits by Doctor Leopold, including images of the removal of the spear and the arrows in his wings.
Unfortunately, convalescence was a foreign concept for the dragon, and Altin had to struggle to get the idea across as Taot once more began to try to rise. The dragon’s forceful thoughts were clear, he wanted to return to his lair, but Altin insisted that staying here, close to him, close to deer and Doctor Leopold, would be a better choice, at least for another week. Taot could not fly, nor could he even stand for very long, and Altin was unwilling to leave the dragon in his cave subject to daring predators until the mighty beast was truly mighty once again. Ultimately, and only after being bribed with the promise of fresh venison, Taot eventually acceded to Altin’s insistence and settled in to rest.
When the dragon was safely sleeping again, Altin stared down at it ruefully, once more moping over what he was going to do. He was feeling a little less guilt now that it seemed Taot was going to mend, but that didn’t change much else. In his internal debate over which course to take regarding his magic, the pendulum had swung back to burning out his mythothalamus again. But he was not going to do it just yet. He needed his magic until Taot was nursed fully back to health. Which vexed him. His life, his habits were too caught up in the magic now. He was as dependant on his magic as a skunk was on its stench; awful as it was, take the spray away and all you’re left with is a rather clumsy cat. Altin didn’t relish the idea of becoming a clumsy cat, but he knew he’d never be able to just stop casting either. He could never simply stop using magic anymore, a fact made perfectly clear by the evidence of the deer in the meadow the other day. He couldn’t escape the magic even when he tried, which was why he had to fry the magical organ in his mind. But still, resigned as he was, it was a depressing concept now that he was resolved to get it done. He still had so many questions as to why his life had to come to this. There were so many things that didn’t make any sense.
If he was a Six, like everyone said he was, then he was probably going to kill himself eventually anyway. And he was fine with that. He always had been. It’s not like he’d been racing to his death on purpose, but he had always been perfectly resigned to having death looming all the time. He honestly didn’t mind. Frankly, he’d never given it much thought. He always felt he was a Seven anyway, somehow destined to avert the rule of Six. But none of that mattered anymore. Not now. Not sitt
ing here watching Taot slowly recovering from a narrow escape from death that was entirely Altin’s fault. Altin knew there was no other way. It was as clear as water in a mountain lake what he had to do, because he knew, deep down, that he would never change. He could never stop using magic, no matter how hard he tried, and he could never stop posing a threat to everyone that mattered in his life. And that was the heart of it all, the root of his frustration over his life having come to such a pass.
For eight hundred years Tytamon had managed not to kill everyone he met by mistake. Tytamon had control. So what was the difference? Was it just luck? Was it time and experience? Or did the Ancient One have skeletons buried in his vault? Somehow Altin didn’t think he did. So it must really be the damnable law of Six. Altin hated that idea, but he began to believe it had to be the case, began to believe that’s why they called it the law of Six instead of something else.
And Tytamon was an Eight after all. Tytamon had full circularity. He had the perspective of all the schools of magic, each one giving insight into the possibilities of those on either side around the “ring.” Even if Altin had proved to be a Seven, it wouldn’t change a thing. Altin did not have the “perspicacity of roundedness” as it was called, and so there were things that he was always going to miss, things he did not know, things he could not know, at least not until it was too late. “You do not know what you do not know” was the magician’s curse, made worse with the more schools of magic a sorcerer has access too. Unless the sorcerer is an Eight. Then they are fully round.
Altin took out his guild card and studied the marks around the ring. He ran his thumb over the blank spot where his divination rank should have been, emptiness with scores on either side. He should have had a rank in that. All his life he’d felt it in his heart and mind and soul. It really did seem to break the rules, him skipping over it like that. He wondered if maybe he had some mental block. Knowing whether he truly was a Six or not was the one answer he wished he could have before he went and burnt the magic out for good.
