by Matthew Peed
“Damn. They’re just images, right? We aren’t going to accidentally change the past?” Izora asked as a gnome ran by. It looked normal at first until a beast of some kind jumped out of nowhere and ripped the gnome apart. Everything vanished to shadow after a few seconds, but it was still a grisly sight. Izora’s hand was extended as if to help, but she could only drop it to her side. “That was Negima. He’s one of my guards and very much alive.”
“For now. I honestly don’t know any more than what they are,” Ignea replied with a shrug.
“That’s better than nothing. Thank you, Ignea. We’ll leave you for now. Don’t forget to reach out to us if you need help with anything. We consider you a friend as much as Regan,” I said, reaching out to take one of the small fairy’s hands.
She nodded, then flew off into the distance before she vanished. We stared after her for a few seconds before I opened a portal back to the barracks. We would have a lot of work ahead of us. It appeared the images were from either the past or the future, and I had no idea what that meant for us when we saw them.
Chapter 9
Regan
The world came back to me in the form of a splitting headache. I gripped my temples as the pain grew for a second before it faded to a dull ache in the back of my head. With the pain diminishing, I realized that there was . . . less. My senses were more on par with when I was human. I was only aware of myself.
I panicked for a second until I found the links. They were so thin that I thought they might snap at a moment’s notice. I also realized that my vast amount of mana that I usually had access to was reduced by almost a third. If I were to put it in numbers, I had just over two hundred million to work with.
My eyes jerked open to take in the situation. The bridge of the ship was flashing red. I waved my hand to turn off the alarms and released a breath of relief that I could still control the ship like normal. Standing, I then made my way over to the first officer automaton.
She was off-line, crumpled against the console. I reached forward to check her and noticed that my body had changed. I quickly moved my other hand to check and noticed there were several images overlaying it. I could only shake my head at the moment, as I had no way of figuring out what it was.
“First, wake up,” I said as I grabbed her shoulder. When nothing happened, I started to worry. Thinking it over, I sent a spark of mana into her systems. It would either revive her or overload her systems. My gamble paid off, and her systems reactivated.
“Creator,” First said, pulling herself up from the ground. I had to blink, as there were several dozen other images overlaying her, too. I was sure I saw a human version of First in the mix. Memories from all the movies dealing with time from Earth sprang to mind at the sight of the image.
“Later. We need to get more online.” I placed a hand on her shoulder, then checked her systems. Her internal mana generator was working, but there were readings I couldn’t be sure about. How did a machine have a human heart?
“Yes, sir.”
First saluted, then rushed over to the nearest officer on the bridge. I did the same. We managed to reactivate everyone but two. Unfortunately, the spark of mana caused a weird spike of mana in their systems and they overloaded. It reminded me of the first satellites I’d launched into space around Murgin. I could repair them back at the dungeon, but here it would be difficult.
~~~
“How does she look?” I asked. While I could still control the ship, I wasn’t linked to it as closely as First was by design. As more time passed, I was reminded more and more how it was to be a mortal. I found I didn’t like it, which was surprising.
“The hull suffered minor stress fractures. Likely from the intense gravity field. All systems are still operating, though there are readings that I cannot understand from certain parts of the ship. They shift and move, making it hard to pinpoint for analysis.”
“Creator! The sensors are back online, though we can’t guarantee for how long,” an officer shouted from another console.
First pulled up the system in front of her, and I pulled up the external cameras. I had more than just one ship to worry about. Hopefully, the rest of the fleet was still in one piece. Even if they were deactivated, we could send crews over to repair them. Plus, I wanted to know where the hell we were.
The video feed loaded, and I suddenly felt we weren’t in Kansas anymore. If I had to describe it, I would place it close to the faster-than-light travel of the many sci-fi movies I’d seen while on Earth. We were in a large conduit-shaped field of space. Energy rippled along the side nearest us. I tried to use the camera to check how large the conduit was, but it stretched on as if forever.
“We’re not moving, are we?” I asked First. The last thing I wanted was to end up on the other side of the galaxy. While the implications were fascinating to study, I had quite a few ties back on Murgin that I didn’t want to abandon like that.
“Negative . . . is what I’d like to say, but I can’t be sure. The readings I’m getting are, well, all over the place.”
I turned back to the camera feed and took a closer look around the ship. I was able to make out several of the vessels that were part of the fleet. As I suspected, they were dead in the water. I also saw large asteroids, and even farther in the distance, what looked like a nebula of gas.
“How far away do you place that nebula?”
First manipulated her screens for a moment, then said, “Roughly a hundred million kilometers . . . wait. A thousand kilometers. No. Two billion kilometers. Sorry, Creator. We can’t get an accurate reading. Either distance has no meaning here, or the space is throwing off our readings.”
I nodded. After checking, we found the other ships of the fleet stayed the same distance away. As more officers were activated, the rest of the crew was turned back on quicker. That gave us more options about what to do. Thankfully, after the third burnout, I was able to locate the cause, which was a momentary spike in the EM field around the ship, and we were able to prevent it from happening.
“Ready the shuttles. I want to get the other ships back online,” I ordered over the comms.
First and I worked to get more systems online, most importantly the central reactor. The ship was operating on secondary power, which came from solar panels that lined parts of the hull. I wasn’t sure if I should have been impressed that they still worked in this situation or not, mainly due to the fact that the direction the sunlight came from changed about every five minutes.
“Incoming!” shouted the tactical officer.
I jerked my head up to see an explosion as one of the destroyers in the fleet was ripped apart. In the distance a ship that looked like a porcupine had appeared from nowhere. Jagged spikes extended out of the front. There were runes on the sides that were larger than a house and glowed with power.
“It’s the bastards from the moon!” I said, slamming my fist into my other hand. The constructs gave off a signature reading. We didn’t even have to scan for it to know it was them. Was this some sort of trap they’d devised to deal with our larger numbers?
“Yes, sir. There is a ninety percent match to some of the runes found on the deactivated golems.”
As we watched, the ship fired a beam of energy that sliced through another of my ships. “We can’t just sit here. Return fire. Draw them off your brothers and sisters! I want those shuttles launched with an escort!”
The ship started moving to intercept the enemy. I made my way down to the generator. If we couldn’t fix it remotely, maybe I could get it working manually. I had built the thing, after all. As I made my way down to engineering, my crew was working hard to save the others. In the few minutes it took me to get to engineering, we lost three more ships. I had the feed up as I ran. I would have teleported, but given what was going on, that would likely have been a suicide move.
Our ship began to fire on the enemy, but to no one’s surprise, they possessed a shield that caused the lasers to rebound off. I couldn’t tell if t
he physical rounds were doing anything, as we were still four or five kilometers away from the enemy, and it was hard to track something that size in space.
I burst into engineering and rushed over to the reactor as I sent sparks into the off-line automata. I frowned when I saw the Fuilum was inert. The reactor was a fusion reactor at its heart. I would have to restart it by supplying it enough mana to kick off the reaction.
Flooding mana into the core was like trying to warm a cup of water in the arctic. I was soon crossing levels that I wasn’t sure I could afford to cross, given our situation. It would drain my mana if I had to go much further. Finally, the core clicked when I poured in almost a hundred and fifty million mana.
I ripped my hand out of the core before it melted from the intense heat that was being generated. Before I could celebrate my achievement, something struck the ship, and the core ruptured. A blast of energy tore through the ship, and the world went black.
~~~
The world came back to me in the form of a splitting headache. I gripped my temples as the pain grew for a second before it faded to a dull ache in the back of my head. With the pain diminishing, I realized that there was . . . less. My senses were more on par with when I was human. I was only aware of myself.
I panicked for a second until I found the links. They were so thin that I thought they might snap at a moment’s notice. I also realized that my vast amount of mana that I usually had access to was reduced by almost a third. If I were to put it in numbers, I had just over two hundred million to work with. I felt that number was important for some reason.
My eyes jerked open to take in the situation. The bridge of the ship was flashing red. I waved my hand to turn off the alarms and released a breath of relief that I could still control the ship like normal. Standing, I then made my way over to the first officer automaton.
She was off-line, crumpled against the console. I reached forward to check her and noticed that my body had changed. I quickly moved my other hand to check and noticed there were several images overlaying it. I could only shake my head at the moment, as I had no way of figuring out what it was.
“First, wake up,” I said as I grabbed her shoulder. When nothing happened, I started to worry. Thinking it over, I sent a spark of mana into her systems. It would either revive her or overload her systems. I paused as I checked the EM field in the area, then blinked as I wondered why I needed to do that. My gamble paid off, and her systems reactivated.
“Creator,” First said, pulling herself up from the ground. I had to blink, as there were several dozen other images overlaying her, too. I was sure I saw a human version of First in the mix.
“Later. We need to get more online.” I placed a hand on her shoulder, then checked her systems. Her internal mana generator was working, but there were readings I couldn’t be sure about.
“Yes, sir.”
First saluted, then rushed over to the nearest officer on the bridge. I did the same. We managed to reactivate everyone. I told her to be careful about the EM field and she nodded. I paused, again wondering why that would matter.
“First . . . I’m going to engineering. I have this strangest feeling that we need to get the reactor back up as soon as possible,” I said as I moved to the bridge exit.
Chapter 10
Louella
The people were understandably very worried when the news about what was happening spread. I didn’t think it would be a good idea to try to cover up the situation. I had the guards explain it completely, except the part about Regan being missing. Thankfully, his obelisks and guard automata still worked, though they did appear a tad slower in responding.
Ezal and I were sitting in my office and trying to figure out what to do. I should have come up with a plan for if Regan vanished again. We had a few short-term details worked out, but he could be gone forever or ten minutes. There was no way for us to know. I guess, like my teachers used to say, hindsight was twenty-twenty.
“This is such a mess,” I said, groaning as I laid my head on the desk.
Ezal calmly took a sip from her tea. “I think it gives us a chance to prove we really deserve what we’ve gained over the last year.”
“I would agree if it wasn’t for the fact that we’re about to go to war with Thonaca, the necromancers haven’t been dealt with, and the Lelune Church is marshaling to the south!” I accented each threat with a bang of my head on the desk.
“Should I order the airships back? We’ve written off the southern cities due to the Church’s influence”—Ezal walked over to the map on the wall and ran her finger along the eastern shoreline until she reached Tearfalls—“but there are several towns and cities that are cut off farther to the east that we haven’t reached yet.”
“No. Keep up with the rescue operation. While the Church is indeed stepping up and dealing with the undead, we have the advantage when it comes to speed. There is no reason to let people we could have saved suffer. Fortunately, the portals are still working even with Regan’s disappearance.”
“Understood. It appears the forces Lord Regan left to defend Tearfalls are still functioning as well.” She pointed to the pass north of the city. “They have stopped advancing. What this means in the short-term, I’m not sure. Long-term could see higher-tier undead making their way from the north.”
“That’s good news. I’m not sure what would happen if they were to stop,” I said, turning my face toward her while keeping my head on the desk. “Well, the whole city is in his aura, so it’s likely they would be safe enough.”
“The undead have started to funnel south, from the reports we’ve gotten. I’m not sure who is commanding them or what their objective is, but likely the resistance from the Tearfalls area is causing them more than a little headache,” Ezal said, coming back over to the desk.
“Let us get our defenses in place. The fort protecting the pass to Thonaca just moved up on the priority list. In their last report, they were almost finished with the general construction. Maybe the plans for the fort need to be revisited,” I said, pulling the glass tablet out of my bag. Looking at it made me realize we really had been taking Regan for granted. Without him I couldn’t help but wonder how long this system we’d created would last.
“I agree. Though, while Lord Regan certainly helped design it, he didn’t include anything that would strictly require his presence.” I blinked when I realized she was talking about the fort and not the systems around the valley. I really was stressed.
“That’s good news.” I let the words trail off, and silence filled the room for several long moments. “Have you ever met a Time mage?” I asked, tapping the desk with my finger.
“No, my lady. They are basically the stuff of legends. I have heard plenty of stories about them, though. Such as being pulled into a void, causing time to stop around them, which resulted in everyone’s death, that sort of thing,” she replied with a shrug.
“Yeah. Me too.”
I looked up from the glass tablet just as a massive dragon’s head came through the wall. I was about to jump to my feet when I saw the wall was still intact. I rubbed my forehead when the image broke into shadows as it hit the other wall. What scared me was that it wasn’t one of Regan’s dragons. I only prayed that it was from the past and not the future.
“These stupid shadows are going to cause me to give birth!” Ezal shouted, making a rude gesture after the dragon image.
“We don’t need that. You still have two or three months,” I said with a laugh.
~~~
The next two days passed the same, almost peacefully in fact. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t worried about Regan. This was the longest we had gone without hearing from him ever. Even when he was dealing with Alara’s dungeon, we knew sort of what was going on thanks to Ignea.
The two times I saw the poor dungeon fairy, she seemed at wit’s end, making sure the dungeon stayed working correctly. I could only hope that we heard something soon, for her sake. I feared for her mental h
ealth if she was left in charge much longer.
I realized I was just staring at the screen of the glass tablet as my thoughts wandered from one place to the next. The report I had started reading almost an hour ago still sat there mostly unread. I sighed and tossed it onto the desk. The door to my study exploded off its hinges, and Alara came flying through the opening. She rebounded off the barrier I threw up and glared at me as she took a fighting stance.
“WHERE IS HE?!” she screamed, slamming against the barrier again, cracks forming from the impacts.
I knew I was much more powerful than other mortals. However, this was the first time my power had ever been tested by an over-century-old dungeon core. An apparently very pissed-off century-old dungeon core. I channeled more mana into the barrier to repair it.
“I don’t know! Calm down!” I shouted. I saw the guards rushing in from the hallway and quickly waved them off. They looked like they wanted to argue but did as instructed. I did not need to send someone to an early grave.
“WHERE! IS! HE!” she screamed again, every word punctuated by an impact on my barrier. Mana-made-physical slammed into the barrier, each impact more powerful than the last. I gulped at the thought that this was just from her bare hands. I dreaded the thought of her having a weapon to reinforce her mana even further. Was Regan similar to this?!
“Calm down! I swear, if I knew where he was, I would tell you!” I tried, but she was clearly beyond listening. “Shit! Ignea! Can you hear me?” I shouted more to the air than to the crazed dungeon host in front of me.
Ignea appeared slowly. “Louella? What is . . . Lady Alara! Calm down!” Ignea cried when she took in the situation.
Alara’s rage-filled eyes turned to look at Ignea, and I could see her wrath drain from her. She dropped to the ground, then wrapped her arms around her knees as she hid her head. “Regan . . .” she whimpered as she rocked back and forth.
