“I believe we’re on the lower portion of the eastern mountainside,” I said, reaching for the hatch lever and twisting it, “Although this should be friendly territory, we shouldn’t bank on it.”
“In other words, I need to be ready to kill some people?” he asked with a forced grin, taking the pack from me.
“Yes,” I replied, opening the hatch.
The warm air that immediately slipped into our pod felt like a welcome hug on a resting season morning. After several luna of trying to conserve body heat, this warmth squeezed me in a way that brought me momentary absolution. It was the touch of Braxton that brought me back to reality.
“Do you have a weapon handy?” he asked.
“The bag,” I replied, crawling out into the warm world I’d missed so much.
Braxton crawled out behind me and sat on the grass, wasting no time getting the pack open. Both pistols were lying right on top of the other supplies. He handed me one and took the other pistol.
“Do you know how these work?” he asked, examining the small black pistol, “I’ve never used one.”
“You just point at what you want to hit and squeeze the trigger,” I replied, demonstrating a typical posture with the pistol, “These aren’t loaded yet. There are some power magazines in the pack.”
I reached past him into the pack and brought out two of the ion mags. I held up my pistol and showed him how to slide it into the handle. He followed my example, then placed his pistol on a pile of moss.
“There’s no opportunity for mistakes. If you shoot someone, you will either hurt them or kill them,” I said, “You should probably put another mag in your pocket because you only get about 60 shots from each one.”
I glanced over at Braxton, wondering what had captured his attention in the grass. I realized then that it wasn’t the grass he was looking at, but rather a little web of electricity crackling between the fingers on his left hand.
“Is it easier to control?” I asked.
“Yeah, I brought this static out just by thinking of it,” he said, making the web suddenly a little brighter, “It’s like I can control the magnitude, too.”
“With practice, there are a lot of crazy things you can do with that suit,” I said, “I’ve heard of people throwing ball-lightning.”
Just as soon as I’d finished saying it, the electrical web in his palm took the form of a ball. I laughed at the impossibility before me.
“All I did was imagine what you were saying,” he explained as he rose from the ground, “Now I just need something to throw it at.”
The rocky mountainside rose up sharply behind us, littered with boulders, some tall trees, and plenty of moss. Beneath us, the mountain dropped more gradually, but we were still probably a day’s journey from any flat plains. There didn’t seem to be any reasonable targets nearby.
Then a warm breeze swept through the mountainside, causing one of the bright yellow parachutes to rise subtly from its hiding place beyond a giant boulder. I pointed to the chute that was still filling its sails with the gentle breeze. He chuckled when he turned and saw the obvious target.
“Let’s see what happens to a parachute in an electrical storm,” he said, drawing back the hand filled with the ball of lightning.
“Hopefully it’ll burn,” I said, stepping cautiously back.
I wasn’t quite ready to trust his control of the electricity just yet. I grabbed our pack from the ground and took two more steps back. He flung his hand forward, launching the ball of lightning into the waiting pocket of the parachute. Instead of electrifying the chute like we’d hoped, it simply tore a circular hole through the fabric, then dissipated in a crash on the rocky shelf behind it.
“I thought we’d be lucky and I’d vaporize it,” he said.
Before I had a chance to agree with him, he raised his arms, then shoved both his hands forward, shooting a magnificent storm of several white bolts into the two parachutes. All the rivets that connected the chutes to their ropes glowed white hot, igniting both the chutes and the ropes instantly. By the time the miniature storm ended, both flaming chutes were free from their ropes and burning up as they floated away in the breeze.
“Wow,” I offered with a laugh.
“Wow?” he repeated, turning to me as he examined his hands, “That was much more than ‘wow’. These suits just might eliminate the need for the Mystic Academy.”
“I’m glad you like it. Just hopefully you…”
I paused when a few pebbles trickled down from the cliff above us. I had still been holding my pistol in my right hand and our bag in the other. I noticed in that moment that Braxton’s pistol was still on the ground where he left it, leaving him unarmed unless he had more electricity inside.
“Run to the rock face and stay pressed against it,” he whispered, nudging me toward the sheer rock wall, “I’ll go head out to those trees to see what’s above us.”
I lowered the bag, then keeping my pistol aimed to the cliff above, I ran to the base of the cliff. I felt two small pebbles hit me in the top of my head, confirming by belief that someone had decided to join our party. Braxton looked at me from beyond the empty escape pod. I nodded to him, pointing my weapon above me. He backed away, knelt to pick up his pistol, then crept backward. Never during all of this did he move his sights from the cliff above me.
Braxton raised his gun slowly, aiming it further above me than I expected. Then he fired it three times in quick succession. I heard the sound of more pebbles tumbling down the cliff, but these ones must have been tumbling onto the shelf above me. Braxton fired again, then took cover behind a large tree. I was beginning to wonder if the sounds we heard were just the sounds of an animal or something equally as harmless.
I only got to enjoy this pleasant thought for two heartbeats before something unusual leapt from the cliff above me. It was a black figure, connected to the mountain above me by two cables – one jutting out from each arm. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that just because I can explain what happened in detail would mean that the leap lasted longer than the half-heartbeat that it did. I do remember the details quite vividly, though.
This is because I was looking upward with my pistol aimed at anyone who would decide to peek over the edge. But peeking was not something this person intended. He leapt like a suicidal acrobat, launching himself so far outward that I thought he was hoping to land in our escape pod many paces away. The only things that stopped his outward progress were the cables attached to his arms. And no, he wasn’t holding onto these cables. His black fingers were splayed out, holding onto nothing at all, so indeed the cables were attached to his wrists or arms.
The cables tugged the shadowy man’s arms, twisting him around in midair and bringing him back toward me in a speedy descending arc. I was about to be crushed by a swinging acrobat and I still hadn’t brought my pistol down to aim at him. During this miniscule passage of time, I could hear the whistling shots of Braxton’s weapon, all of them missing his target and hitting the cliff wall above me.
My reflexes were moving in slow motion, but all the while they were insisting on the reaction that would give me the highest probability of survival. Lowering my weapon to aim at a moving target was not part of my choices, so I dodged quickly to my right. The swinging acrobat smacked the cliff with his feet, missing my chest by only a hair.
I landed on my back on the soft moss, keeping both hands firmly on my pistol and aiming it in his general direction. I managed to fire two rounds, hoping to at least frighten him. With his feet still planted on the cliff face, he kicked backward, swinging out and retracting the cables somehow into his arms. Although he was still moving quickly, I was able to get a bead on him and just as I was about to fire, thunder erupted.
Two bolts of lightning slammed into the shadowy figure, viscously knocking the man forward and into the cliff face. What I didn’t expect was for the man’s clothing to continue crackling and sizzling with webs of electricity dancing about. The man recovered impos
sibly from the hit, never falling to the ground. He turned around slowly, facing the tree where Braxton had previously been hiding. His clothing continued to cater to the electricity dancing around it.
“Mystic?” the shadowy figure shouted, “Whose side are you on, Mystic?”
I now had his head lined up in my sights, but I wasn’t sure if I should shoot or not. The man was no longer attacking and appeared to want to talk to Braxton. Braxton wasn’t replying though.
“Mystic?” the figure shouted again, this time releasing the electricity through his fists, blasting two holes in the ground near his own feet, “Earth or Legacy, Mystic?”
“Legacy and the Foothold,” Braxton hollered.
“Then it looks like we’ve mistaken each other as enemies,” he said, tugging a hood from his head and revealing a thick shock of brown hair beneath, “We thought your pod was from the Constellation since these mountains have been the focus of their most recent attacks.”
I still had his curly-haired head lined up in my sights with my finger firmly on the trigger. To my shock, Braxton appeared from behind the tree with his hands on his head – a symbol of Mystic surrender or peace. The man in my sights smiled and placed his own hands on his head as Braxton approached.
“Brother,” the man said, “I am Tristan of the USSC. I apologize for my attack.”
“I am Braxton and the lovely woman with your head in her sights is my associate Diana. We are the last surviving members of the Foothold,” Braxton said with a subtle laugh, “It’s okay Diana.”
Tristan turned to me and smiled as I lowered my weapon and sat up.
“I do apologize for nearly pummeling you,” Tristan said, “But honestly, we thought the only people left in orbit were enemies.”
“I think that’s what the crew of the Constellation thought too,” I said, rising from the ground, “And thanks to that belief, the Constellation is pretty much destroyed at this moment.”
He raised his eyebrows, turning to Braxton for confirmation. Braxton nodded, then walked over and put an arm around me.
“She plotted out an attack on their ship for a couple six-lunes while they thought the Foothold was empty. She destroyed their forward shuttle bay then destroyed the whole aft portion of the ship including the aft shuttle bay and the engines,” Braxton said, making me feel a little proud of myself.
“You’re telling me that these guys have no more support from above?” he asked; his face a mask of complete disbelief.
“Zero,” I replied with a grin, “And they can’t return to Earth for reinforcements, so the way I see it, either they will all die in battle, or they will need to find a way to survive in peace. No matter how they look at it, they are all stuck forever on Legacy.”
“Wow, if only we could relay the message to everyone on the planet. I’ll bet they’d rethink their motives real quick once they knew they were stuck here,” Tristan said, approaching the escape pod and peeking in.
We watched him as he satisfied his curiosity with our escape pod. Afterward, he glanced outward across the plains far beneath us for a moment.
“Even with the loss of the Constellation, I’m not quite sure we can hold off our position on this mountain much longer. They’re powerful and their plasma rifles cut right through our Mystic suits,” Tristan said, shaking his head, “But we’d sure like to have your assistance if you’re willing to help us.”
I shrugged, figuring I was coming down here to fight anyway. Braxton nodded, then asked the question I had in my mind all along.
“We’ll help any way we can. But why are we so concerned about defending a haunted mountain range?”
16th Luna – Growing Season – 1017
I don’t think we can stand a chance against these people. I’ve come to the conclusion that we are part of Legacy and everyone else who arrives is part of Earth. There are only two factions and both are enemies. It’s not USSC. It’s not ASA. We are either Earth or Legacy and the people of Foothold are Legacy.
I’m not sure we can manage against the forces of Earth. I’m not sure Legacy will survive. I’m sorry.
16
Braxton
Blaze Continent
Tristan was silent for the most part as we made our way down the mountainside. Although the Foothold has been maintaining a presence in these mountains for many harvests, they didn’t seem to move around enough to clear any paths through the forested cliffs. We managed though for quite a while before we came across a Constellation camp.
“We can’t get past them,” Tristan whispered, peering through the bushes near the edge of the small cliff, “And we can’t afford to leave them alive. They’re too close.”
I had crawled along the grass, settling in next to him. I watched the people below us, moving around between their tents, completely unaware of the people watching from above.
“But there’s got to be fifty of them and only three of us,” I whispered.
He shook his head, pointing toward another tent on the far side of the camp.
“No, you’re forgetting the officer’s quarters. There’s probably seventy or eighty of them,” he replied as though he were offering me consolation.
“And still three of us,” I reiterated.
“No, you have two ion pistols,” he replied, creeping slowly backward from the bush, “That gives us at least a twenty-person advantage.”
By the time we moved a hundred paces back from the camp, Tristan had explained the plan to me. We then relayed the plan to Diana who happened to have the worst duty of all. Her job was to be the decoy, drawing the attention and the gunfire of the whole camp. We didn’t even finish explaining all the details of the plan before Diana agreed completely. I think this was the first time I was truly mad at her.
. . .
The camp was silent for the most part. We could hear the random conversations of people sitting down for dinner. There was the sound of pots clanging together as people cleaned dishes in the kitchen tent. It was just a normal evening in the camp of the enemy. Unfortunately for them, they had no idea that there were people who had been hiding out, waiting for this particular dinner.
On the southeastern cliff, hidden beneath the high weeds near a caspernutter tree was an invisible gunman. About ten paces to the west was another gunman buried in a crack between two large boulders. This particular gunman was a real. At the precise time we had agreed upon, the real gunman, Diana, fired several rounds from her ion pistol. She had aimed these rounds at specific targets, dropping two sentries and one man who was simply out for a quiet stroll.
This, of course, rattled the whole camp. By the time they reacted to the attack, the camp had already found itself the target of several snipers on the southeastern cliff. One sniper was actually shooting randomly, hitting nothing in particular. It made sense being that the sniper in the weeds was just a lonely ion pistol with its trigger attached to a string. The other end of the string was tied to Diana’s finger.
Diana took down two more targets from her vantage point beyond the boulders before she retreated and started firing from other preplanned vantage points. All the while, she continued making the sniper in the weeds fire at the camp. I had to admit that it truly looked like the camp was under attack by several people on the southeastern cliff.
I felt a fearful tingle build up inside as I realized it was our cue. The whole camp was now focused on Diana and those imaginary snipers – the opposite side from where Tristan and I were hiding. Tristan, with his weird acrobatic cables, looked down at me from the tree above. He nodded, letting me know that this was the point of no return. There was no option for failure. Just then, he swung down. I turned to the camp and spread my arms wide. Tristan from above and me from below – we let loose with a thunderstorm like no one had ever seen on Legacy.
37th Luna – Growing Season – 1017
The shuttle is almost ready. We’ve loaded it with enough supplies to sustain the twenty-person crew for the journey and hopefully for quite a while once they
arrive on Earth. We’ve been assured that the Jump Drive is safe for a one-way trip, though it still may need to be jettisoned after it serves its purpose.
If our people got everything right, the Jump Drive will land our shuttle in our solar system at a point in the past, but not as far back as the 900+ years that Relativity demands. I won’t explain the details here because I personally don’t understand all the alterations or the mathematical formulas I was presented with.
Now the only thing we need to do is hold off our position here long enough to get that shuttle back home. I don’t know what~
There’s a thunderstorm rumbling outside and that can only mean one thing when the skies are clear…
17
Diana
Blaze Continent
I peeked out from my vantage point behind the pinnut tree when the thunder erupted. The camp below me had been equally as confused by the frightening rumble of thunder erupting behind them. They barely had time to turn around before lightning crashed into them from the flying Tristan and the running Braxton.
I was stunned into silent submission as I watched the impossible acrobatics of Tristan. The lightning shot forth literally from his whole body as he flew forward on his crazy wrist cables. Then when he reached the pinnacle of his swinging arc, the cables retracted, leaving him as a tumbling ball of electricity in the air. When he landed on his feet several paces in front of Braxton, a loud explosion of electricity blasted outward from his body in all directions.
He and Braxton must have conspired prior to their attack, because Braxton leapt over the circular wave of lightning, allowing the wave to continue outward. Everyone in the camp was hit by this blast, electrocuting people both outside and inside their flaming tents.
The Mystic Saga Omnibus (Books 1 - 5) Page 18