Jeena looked at Sergeant Ron before looking back at Dren. “The Defiant’s crew is a pretty hard-bitten lot. I think it would take a lot to scare them.”
“I suppose we’ll see soon enough,” said Dren. “I’m not a wizard scout, but I can detect some forms of Power. In fact, I think she is about to come on board right now.”
Something tickled at the edge of Jeena’s senses. What is that? she wondered. It reminds me of Rick when he shifts into the void. No, come to think of it, the energy I am picking up reminds me more of his spirit-horse.
“Are your comments meant for me?” asked Danny. “If they are, then I would have to say based upon the frequency of the Power readings that there is a seventy-three percent probability what you are sensing is a—”
A small, furry white head with two black-button eyes and a cute little pink nose poked its way out of the steel deck near the ramp. The head was followed by a white-furred body held upright by four short and equally white legs. The bundle of fur was no larger than Jeena’s two hands held side by side.
Jeena laughed. “It’s a puppy.”
Clear of the metal deck, the all-white pup wandered over and sniffed at Jeena’s boot before sitting back on her haunches and letting out a high-pitched howl.
“Not just any puppy,” said Dren, smiling in spite of herself. “This is Snowy. She’s one of the spirit-wolves in Uncle Rick’s pack. As far as I’m concerned, she’s the gentlest of the lot.”
Sergeant Ron scratched his beard before squatting down to get a closer look at the pup. “Naw. Couldn’t be. I’ve seen all of Rick’s pack, including the one he calls Snowy. They’re all at least a meter high at the shoulder. Why, a snap of the jaws from one of those spirit-wolves would cut this cute little gal in half.”
Jeena reached down, picked the puppy up, and held her close to her chest. The pup’s soft fur tickled her chin as a pink tongue reached out and licked her cheek.
“She is too cute,” Jeena said. “Is this the she you were calling dangerous?”
Brachia laughed. “The one and only. Uncle Rick once told Dren and me that a spirit-wolf can take on any canine form. Snowy was a lot larger when she appeared on Storage. She liked to have given me a heart attack when she came out of the floor in my lab with those fire-red eyes and finger-length fangs of hers.”
Dren reached out and stroked the white bundle of fur in Jeena’s hands. “You’ve worked with spirit-wolves before, Jeehana. I’m sure Uncle Rick told you how most of them tend to look at us as a food source. Like I said, Snowy’s one of the nicer ones. She’s smart too. I think that’s why she’s in a puppy form now instead of one of her larger avatars.” Dren laughed and ruffled the pup’s fur with her left hand. “I mean, how could anyone take a look at her now and think she’s dangerous.”
Sergeant Ron stood and scratched his chin before folding his arms across his chest. “Well, I don’t know. I’ve had to work with Rick’s spirit-wolves before. They only tolerate us because Rick tells them we’re his friends. He’s not here now, so I don’t know if that toleration still applies. I’ve got to be honest. I’m not sure about having one onboard for an extended—”
Snowy chose that moment to jump off Jeena’s chest and straight into Sergeant Ron’s crossed arms. Before the ship’s captain could react, the little spirit-wolf snuggled against the old man’s face and began licking away while making whimpering sounds.
“All right, all right,” laughed Sergeant Ron. “You can stay.” He handed Snowy back to Jeena. “I suppose it’s for the best. From what Rick told me, Snowy’s a healer like her mother. Since Terry’s not onboard, having somebody that can heal might come in handy.”
“Yeah,” laughed Daniel. “That is if we can convince her to heal the crew instead of eating them.”
Jeena held the puppy out at arm’s length and stared into her black-button eyes. “Are you going to behave, Snowy? Rick would not be happy if you decided to make a meal out of one of the crew.”
An emotion of affirmation swept over Jeena, originating from the puppy.
Nodding her head, Jeena said, “Very well then. Welcome aboard, Snowy. You are now officially part of the crew.” She glanced over at Sergeant Ron with a devious smile. “Any special orders you want me to give her before we have the triplets teleport us to the magic dimension?”
“Yeah,” said Sergeant Ron. “Tell her I run a tight ship. I’d better not step in any puppy-dog messes while she’s onboard, or there’ll be hell to pay.” He glanced around at the others in the cargo bay. “That goes for the rest of you. I don’t care if you’re a wiz—”
“Excuse me, Sergeant Ron,” said Margery over the intercom built into the hull of the cargo bay. “The triplets say we have two minutes and fifteen seconds before they start their teleport. If there are any preparations you need to make beforehand, I would say now is the time to make them.”
Sergeant Ron scratched his beard and looked at Jeena. “I’m betting this mission of yours is going to get us into more trouble than a pactar stuck in a fire-lizard’s hole. You’re as bad as Rick when it comes to getting me and my ship into one jam or another. I’d say there’s one thing we’d definitely better do before we make the jump.” He walked over to a control station next to the hull and punched the intercom controls. “Battle stations. All right you bunch of vagabonds, I want every weapon locked and loaded in two minutes, or I swear I’ll jettison you out the airlock and you can walk home. I’ve got a feeling we’re leaving the frying pan and heading straight for the fire.”
An alarm began ringing.
“Charlie,” said Sergeant Ron. “Unhook from the supply shuttle and get the ramp closed. I want Asquan in the Dragon-fighter and put Timerman in the X-shuttle. Tell that elf and orc I’d better not hear any bickering between them. Daniel, you take the Zip fighter. I don’t want anyone launching unless I give the orders.” Turning to Stella, he jerked a thumb in the direction of the two Warcats. “How about getting one of those metal monsters ready in case we need it?”
As the others scrambled to follow their captain’s orders, Jeena turned to Sergeant Ron. “What about me? Do you want me to help Comstar, Calatron, and the rest of the gnomes put a stealth shield around the Defiant?”
Sergeant Ron shook his head. “No. Red Wing can handle that. I want you back in the cockpit with me. You can help me with the shields in case we teleport into a firefight.”
Following Sergeant Ron up the stairs to the second floor engine deck, Jeena noticed Sergeant Hendricks at the armory’s window. He was busy handing out a mixture of technology and magic weapons to a line of six dwarves that made up the recon ship’s security detail. The leader of the dwarf team, Felspar, tossed Jeena a utility belt with a phase pistol and two hand grenades attached as she ran past. She nodded gratefully and fastened the belt around the waist of her black utility suit. Once the belt was on, she removed two wands that were sticking out of the side pocket of her suit and stuck them inside the belt.
“One minute to our jump point,” came Margery’s voice over the intercom.
Sergeant Ron wasted no time getting to the cockpit. Jeena dropped into her copilot seat and began strapping in.
Margery said, “Thirty seconds until teleport.”
The Defiant’s captain finished buckling his chest harness before punching the icon on the control panel to turn off the autopilot. “All right, Jeehana. Let’s hope you’re as good at helping the triplets form a time component in their dimensional gate as Rick is. Otherwise, this may turn out to be a bumpy ride.”
“Oh, she is just as good,” said Danny over the external speakers of Jeena’s ring. “She had no problem helping the triplets gate Telsa and Rembis back a hundred thousand years in the past an hour ago.”
“What’s that?” said Sergeant Ron. “What’s she talking about Jeehana? You didn’t say anything to me about teleporting Telsa.”
Jeena sighed. “There are a lot of things I cannot tell you or the others. We are going into the past. Any knowledge we hav
e of events in our present time could inadvertently cause us to change the past. That’s why Rick had his memory wiped. As for Telsa and Rembis, I sent them on a mission a hundred thousand years in the past. We have our own mission to worry about. That is all you need to know for now.”
Sergeant Ron frowned. “This is a hell of a way to run a ship. I’ll tell you one th—”
“Five seconds to teleport,” said Margery. “Perhaps the two of you can continue this another time.”
“You can just about bet we will,” muttered Sergeant Ron.
Jeena sensed energy form around the recon ship. It was a mixture of Comstar’s magic and pure Power. She recognized the Power as coming from Red Wing.
“They have formed their stealth shield,” said Danny. “I calculate an eighty-four percent probability it will hide us from any magic sensors the Dragar ships have. If they do not physically see us, we should be safe enough.”
Jeena hoped so. It was her plan, and the lives of the crew depended on her being right. She sensed the triplets drawing Power through her from the link she shared with her bondmate.
The Defiant shuddered.
Jeena’s view of everything went in and out of focus. As soon as her vision steadied, she looked at the proximity hologram located between the pilot and copilot’s seats. Pinpoints of lights nearly turned the hologram white. She reached out with her senses in a magic version of a passive scan, then gasped. Scattered around the little recon ship as far as her senses could reach were millions if not billions of life forms crammed into millions of metal containers of every size and shape.
Starships, Jeena thought. Creator help us all if our shields fail.
Chapter 14 – New Drepdenor
_______________________________
Rembis and Telsa materialized at the base of the red-rock mountain known as New Drepdenor in a clear spot next to a rapidly moving river. A crack near the top of the mountain looked like a set of dragon’s fangs. A rock-strewn path led from the river, up the side of the mountain, and straight for the gaping maw between the rock fangs.
Looking around, Telsa remembered the last time Rembis and she’d been there. That was only a few weeks ago. Just before we gated into Hell to try and find a yellow gem. We failed.
“Failed?” said Raj in their shared space. “You made it out alive. I would hardly call that a failure.”
“We didn’t get the yellow gem,” Telsa said in no mood to get an impromptu lecture about having a half-glass-full or half-glass-empty attitude from her battle computer. “We call that a mission failure where I come from.”
“Well, I am not sure where exactly I come from, Wizard Scout. Still, I am confident the logic in that place would probably point out that Master Rembis did bring back a sliver of a yellow gem. He has it safely in his pocket now.”
“I stand corrected,” Telsa said. “We did bring back a piece of a yellow gem about the size of a grain of sand. Too bad it’s like a thousand times too small to close the dimensional gate beneath the Tree of Light in Silverton.”
“I assume you mean it lacks the energy to close the gate, Wizard Scout. If size alone was what mattered, Master Rembis could cast an enlarge spell on the gem sliver and you would be in business, so to speak. As it is, he could enlarge the piece of yellow gem until it was the size of a house and it would still not have the energy required to close the gate.”
“Is there some point you’re trying to make that can help our mission, Raj?”
“Not really, Wizard Scout. I was just trying to keep the data in our discussion accurate.”
Gritting her teeth, Telsa turned to Rembis. “It looks different than the last time we were here.”
The old gnome smiled. “Of course it does. You said the triplets were teleporting us back to a hundred thousand years in the past. If the date your battle computer gave us is correct, we are now four hundred years after the time we fought the vampires under Old Drepdenor. After Queen Emerald cleared out the tunnels of the dwarves’ old home, they came here. I came with them. I stayed with the dwarves for nigh on three hundred years helping them carve out their new home. That was before Queen Emerald sent me back to Old Drepdenor to retrieve her father’s war hammer. I got captured by the Dragars again and was their slave on the mining planet until Rick saved me.”
“Well, regardless of the time, when we were last here, you said the three-headed dragon Tharantos would think we were here to steal their treasure. I seem to remember the skeletons of those who’d tried littering that path over there, all the way to the top of the mountain. Do you think it’s any safer this time?”
Rembis shrugged his shoulders. “Maybe. Maybe not. The three-headed dragon Rick left here to guard the dimensional gate under New Drepdenor will still be young. However, I suspect even being on top of the mountain, as they undoubtedly are, they know we are here.”
“That we do, but we are not on the mountain top,” said a squeaky voice from behind Telsa.
Spinning around, Telsa scanned the area in the direction of where she thought the voice had come. She saw nothing other than a couple of meter-high rocks off to one side of the flat area by the river.
Rembis laughed. “Relax, Telsa. I was here with Tharantos for three hundred years. I’d recognize that voice anywhere.”
Telsa had trouble associating the massive three-headed dragon she’d seen the last time they were at New Drepdenor with the high-pitched voice she’d just heard. Before she could question the gnome mage about the discrepancy, a red dragon head no larger than the size of her fist popped up over one of the boulders. It was followed by equally small blue and yellow heads. Telsa looked from the three heads to Rembis and back to the dragon heads.
“Ah,” said a squeaky feminine voice coming from the blue head. “We have been waiting. The Oracle sent word the two of you were coming. I recognize you, Wizard Scout Telsa, as a companion of the dragon-friend. You helped him during the attack on the Dragar temple when he freed us. You are most welcome.” The blue head turned to eye Rembis. “And you, Master Rembis. You were much younger when we saw you last, but we recognize your Power frequency. You are also welcome. It is good that neither of you are here to steal our treasure. We would be forced to burn you to a crisp.”
Telsa wondered how any of the small dragon heads could give out enough fire to singe anyone, much less burn them to a crisp, but kept her thought to herself.
“Wise decision,” said Raj. “These guardians are creatures of magic. I calculate they have abilities that go far beyond their size.”
“Yes, we do,” said the feminine voice of the blue dragon, this time in Telsa’s mind. “We are guardians of the gate. Surely you do not think we could keep the gate locked if we relied only on our physical size?”
“Uh, my apologies,” Telsa said aloud. “We do not mean to insult any of you. We were sent here on a mission of utmost importance. There is a great battle looming in the fu—”
“No!” said the male voice of the yellow dragon also speaking out loud. “Do not speak of the future. Do not even think of the future. You must not do or say anything that could change the past, or you could change the future as well. You must do only your mission and nothing more.”
“That’s just it,” Telsa said. “We don’t know what our mission is. We were told to come here and make a proposal to Queen Emerald. Other than that, we have no idea what we are supposed to do.”
“If I may be so bold,” said Rembis. “Perhaps we could see Queen Emerald, if she’s here? My friend and I would like to complete our mission and return to our homes.”
“That,” said the scholarly voice of the yellow dragon head, “may be easier said than done. Whoever or whatever teleported you here from the future must be powerful indeed. It is not within our abilities to teleport through time and space. Our skills lie in guarding gates.”
“Teleporting through time is not one of our skills either,” admitted Rembis. “We were teleported here by one of—”
“No,” said the yellow
dragon head. “I warned you. Tell us nothing of the future.” He turned to look at the blue head of his sister. “They have probably told us too much already. Perhaps we should send them on their way before they do irreparable harm.”
“I believe you are right, brother.”
The golden body of the three-headed dragon dragged itself over the boulder and spread its wings. They extended a little over a meter on each side of its dragon body.
“Very well then,” growled the red dragon head. “Your guides are almost here. They will take you to Queen Emerald.” He narrowed his golden eyes at Telsa and Rembis. “A word of warning. Make sure you do not try to take any of the dwarves’ treasure. We will be watching you.”
Telsa looked at Rembis. She was pretty sure he didn’t want the dwarves’ treasure any more than she did. They had bigger pactar to fry.
The sound of shuffling feet came from the direction of the path leading up the mountain. Telsa turned to see a dozen heavily armed dwarves walking single file down the trail.
“Hmmm,” said Raj “Their weapons and armor are made out of creallium. I calculate they are wearing some of the gear the dwarves made during their rebellion against their Dragar overlords. The armor is impervious to attacks from the void.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Telsa said “Those weapons can harm creatures in the void. Not that it matters to me. I’m not a shifter.”
“Wizard Scout Telsa,” said a familiar voice. “It has been nigh on four centuries since last I laid eyes on you, but I can never forget any of those who fought with me against the vampires under Old Drepdenor.”
Telsa squinted at the owner of the voice coming down the mountain path. The face was more wrinkled and the hair whiter and more sparse, but she recognized the dwarf from her last time-commando mission. “General Fenmar. You, uh, haven’t changed a bit.”
Wizard Gigantic (Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles Book 9) Page 14
