by Pam Uphoff
Not that my opinion matters at all. As an individual. But can one percent start a war, when the other ninety-nine percent is laughing at them?
Ebsa looked around at the angry people filing into the history class. The school, on the other hand is close to fifty-fifty Withione and Neartuone. So is the Government.
Chapter Eight
1 Hija 1403
"Well Closey, see what your Native friends have done?"
Ebsa leaned back in the cafeteria seat and eyed the man. "Ape . . . don't you mean what your ill-thought-out and failed actions have triggered? You have, in all probability started a war. And you know what? The first attack just rolled right over us, without us getting a blow in. We didn't even notice it for close to six months after it had been successfully completed.
"You idiots have started a war that is going to be fought on our Home World, with weapons of the enemy's choice."
"We know where they are. We can retaliate with a bioweapon, kill them all."
Ra'd snorted and sat down beside Ebsa. "As soon as we are absolutely certain we've found and closed every permanent gate they've set up to spy on us. Otherwise there will be a serious containment problem."
They were attracting a lot of attention.
:: Paer? Stay away from the dining hall. Grab Heak and Azko and keep them out of here. ::
:: Are you about to get beaten up? ::
:: Oh, have a little faith. There can't be more than fifty of them. ::
:: Ebsa! ::
:: Oh, all right. Six that may make trouble. Ra'd and I can handle them. ::
Blob loomed. "Oh? Think you know all about it, Wqlw? Oh Hey says you've had a whole month of Military tactics. Wow. What an expert!"
"He is, however, quite right." The man elbowing through the crowd was older.
"Professor Ongo. Military Science." Ra'd muttered in Ebsa's direction, then raised his voice as he eyed the professor. "This may give you some idea of what a mostly magic war would be like. Probably opening up more possibilities than you've thought of."
"Heh. For starters, I had not anticipated pinpoint genetic engineering as a method of attack. Broadcast mutagens, yes. But removal of the rape genes, the crumpling of the Oner's social ranking? That's . . . going to take some pondering."
The professor turned and eyed all the students. "Eat your lunches and get on with your classes. You seniors? You may be ceded to the military by the time you graduate, but you still need good grades for getting a job, post-war. Hopefully with the Directorate."
His gaze fell on Ape and Blob. "You two . . . had better behave. You are on thin ice already. Do not start fights. Do not try to weasel out from under the predictable results of your own actions. Own up to your errors and learn from them."
Sensei Ikku hustled up, frowning from the professor to the Action trainees.
Professor Ongo glowered at the Sensei. "I know these two have just gotten here. But the rest are troublemakers as well. Teach them to coordinate with other Oners, not target them. Else they'll be having a lot of trouble in the military."
Ebsa could hear Ikku's teeth grind.
His gaze fell dyspeptically on Ra'd and Ebsa. "Don't make trouble worse."
The professor eyed Ra'd. "An essay on the possible use of gates and corridors in wartime. Get it to me by Monday."
The Action trainees eased away, and kept going while the two older men returned to their meals.
:: All safe. The adults made the Action boys behave. Still, not being seen too much in our company might be wise. ::
No mental answer, but three trays dropped on the table next to them.
Heak grinned. "Really Ebsa, you should know better than to expect us to run away."
A faint sigh from the guard standing between Paer and the sullen group at the other end of the room. Paer grinned.
Ra'd snorted. "No sense at all. And now I need to brainstorm ways to use gates and corridors in a war."
"Brainstorm?" Azko frowned. "What is that?"
"It's just throwing out ideas as fast as possible, with no pause to analyze how practical or possible anything is, until you've got a huge list. Then you start analyzing."
"You mean like, a corridor with an illusion over it? So tanks that thought they were going through a powered gate to Comet Fall land in the middle of the ocean?" Ebsa shivered. The possibilities are enormous.
"Oooo! Open a gate to a dinosaur world!" Heak's grin faded. "They wouldn't, would they?"
"Open gates directly to Earth." Azko nodded. "We wouldn't have time to worry about Comet Fall."
Paer hunched her shoulders. "Rael said that Xen once mentioned opening a corridor aimed side on at the powered gate rings, and then opening the other end in front of a bullet train."
"Yeaow." Ebsa thought that over. "Or they could aim it at a full session of the Council. Or send through more subtle assassins."
"They could use them to distribute more potions, probably aimed at removing the One power gene. Or diseases."
"And close the gates and corridors we already have, isolating the colonies, blocking imported food. Make us get all the merchant ships out of drydock to move goods around here."
"Attack the One in Makkah."
They all stopped and stared at Ra'd..
". . . or have they already? How did this attack affect them? What else could they do there?" Ra'd's fingers beat a nervous tattoo along the table edge. "One nuke could end the Hive mind."
Ebsa bit his lip. "The One needs to move . . . secretly. Or at least some of them move far enough away to survive the loss of the majority."
Ra'd shook his head. "Brainstorm."
Ebsa got back to skull drudgery. "Well, they could divert the army through gates to empty worlds, and just maroon them. Or turn soldiers into bronze statues—kind of time intensive at that scale though."
"Sabotage equipment, set off bombs. Well, not that they'd need corridors for that." Azko shrugged. "We're screwed, aren't we?"
Ebsa nodded. "They'll bring the war here, and get creative."
Ra'd bit his lip. "A pre-emptive strike to remove as many of their magic users as we can is starting to sound like a good idea. Not that we haven't tried that before."
Ebsa looked around the dining hall. All the energized, expectant faces. "What we need to do is stop the war from happening in the first place."
Someone—not an Action Trainee—got up from the next table and loomed.
"Keep talking like that and you won't survive the next month."
Paer sniffed. "Grad student. Info track, with a lot of politics. Updi 'Stupid' Withione. His father's a Councilor."
"Don't call me that."
"He'll be a low-level assistant analyst for the next twenty years, playing games, thinking he'll start his move up any day." Paer shook her head. "He thinks because he can fence he'll get somewhere."
The man had turned red as she spoke. A furious shake in the voice he tried to keep icy. "You don't know me well enough to have the faintest idea."
Paer didn't look around at him. "You see them by the dozen, scurrying about under their betters' feet, in Paris."
She ignored his red-faced fist-clenching anger. Stabbed a forkful of green beans, and munched.
"Stupid" shot a glance toward Paer's guard, who was close and leaning aggressively toward him. He lifted his nose, spun and marched away.
Ebsa grinned. "Been taking Princess lessons?"
"I've picked up a few pointers here-and-there."
Ebsa watched the man go. I'd better remember that just because there's an obvious threat doesn't mean there aren't a lot of not-action-teamers who may be quite peeved, right now.
Chapter Nine
3 Hija 1403
Ebsa nearly crashed into Heak as she hustled around the corner. The relief flooding over her face as she spotted him was tale enough to have him sidestepping and waving her on. Dropping his pack and stepping in as Ape led the others around the corner.
Blob, Ed, and Oh Hey. :: Heads up, four here,
two missing. ::
Ebsa blocked their path. "Oh look! It's the statues! They walk, they talk! Pity they don't think."
That got their attention.
The first three loomed. Oh Hey lurked behind them, casting nervous glances back around the corner.
The sound of running feet from the other direction.
"Guys. Stalking girls is beneath you. You are Oners, you attack the enemy, not your own. And you are endangering your own futures, giving in to petty schoolboy snobbery. Why don't you . . . " Ebsa turned his head enough to check on who was coming up behind him.
Ra'd was first around the corner, slowing as he spotted the—so far—lack of physical aggression. Azko was three steps behind him. Heak had paused at the corner, now she turned back toward them.
Ra'd was slammed sideways. Bounced off the building, fell flat, but rolled to his feet hunched a bit. Azko hit the ground and curled up in pain. The flat crack of a distant rifle shot echoed around the campus buildings.
The bullies dropped from Ebsa's attention as he threw up a physical shield, pushing it out to cover all of them as they converged on Azko.
"Must have ricocheted off my shield. There was only a single shot." Ra'd hissed as he peeled back Azko's jacket. Dark blood soaked everything inside. More running feet. Paer. Guards right behind. Ebsa shoved his shield out of the way so they didn't hit it, and Paer threw herself down on her knees beside Azko. Put both hands around the wound. The blood flow dropped to an ooze, stopped.
"Paer?" Azko wheezed.
"I've got the bleeding stopped . . . It's a bunch of fragments, shallow. Just bleeding freely and a little bit of muscle damage. It's going to bruise like you wouldn't believe. And it knocked the wind out of you."
"Oh. It sure hurts for something that doesn't sound so bad." Azko sounded more astonished than frightened.
Good.
"Ambulance and police on the way." Heak had her comm out. Her hot gaze fell on the teamers. "So you were herding me to where your sniper buddy could get a good shot at Ra'd?"
"No!" A quartet of denial, as they gawped at the boy on the ground.
"Might have been from the gym." Ra'd narrowed his eyes.
Ebsa switched his gaze from them to the direction the shot must have come from. A broad stretch between two buildings, no trees between them and beyond them, the gymnasium.
A row of windows high up on this side.
Ebsa glanced at Paer's guards. "I've never been up in the high bleachers. Are the windows accessible? It's open to all the university students, not just us Directorate school types. No doubt the shooter is leaving right now."
They glanced that direction, the faint lip and jaw movements of subvocal communication with other guards. Hopefully talking to someone who was free to take a look.
The ambulance arrived; the medics swarmed Azko. Paer backed away reluctantly. She stopped, her eyes drawn to the police cars pulling up from two directions.
The first man out swept a glance across them and his lips thinned.
"What this time?" The head of the campus police force looked pissed.
Ebsa bit his lip, and spoke carefully. "A bullet hit Ra'd, who had a shield up. The ricochet hit Azko. I don't know if it was a stray bullet, or a sniper." He nodded toward the Teamers. "But it wasn't that lot."
"A sniper?" Skepticism.
"We heard the shot. I don't recall ever hearing a shot from the firing range, they've got it well muffled." Ra'd pointed at the gym. "Might have been from the high windows, but that's a guess."
Ebsa looked at the silent Teamers. "Have you been talking to Wedge and City? You know they'll call in Priests for a shooting on campus."
They were all shaking their heads.
Oh Hey was the only one who said anything. "One of the conditions of their returning to school was that they have no contact with City or Wedge."
"We're not murderers!" Blob broke out. "We wouldn't . . . He said he wanted to talk to you all, and to get you here."
The police chief eyed him. "Who?"
"I don't know . . . he said he was a friend, that he wanted . . . to help us."
The chief closed his eyes for a moment. "Right. All of you shut up. We're going to need statements from all of you."
Ebsa eyed him. "This is sounding like a premeditated murder attempt."
"Right. One damn it all. I'll send for the priests."
Not that they learned much.
The police turned them loose inside of an hour.
Ebsa and Ra'd blocked the others when they tried to leave.
Ra'd loomed.
Ebsa leaned in close and kept his voice down. "Are you prepared to commit murder? This isn't schoolboy pranks any more. This isn't an accidental fall down some stairs. Whoever called you has upped the stakes. You four had better go do some serious thinking."
Ape tried a sneer . . . then shoved past them without a word.
They headed for the hospital, Ra'd with an order for an official exam of his bruised-a-bit-under-a-shield chest. Ebsa to catch up with Paer and Heak.
Azko was just checking out. With a grin. "Five fragments. Getting them out hurt worse than getting shot."
They glanced in at Ra'd. Shirtless, getting poked. Paer and Heak exchanged grins.
Azko sighed. "Girls never grin at my bare chest. Or, not that sort of grin."
Ebsa nodded. "I think he goes to the gym and lifts weights after the morning run. Maybe we should start."
He ignored the snickers from the girls. They waited a few minutes until Ra'd joined them. Then Paer's guards swept them all into a car and whisked them off to their safe house.
Which was fine for one night, but they still turned out at dawn for the morning run. Even Azko. Ebsa caught the tail end of his casual brush off of concern from some of his fellow sophomores, and grinned. Not much left of that timid freshman we met last year.
Chapter Ten
5 Hija 1403
The Wednesday evening seminar was buzzing about the coming war, but the professors had a new item for them to consider.
"Disco is fully engaged with a cross-dimensional invasion involving two worlds we've never encountered. First reports are that one world is cannibalizing the other, merging with it."
Ebsa didn't know the physics professor presenting the series of brief vids.
A long shot over a city. A sharp line of demarcation between building styles across the city. The rough brutal concrete of the more distant buildings was in shadows, but no clouds floated above to produce the effect.
"This isn't much like the slow gentle convergence of nearly identical worlds we've seen elsewhere. Something very odd, and hopefully very rare is happening. Even people very unlike each other are merging with each other."
The next vid clip showed an odd dim area snapping forward to engulf a group of hastily backpedaling people. Uniformed soldiers ran forward, charging the retreating group. The handheld vid was jumping all over, the audio was confusing, but one loud voice ordered people to back up, to not touch the soldiers . . . the soldiers had a different goal and jumped for the men in suits and other uniforms.
When they touched they were pulled together, pulled into each other like some hideous horror film, collapsing as they merged.
A civilian woman gestured, ground fell away isolating her group, including the three merged soldiers lying on the ground. The trio was grabbed, and hauled away as the clip ended.
"The merge victims are being analyzed. That darkish zone where the merging took place is expanding. The city there has been evacuated, but they have no idea when, where, or if, the expansion will stop, or whether the intrusion will go away at some point, or if it will take a chunk of this world with it when it goes." The physicist stared at the vid in frustration. "We're organizing to study the phenomenon."
Even with nearly a thousand students stuffed into the halls, there was silence.
Broken by Ape. "Wolfson's busy. We can attack Comet Fall, right now, as fast as possible. A lightning strike to kill
their wizards and witches."
Heads turned. Down beside the speaker's platform Professor Ivy hid his face behind a hand. Lowered it and raised his voice. "That decision is just a little over your pay grade, Trainee."
"Why not attack now? Why not? Because of that coward of a President and his pet horse boy?"
Paer growled.
"Perhaps," Ebsa stepped up on his seat and raised his voice, "he doesn't want to get thousands of people killed because of your criminal actions? This bio attack was a response to your raid. Own it, you little asshole. It's your fault. And if we do go to war, I hope to hell you're the first man to die."
Professor Ivy's exasperated "Ebsa!" was drowned out by a cacophony of shouts, insults, cheers for various sides, the faculty's attempts to restore order . . .
"Perhaps." Ebsa tried to project his voice. "We should put more effort into examining that weird merge we just saw a bit of. Because it seems like there are more important things to worry about than tit-for-tat retaliations that have finally spiraled up high enough to sting."
It was more than projection; someone had aimed a directional microphone at him. Might as well take advantage of it.
"You sought petty revenge against a girl who'd showed your friends up as lying to the police in order to foster a political agenda. That!" Ebsa pointed at the screen. "That is a bit more important. That is something I want to understand and prevent. Is that a unique occurrence? What if it happens again? What if it happens here? We need to go all in on this, for our own sakes."
"Even that's petty." Ebsa stabbed at the screen again. "That, dare I say it? That is a world full of people who need help right now! It looks like Disco is trying to save a world with a population of billions."
He lowered his hand to his hips and tried to look belligerent. "And your first thought is that this is a good time to stab them in the back? What are you doing on Teams? You obviously ought to be in politics."
That got a few laughs and a lot of applause.