by Pam Uphoff
"Captain, we are operating with a great deal of autonomy here, and you would be well advised to not act in an insubordinate manner." Soeder grabbed his temper and throttled it down.
"General. I suggest we go view the damage to the missiles and launchers and you consider the advisability of autonomously abandoning civilized behavior and breaking the law."
Soeder gritted his teeth. Had he just been threatened with arrest? A little voice back in his head said the Captain was on stronger legal grounds than he was. Bloody Hell. He'd better think this over while he checked out the sabotage.
***
With light warped around him, Xen followed the bristling officers to their gyp, taking mental notes. Then he traveled to the site of the sabotage. The two officers spoke little as they observed the twisted and buried launchers, and the missiles being carefully checked by the techs.
Xen limped along behind them. His leg bones ached and he felt like he was waddling.
"At least the warheads are undamaged. I'm glad we didn't rush to mount them." The General's eyes flicked toward the Gate Camp. He turned away and walked back to the gyp.
The Captain followed. "Yes, we can always deliver them by gyp." He snorted sarcastically.
"It may come to that. However, I think for now we'll stick to conventional warfare." the General glared at the Captain. "You are correct that we should obey the laws of warfare. Which means we should be thinking in terms of capturing territory. This Farofo, that you said was the nearest Western town. Tell me about it."
"Civilian population, a hundred thousand. There is a large fort there . . . "
The gyp sped off and Xen traveled to the corridor now inside the Gate Camp and walked through the corridors to the border camp.
"Okay, the launchers and missiles are all trashed." He told the 'strike team' of his father and two of the King's engineering brigade's demolitions experts. "They considered firing something called 'The Jupiter's big cannon' into Verona. It has a range of twelve hundred kilometers. Captain Orobona talked the General into some semblance of common sense, and they were talking about attacking Farofo when they drove off. I'll try and pick them up again, see what they decided."
He peeled off his notes, so far, and handed them to the private in charge of transcribing them, making copies for all the people who most needed the information. He double checked all of his attached bubbles, full of gadgets, food and water, horses and dogs.
"Unless they get the invasion underway, I'll stay out a couple of days. Maybe send reports back through Easterly."
His father nodded. "Quicksilver is experimenting with the gate, every time they open it. She won't try to seriously disrupt it until they start bringing in significant numbers of troops."
Xen stepped back through the corridor, and then traveled to the Palace again. No sign of General Soeder or Captain Orobona yet. He circulated, getting into the wing of the Palace the Earthers had reserved for their own uses. He listened to the conversations, heard the worry and distress. It's as bad as One World! Perfectly nice people carrying out vile orders.
He met up with Easterly, and they swapped critical news. Then Xen settled down to keep an eye on the gate, while Easterly returned to the border camp to report and sleep.
Then it's time to go be all diplomatic to this World Council Thing.
Chapter Nineteen
3 June 3412 ce
Late Spring 1395 px
The Hague, Earth
Xen rode the back of a gyp through the Earthers' gate.
It looked like an electric tornado laid out flat and hurt like all bloody hell. Ow, ow, friggin . . . I much prefer my own gates!
He stuck a bubble to the gyp, and pulled it out into a corridor as he jumped off at the first corner. He looked back at the gate, up at the buildings . . . Fortunately they had enough fancy work around the corners that he could climb up to a third floor ledge and edge back until he had direct sight of the gate mechanism, a big upright slab with an open arch for vehicles on the front side. The back was a solid wall. Steel. Armored.
That's going to be really hard to damage.
He closed his eyes, softened his shields . . . and sucked in his breath. The power! How fast is that thing rotating? And how far away can I get and still tap it? Because things could get energetic if I destabilized it. He looked around, and decided vertical would be the best direction to go. Six floors up, the power was starting to taper off. He pinned the corridor, and opened it just enough to eel in. And put his strongest illusion over it. He stepped through and grabbed the bar of the gyp. It was driving fast along a flat road. There were a few side roads, a few building complexes, every one of them fenced and guarded. How many enemies do these people have?
They finally slowed, and turned to the left. The military base was fortified, defensible and really not what he needed. He plucked off the corridor and dropped off the gyp when they stopped at a gate. He walked across the road and a few miles out into a barren, salty, sandy waste. The land wasn't completely flat. A broad declivity dropped enough to hide him from casual notice He sat and molded the rocks carefully, not wanting to show fresh surfaces that might be visible from above. He raised a lump on the slope and under cut it a bit. On the south end of the undercut, he attached the corridor. Then he sat cross-legged before the north side. Slipped into a meditative trance, looking deep into the electric fizzing blue of the other dimensions, bubbles, tiny from this perspective, fizzed past like carbonation in one of his Dad's old drinks. He looked closer. He needed a spinning top . . .
A blast of brilliant oranges and reds. A writhing twister of power reached out and out . . . to a blinking light on a crumpled paper of another world . . . the twister attached . . . then released, not so much drawing back as fading, cooling, passing off all that power to the in-between.
Well. The Earth's gate even more impressive from the outside.
Xen recentered his attention on the bubbles. The few that were close . . . Does the Earth gate repel them? Destroy them? And what the hell do I do if I can't find a top?
But with the gate gone, the bubbles flooded back through, and Xen spotted a fast spinning top. He grabbed a bubble and bumped the top until it was slow enough to handle, and let it attach right in front of him. Then he waited through three more Earth gate attachments before he spotted movement, and grabbed the tail of his top to stretch it out to meet the tail of Q's top.
She stepped through as he stood up. "OK. Now we just need to find this 'World Council' of theirs and talk to them."
Xen nodded. "I'd call it a waste of time, but I need to establish some recognition points anyway, so I might as well talk to them. Then I can teleport in . . . and do anything we need."
"Right. So, lets see about locating the nearest airport."
"Do you think we can get on one with light warps?"
She eyed him severely. "No. But if we get most of the way inside a bubble we can finger walk onto one, or stick ourselves on a legitimate passenger and get toted around."
"Oh. Right. That would work."
"It's useful for getting past checkpoints, and even on the One world they couldn't detect it."
Xen snorted. "Don't tell me you walked all over their Gate City!"
"Of course I did. And I have some excellent recognition points there. And Corridors." She glanced toward the Earth Gate. "Poor fools don't realize what we can—and will—do."
***
"I am Xeno Time of the Department of Interdimensional Security and Cooperation. Having recently been informed of cross-dimensional hostilities in this branch of the Multiverse, I have been assigned to act as Ambassador External to attempt to peacefully resolve the conflict between the multi-dimension membrane known generally as 'Earth' and the multi-dimensional membrane here-after referred to as 'Comet Fall.' Do you know the world of which I am speaking? Not one of your previous conquests—that situation will be addressed separately." Xen eyed the Council of the World as their guards surrounded him and tried to get through his shield
. He had startled them, but they looked more irritated than frightened.
"Who are you! How dare you trespass on this closed meeting!"
Q, invisible, was dealing with the doors, keeping these people in and more guards out.
Xen eyed the speaker. "How dare you invade another world. How dare you kill people on a whim. This is your only warning. Now that you have been brought to our attention, we will stop you. The Coalition of Worlds does not allow cross dimensional war."
"What coalition? If you subject worlds think you can play games and push us around, you are going to find that you are wrong. We have the largest and most advanced army in the multiverse, and we will use it."
"I have not yet looked into your 'subject worlds.' Right now I am attempting to stop an invasion. Have you no shame?"
Judging by the uproar, none at all.
They spent a day picking up additional recognition points in several areas, then returned home.
Xen spent a couple of hours cursing while he got his legs and ears back to normal.
Chapter Twenty
6 June 3512 ce
Late Spring 1395 px
Fascia, Auralia, Comet Fall
Xen prowled the Amma's Palace, invisible and silent. Only the public spaces managed to look like an Auralian Palace. The rest of the place was quite definitely United Earth Army HQ. They'd even moved the families out and were using their former homes for offices. The harems were now barracks.
He recognized a few of the officers. Devvy Tripp had spent a couple of years in Karista as "The Ambassador's daughter." Solti Jaime, who'd pretended to be the Amma's son, had been pretty popular with the young ladies. An untrained mage with leaking, instinctive shields. There'd been a "younger brother" as well. Xen hadn't even met him, but someone had mentioned him. Rather cattily. "Must be a half brother, or maybe their mother escaped the harem for a night. That gorgeous blonde hair!" Jaime Lillian—or whatever his real name was—was now sporting a uniform with the tag "Felis, J." on it.
He prowled on, listening.
There were a few snappy, angry confrontations. Most of the troops who'd been here for twenty years didn't like seeing their wives reduced to 'Natives', their children written off as half breeds.
The few who hadn't adapted to their home of twenty years were trying to talk the others around, ". . . fine five years ago, but now we're back in touch. Now we're really on top, we don't have to pretend to be Natives, don't have to pretend the whores are our wives."
That nearly started a fight.
"You've gone native. Jesus Christ." The man walked out, and Xen followed him as he spread discontent.
Xen dropped a few muttered comments into groups, where he was unlikely to be detected. Just an occasional low growl, "They'd better not treat my daughter like that!" or "I'm not leaving my wife."
General Soeder had a big suite. Office, secretary with his own office, a meeting room . . . Xen perched himself up on a nice solid credenza and listened in to yet another briefing.
New orders from the United Earth Council, more active acquisition of information, looking specifically for evidence of this "Coalition of Worlds" and the "Department of Interdimensional Security and Cooperation." Good luck, suckers! I'll have to think about how best to drop some 'evidence' where you can find it.
"In short, they're slowing down the active phase." The general's teeth showed in something not very like a smile.
"And now we don't even have an embassy to pick up gossip." Several heads turned toward Captain Orobona.
Orobona—the man must have played Amma for twenty years—shrugged. "Not that that ever did us any good. They don't talk about their tech. They just say 'magic.' I have some people infiltrating the so-called magic community, and we're ready to send in some 'tourists,' probably through Verona, to get a look at a remote area the moles have identified as the home of a lot of 'magicians' and another spot that is their gate tech test area. They said there were eight gates there. The Oners attacked them through one, and the 'wizards' closed that one, after the battle."
The general leaned forward. "I wasn't aware that the Oners' attack was through one of these new gates. How certain is this mole?"
Orobona hesitated. "I believe he witnessed the battle."
"Get him down here. I want to talk to him."
"Yes sir. Shall I send a helicopter? Otherwise it'll take at least two months."
"Send a chopper."
Xen winced. Damien Malder's cover is going to suffer badly from this.
***
"He said they sounded gung ho and aggressive." Stave looked away. "He said he was going to have to be especially discreet about talking to me or my mother."
Rufi growled and drummed fingers on the desk. "I've got observers down there. The Fascians have been good neighbors and a good government for twenty years. We periodically check on their scientists and astronomers—although most of them moved to Fascia. Very useful stuff Lefty has been picking up. If we're lucky they'll go back home. If we're extremely lucky we can get some friendly trade going."
"That sounds . . . dangerously optimistic."
Rufi shook his head. "The transdimensional gates are an absolute choke point. They've got what they call a gate anchor and the Oners call a beacon. If we destroy it, they will have trouble even finding us again. So we're playing a waiting game. I'm afraid that at some point they will, once again, give us reason to cut them off. But I'm not going to start a war until then."
"Oh. I . . . hadn't thought of there being advantages to letting them stay."
"Yes, well . . . As for Malder, use your discretion. Pass on anything he 'casually mentions,' when he gets back. Frankly he's so integrated into our society, and basically an honorable man . . . It's his virtues, his loyalty to his home, even after all these years of separation that make him both an enemy, and friend. If we twist Malder's arm, he'll have to choose. At this point, I think we'll get all the pertinent information, and no serious opposition. So, no arm twisting until we have to."
Prince Staven blew out a worried breath. "I hope they'll let him come back."
***
Sergeant Damien Malder was not a happy man. They'd managed to rendezvous with the chopper far enough out of town, at midnight, so even if people had seen it, they wouldn't have seen enough to recognize him.
Max and the wagon team, on the other hand, would be seen in the area, and might be connected to the odd occurrences. Everyone they knew was suddenly at risk. Not from the local government. They'd been playing "I'm pretending that I don't know that you know that I know" for decades. But rumors reaching the Oners could be disastrous. And we probably won't realize it until the house is burning down around our ears.
The chopper crew were unknown to him, young kids. Briefed well enough to address him as "Sergeant" but not chatty. Thankfully. He'd done all the thinking he was capable of, already, so he looked out the miniscule window, remembering again the joy of flying effortlessly over huge distances.
Much darker here, than flying on Earth. An occasional spot bright enough to be detected. Then the big sprawl of Havwee, gold and red with oil lamps off to their left. And then Farofo, ditto.
Then nothing but darkness and the rare gleam of moonlight on water until the blue-white bloom of electrical lighting that marked the Earth's military base appeared ahead.
The sun was just peeking above the horizon as they landed.
He was met by a green private of tender years, for a quick drive into Fascia proper. His young guide delivered him to barracks that looked like they'd started life as a harem—and probably had. The corporal there was clearly also expecting him.
He pointed up the stairs with a key, then handed it to Damien. "Room 232 is yours, you'll find a uniform the size that was in your file." He eyed Damien's figure, fit despite the graying hair, and nodded. "Breakfast at six hundred hours, the General is expecting you at seven hundred hours."
Damien rubbed his nose. "Umm, so what time is it right now?" And why didn't I
sleep in the chopper?
"Oh four thirty, Sergeant."
"Showers?"
"The most decadent baths in several worlds are down at the far end of the hall."
"Thank you, Corporal."
Nodding off and nearly drowning in a huge tub of hot water woke him up tolerably, the uniform fit as well as any uniform ever did, and he walked down to the joys of an Army mess.
At seven hundred hours he was front and center with General Soeder.
He had managed to place three cams at the battle at Crossroads. The one under the seat of the wagon had only picked up a slice to the west of the Tavern, where the youngest of the witches from Ash had held shields. The mini cam high on the post by the tavern door had captured half the medical triage and a large empty spot that had people and horses teleporting into regularly. It was the cam he'd gotten onto the roof that was the real eye-opener.
Pity I hadn't had a sniper rifle. He didn't say that aloud.
The general fetched in more people and he went through it all again. And again.
"Yes, they really do appear to teleport in and out. Please note that while they come and go irregularly all over the battlefield, that could just as easily be a matter of some sort of cloaking device. Active camouflage, or whatever. But you can see that this empty area they come and go from is surrounded by people and equipment. That rider on the big horse did not walk up invisibly then turn off a cloak. So perimeter defenses, while necessary, are going to be permeable." He winced inside at the disbelieving looks. "And then the force fields. The few times the Oners got through, it required mass firing of both standard and laser weaponry, while the foot soldiers rushed their line. I suspect that if they'd gotten any heavy vehicles through, the Natives would have been overrun." He cringed. Dammit, dammit, God fuck this! Can't we just leave these people alone?