BURT paused, a little startled by the question, and tried to compute the implications. “No,” he said finally when he realized she was waiting for a response. “They’ve never been in trouble together before.”
There was a moment’s pause and they both realized what had happened. The woman looked from Frog to Stephanie. “She’s connecting in the real world while she’s in the Pod. Then, she is reacting inside the Pod. So, while Frog’s avatar doesn’t have any emotions, she felt Frog’s emotions while he was across the real room in his pod and she found the problem inside.”
“Your analysis appears correct. This will be a challenge,” Burt admitted. “I wonder if there is a distance attribute.”
The woman groaned. “Can you stop extrapolating data for five seconds?”
“Data is life,” he replied, still clearly distracted.
The woman threw up her hands, exasperated. “Whatever. That might be the AAR, but I want the rest of you, as a team, to figure out what you need to do to help Stephanie control this or it will be the end of all of you.”
Having delivered the After-Action Report, she released them by keeping the bar frozen but allowing them to move. Stephanie rubbed her fists. Lars and Marcus talked for a moment to the side and then Lars stepped forward. “Maybe we can try something that will pull you out of your own head. Something that can click with you so you can try to pull back when your emotions threaten to take control.”
She nodded. “Like what?”
Marcus smiled. “Like a code word. Something you care about.”
The other man sighed and gritted his teeth. “Marcus felt ‘Todd’ would do it.”
Stephanie looked at them and raised her eyebrows. “That should do it for sure. But who knows? Anything is worth trying, at this point.”
The team resumed their place as the AAR Avatar began the scene from where they left off. Stephanie could see the damage she had done. The Dreth and their human were in really bad shape. The team worked with her to complete that run and get them all to safety. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked to keep them intact. Once they’d reached sanctuary, they restarted the scene.
This time, the entire team remained watchful, waiting for something to go down. As soon as Stephanie felt the anger in Frog, her head whipped around and she simultaneously pushed from her seat. The bodyguards sprang into action and raced around in front of her to block her view of the fight. Lars grabbed her cheeks and looked into her ebony eyes. “Todd. Remember, Todd.”
She shook her head and blinked the black from her eyes before she looked at them, nodded, and patted Lars on the shoulder. The rest of the simulation was nothing more than a good, old-fashioned bar fight. In fact, it was quite funny to watch. She stood to one side and shielded her magic from those in the room so they wouldn’t recognize who or what she was.
With a small gesture here and one there, she slid small balls of magic into the melee. One knocked bottles onto a Dreth’s head. Another sliced through the waist on the human’s overalls so the bottom half dropped around his ankles. A third tripped one of the aliens so he fell face-first into the lap of a very large and sweaty man.
Once Frog’s fight was taken care of, she smiled and entered the melee to work off a little of her anger. She threw punches with real enthusiasm and laughed as Lars pounded a Dreth in the stomach until the warrior fell. Catching his eye, she nodded at her strong arms. “It’s like a workout, but faster.”
“Hell yeah.” He laughed. “That’s the kind of fight I want. Get in shape.”
“Break some noses,” she added as they high-fived.
Stephanie sat on the edge of her dorm room bed and stretched her arms and legs. She hadn’t told anyone, but while they woke from the training feeling perfectly fine, she felt every punch, kick, and muscle strain from inside the Virtual World. Her muscles were getting stronger and her body thinner, and usually, every step she took hurt like every day was leg day in her work-out routine.
She looked at her watch and smiled as she hauled the phone beside her and dialed her parents’ number. A holographic image appeared of her mom and dad sticking their heads close together as they waited for their archaic communicator to bring her up. She knew when it happened because her mom’s face went from puzzled to excited in three seconds flat.
“Hi, guys.” Stephanie giggled.
“My baby,” her mom greeted her excitedly. “I’ve waited all week for this.”
“Hey, sweetie,” her dad called and waved enthusiastically as he backed up and sat on the couch. “How’s work going for you?”
“Good.” She smiled and eased her sleeve down surreptitiously to hide the bruises on her arm. “How’s it going for you? Is the cleaning doing well?”
Cindy rolled her eyes but in a relieved way. “It is going really well. There are a couple of people working for us now who we hired on as security. I really didn’t want to feel that way about a job but several of our cleaners were getting harassed—”
“And your mom,” her dad interjected.
Immediately, Stephanie frowned. “What?”
“It was no big deal.” Her mom shook her head. “They took care of it, and that includes your father who punched one of them in the mouth. Now, he has swollen knuckles.”
He held his hand up with a proud grin. “All in a day’s work.”
She laughed. “Good for you, Dad. You are the beast. Seriously, the beast.”
Her mom sighed. “I didn’t want to get anyone hurt but you know how protective this family is. I can only imagine what it would have been like if Uncle Jimmy and Uncle Eddie had been there. Those poor smart-mouths wouldn’t have walked for years. But anyway, no need to rehash. What did you want to talk to us about?”
Stephanie smiled and bounced slightly on the bed. “I have to go to Meligorn for the medal presentation, so I’ve decided I’ll come home before the trip. I want to see you guys and Todd, and I thought why not visit my favorite people in all this world before I visit some strangers in a whole other system.”
Her mother leaned her head against her father’s shoulder. “You are the best daughter ever. This will be a fantastic visit.”
Chapter Nineteen
The team opened their avatar eyes and stared at row upon row of weaponry. The AI spoke before they could make any comment. “Welcome to another day of training. Today, you will be placed in a situation created specifically to meet your training needs. Please take two minutes to prepare for battle. You may take anything you can carry, as long as it doesn’t impede the other players.”
Stephanie didn’t move because the only thing she needed was her magic. The other guys frowned and studied the array of weapons. Lars walked along the line of guns, not knowing where to start. There were Dreth weapons and Federation weapons, and everything was fully charged. Even Meligornian batteries were available but none of them were ready to try their hand at magic. That was her thing.
Frog rubbed his hands together and selected a couple of daggers, two grenades, and a bow and arrow off the shelf. Marcus gave him an odd look. “Okay, Rambo Robin Hood, what the hell will you do with a bow and arrow when you face a Dreth?”
He stowed his gear and ignored the jibe. “Hey, I could totally kill a Dreth with an arrow. I simply have to hit that one spot under their chin that isn’t tough.”
The other man blinked at him. “Really? This coming from the guy who almost axed himself in the foot because he didn’t let go of the ax handle when he tried to throw one at the Renaissance Festival when we were kids?”
Frog groaned. “You always gotta bring that up, don’t you? We were kids, damn it. I got this now.”
Marcus shrugged and walked over to the pistols. He selected two but changed his mind and only took one. “Suit yourself, but don’t throw that thing anywhere near me.”
Brenden chuckled and slid a half-sword in a back sheath. “Who the hell thought we’d need gear? We always appear with weapons and we’re darn good in hand-to-hand combat.”
The A
I spoke. “Please line up on the white line. The simulation is about to begin.”
The room went dark for a few seconds before the lights returned. The team stood inside a bunk room on board a ship. Everything was painted gray and with a small window. Marcus stared out and angled himself so he could see one of the tail fins behind them. “Hey, this is a space liner. We must be downstairs in the crew’s quarters.”
Before any of them could respond to that, a sudden shudder distracted them and they exchanged glances before they opened the door to their cabin and hurried through.
With the corridor clear, they raced along it until they found the steps leading up. They took these two at a time, readied their limited selection of weapons, and looked for the source of whatever trouble had caused the tremor.
Stephanie shook the magic down into her hands and followed the others around a corner. They all froze as the Dreth pirates boarded the ship and immediately hurtled down the corridor toward them.
Surprised and outnumbered, they failed the scenario. In less than fifteen minutes, they were dead—although, oddly enough, Frog was the last to succumb. When they opened their eyes, they were back in the armory room.
“You have two minutes to prepare,” the AI told them.
This time, the team rushed through the weapon racks to select what they needed. Even Stephanie armed herself, knowing that magic wasn’t the only tactic she had—and that it wasn’t always the best tactic, either. That was especially true for a prolonged battle where she didn’t want to wear herself out by using too much magical energy.
When the scene changed to signal that the scenario had started, they wasted no time. They raced out of the room and up the stairs, loading their weapons on the way. This time, they were the first to reach the main deck where passengers boarded—the same one the Dreth would use to board the liner. Lars and Brenden went to work to rig booby traps for when the enemy broke through.
Once that was done, they withdrew into the corridor and waited, their guns ready. The hatchway burned white and erupted inwards. Huge Dreth pirates followed seconds later, bellowing at the top of their lungs. The team looked at Lars, who held the detonator for the traps. He pushed it and they all winced and covered their ears as the grenades exploded in sequence to obliterate several of the pirates.
More followed, and then even more, until Stephanie thought there was a never-ending supply. She was also grateful that they’d chosen a single entry-point, which meant that she and the team didn’t have to split up to deal with them all. In this scenario, they could hold the entry until their guns ran dry...and then they could use the guns of their enemies.
When the flood of aliens slowed to a trickle and finally, to a drop, they were left facing one last adversary. He was smaller than the others, climbed cautiously over their corpses, and immediately dropped his weapons when he saw the team. With his hands raised in the air, he waited for them to stand and face him in the corridor.
When no other aliens followed him, Stephanie slid a magical mask over her face and stepped into view, Lars beside her. “Stop right where you are.”
The Dreth laughed and gave her the finger as he began to speak. “On this ship is a very, very large bomb, only waiting for the connections to touch.” He giggled and twitched and his hands fluttered nervously above his head. His eyes glowed as though he wasn’t entirely sane.
She put her hands on her hips. “Oh yeah? Prove to me you can set it off.”
The Dreth slowly opened one of the hands he held above his head. Nestled in his palm was a small black box with a button in the middle, and his thumb was set squarely against it. “I let go, you go boom.”
Stephanie pursed her lips. “So, I guess you can’t let go.”
He grinned and whispered, “Boooom.”
She smiled and threw her arm up quickly and a shield hurtled toward him. It wrapped around his hand, forced his fingers closed, and kept his thumb pushed firmly down on the switch. It was exactly what she had tried to accomplish, except that it also severed his hand at the wrist “Whoops.”
The Dreth shrieked and fell back. Dark-green blood fountained from the wound to pool on the floor around him. Frog grabbed his stomach and gagged. Lars shook his head and turned to her.
She closed her eyes, then opened them again and stared intently at their faces as she spoke. “Okay, there’s a bomb on this ship. We need to find it, and most importantly, we need to get it off the damn vessel. There are a ton of civilians here who have no idea. Marcus, Frog, you go with me. Lars, Brenden, Johnny, you take the lower levels. If you find it, call it in and move with it.”
The team nodded and hurried away, heading to search their designated section of the liner. Lars sent a couple of images of what they should look for to their headsets, but it didn’t really help. After searching each section as thoroughly as they could, they all met on the main deck once again, each one breathing heavily. Lars shook his head. “Nothing. We found nothing.”
Stephanie nodded. “Yeah, we didn’t either.”
Frog leaned his hand against a grey box on the wall. “Where the hell is this thing? I’ll be pissed if its right in front of our noses.”
The whole team turned toward him and froze. He frowned. “What? Why are you staring at me?”
Lars put his hand out. “Hey, Frog? Buddy? I think you should take your hand off that metal box with a blinking red light on the front of it. And maybe do it real slow.”
He swallowed, but he kept his eyes on Lars’ face. “What box?”
Lars tried for a nonchalant shrug but didn’t quite manage it. His voice cracked when he replied. “You know, the one randomly stuck on the wall behind you.”
Frog looked along his arm to where his hand rested on the box. Instead of slowly, however, he yanked his hand off like he’d been burned. He offered the team a shaky grin. “Uh…found the bomb.”
They’d all been so busy watching him and the bomb that none of them had noticed Marcus leave. He returned, almost tripped over one of the fallen Dreth, and cursed softly as he guided a one-man luggage drone through the air beside him.
“What?” he asked when he saw the looks on their faces. “I saw one of these in a thriller I watched once. Some spies doing stuff on an interstellar cruise. I thought there had to be some truth in the background and found the drones were real and stored behind the concierge’s desk around the corner.”
He eyed the bomb and guided the luggage drone to where Lars stood. “That should fit, right?”
“Nice thinking,” Lars told him and nudged the drone carefully into place.
Marcus fiddled with the controls and it hovered alongside the box. He touched the controls again, and a panel slid open in the top to reveal enough space inside to fit a small suitcase. “Do your magic, boss...or get Brenden to do it for you. Either way works for me as long as you don’t set it off.”
Lars rolled his eyes and took a closer look at the bomb.
“It looks like one of them slapped it on the wall as they came through.” He glanced through the boarding gates and smiled. “They left their umbilical intact when they boarded. I wonder how much time we have before they decide it’s time to leave.”
Stephanie watched as he turned his attention to the device on the wall.
“I hope this thing is as simple to remove as I think it is,” he muttered, retrieved a couple of tools from his belt, and worked them deftly around the edges of the device.
Brenden came over to help him, and between the two of them, they lifted the bomb off the wall and set it gently inside the drone. Once it was nestled and secure, Marcus used the controls to close the top and then looked at Lars.
“I’d say we should send it back to them, but they’re still attached. How about we seal this deck, instead? That way, nothing can sneak in while we put this sucker out through one of the docking bays.”
Having taken a tour of the lower levels, Lars knew exactly where to go. He led the way while Marcus followed, steering the luggage drone th
rough the corridors. Fully loaded, a row of green lights now glowed steadily around it to show it was in use.
Lars took them to a small docking bay where the liner’s shuttles were stored. The team scrambled hastily into emergency suits, attached tethers, and opened an airlock leading to a maintenance hatch beside the docking bay doors. Once the airlock had cycled closed behind them, they watched as Marcus steered the drone out of the liner and as far as it would go.
Stephanie walked up beside them, her hand wrapped around the Dreth hand with its scaly thumb pressed against a button on a small, square box.
“What?” she asked and held her grisly handful tighter. “I have to hold the damn thing in case the magic wears off. He almost blew us up with this.”
Marcus frowned and looked out into space. “See that blinking light?”
He pointed to where the luggage drone was little more than a glittering speck, its green lights flashing as if it knew it was no longer on board and tried to tell the universe of its distress.
She nodded. “The bomb is all the way out there. Let’s light this sucker up.”
He kept his hands on the drone’s controller to avoid a risk that it might fly back to the ship under some emergency protocol, but Lars nodded. “Do it.”
Stephanie held the controller up and tried to pull the dead pirate’s thumb off the switch. The Dreth’s hand had stiffened and wouldn’t release it. she rolled her eyes and grabbed the thumb and fingers in an effort to pry them apart.
At first, they didn’t budge and she renewed her efforts. Finally, with a sickening crack, they loosened and the controller fell. As soon as the pressure was off the button, the bomb detonated to create a momentary flare of light that faded quickly to nothing. Well, almost nothing.
Marcus pointed out into space. “What is that?”
Stephanie and the others gasped. It was a piece of the drone, it’s lights still gleaming, and it was on a direct trajectory toward them. For a minute, it made no sense and then they realized there would be some kind of shock wave from the explosion.
Witch Of The Federation (Federal Histories Book 2) Page 19
