So, it’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen, Gemini thought. I swore an oath at the Academy to maintain the Preservation Act, and that’s what I should do. Even if it means risking everything I’ve worked for.
“Because sometimes the hard road is the right road,” she said aloud, repeating one of her mother’s favourite sayings so often quoted by her father. She leaned back from the balcony and glanced behind her to Hanaway’s office. She just hoped she wouldn’t use up the last of her nine lives in the process.
NINE
1
As Skreet eased back on the steering console, he let the research vessel drift toward the checkpoint. So far so good. Skreet had already issued the RV’s ID, but the real test was to come. For beyond the checkpoint lay the gargantuan, interlocking belt-like structure of the Border Gates and their entrance to the Dragon Planet. Blake glanced at a viewing pane and saw Maddox and Nyara arrive at the airlock. On another pane and in another part of the ship he also saw Uldo Rorg and Cid laden with bags heading toward the back of the ship. They were presumably off to the hold to store the weapons. Blake fingered the arm of his chair nervously. It would all come down to this. If Maddox’s confidence in passing through the Border Gates was unjustified, and he hadn’t been able to circumnavigate the tracker, the whole enterprise would be stopped in its tracks before it began.
Yeah, which would swiftly be followed by hours of questioning in a Ranger Patrol psyche locker, before being offered a one-way ticket to Icefall Prison on Zaam.
“Almost there.” Skreet betrayed a faint note of disquiet in his voice. The vessel slid into a checkpoint berth and shunted up against the checkpoint’s docking stations where it locked into position. The ship shuddered slightly as it was captured by the umbilical. Skreet snapped at some switches overhead to turn off the thrusters. Then, he looked across to Blake with his globe-like, green eyes, communicating wordlessly what his friend was doubtless thinking: No going back now.
Blake settled into his seat and dropped his eyes to the viewing panel again. There was a minute or so of waiting before the airlock swung open and both Maddox and Nyara stepped aside. Through the entrance, dressed in their stiff, green uniforms, came two Border Guards. Maddox acknowledged each with a friendly handshake. Then Blake watched as the two guards chatted with Maddox who seemed especially amiable and relaxed. He laughed and joked as he produced a palm screen that looked to Blake like an itinerary log. This would show the intended destinations during their tour. If the RV deviated from them, and they didn’t match up to the tracker when it was extracted by the guards upon return, they would be in a lot of trouble.
One of the Border Guards took the log, swiping it with a finger as a monocle over his left eye absorbed the information and filed it in the Patrol’s databases. His counterpart had wandered off the viewing panel with Nyara, presumably having a brief look around the ship to make sure there weren’t any obvious signs of trafficking. Then, once the log was stored, the guard gave the itinerary back to Maddox and he started up the steps, heading toward the cockpit.
Blake pushed the viewing panel aside. Now more than ever he needed a drink. A pulse in his neck ticked urgently. Footsteps were approaching the cockpit door. It swung open and the Border Guard stepped through.
“Good morning,” he said, ducking inside.
Maddox was loitering behind. “This is Officer Norvell, fellas. He’s here to fit the tracker.”
Norvell nodded, first flicking his eyes to Skreet, then landing them on Blake where they paused for a moment. Blake noticed Norvell had bio-mech contact implants fitted, tech that was probably produced on Genek IV where the Ranger Patrol had their HQ.
“Say…don’t I know you from somewhere?” the Border Guard said, those ice-blue eyes with the orange rims dilating slightly, the faintest of whirring accompanying the action.
Blake glanced over to Maddox whose expression tightened. The Border Guard’s eyes would most probably be linked to a stored database on the Border Gates systems.
Blake looked back to the guard. “Don’t believe so.”
“You sure?”
But Maddox quickly intervened: “Blake’s been running security detail across the Ryger Asteroid Fields. Been on Helion Prime for the last few months, protecting the Border Guard’s barracks from Phantom Cat attacks on the Range. You probably bumped into him in the mess hall.”
The Border Guard continued to study Blake for a second or two, his mechanical eyes whining and searching. But instead of questioning him further, he simply said—a little stiltedly, “Oh. Oh yeah. That’s probably it.”
Maddox went on, “Blake’s going to keep us safe while we carry out our soil analysis over on Gorm. Lots of hoop snake activity around there so close to The Contamination. He’s a crack shot.”
“Better safe than sorry, I guess.” The Border Guard took out of his pocket a two-pronged tracking device that he twisted to activate. Leaning over the console, he located the nav panel and slotted the tracker into its connection. The tracker flashed intermittently. “That should do it,” the guard said, giving another nod to Blake and Skreet.
“Excellent,” said Maddox. “Thanks for speeding things along, officer.”
“No problem.” And with another brief glance at Blake, the guard turned and headed out of the cockpit.
Blake watched on the viewing panel as Maddox and the two guards reconvened at the door. When the guards left the ship and the airlock was closed, a faintly metallic voice crackled through the ship’s com saying: “This is Southern Hemisphere Approach. Move up to the holding line, RV760. Transmit your permit codes before you reach the gate.”
Skreet dabbed at the display. “Will do, Approach,” he replied, before flicking at the switches over his head and engaging the thrusters. The research vessel teetered as it began to slide away from the docking port.
“Okay. Nice and easy,” Blake muttered as he considered the tracker, pulsing on the nav console. It had to be rigged in some way. How, he couldn’t be sure. But the reaction from the Border Guard when he seemed to recognise Blake—a distinct possibility, seeing as the guards rotated every standard week and his touring company had been at the border intermittently over the last few years—had been distinctly cagey. Otherwise, Blake would’ve been assailed with more questions.
By now they had begun to move off toward the great oval aperture that was the border gate. A massive dilating door made of dwarfish steel stood closed as their ship approached. Skreet had already begun to transmit the codes as they inched closer to the gate, making Blake begin to wonder if the permits that Maddox had secured were working. Usually, as soon as the codes were picked up by the Border Guard’s cipher-golems, whose silhouette Blake could just make out in its little windowed chamber at the top of the gate, the metal leaves would begin to fan aside.
They were forced to slow. The gate remained closed.
“Maybe they’ve changed the point system again,” Skreet muttered. They were crawling along.
Blake didn’t reply. His attention was fully fixed on the doors.
Come on now, he thought. You can do it. You can do it…
They were almost at the holding line. If they were forced to stop, there would be a problem. They would probably be boarded.
Except, right at the last moment, Blake saw the doors begin to open, the gigantic leaves unfolding like the petals of a flower.
“You’re clear to proceed, RV760,” came the cypher-golem’s voice through the com. “Please be mindful of all prohibitions of the Kharg-Rillion Covenants. Enjoy your trip.”
“Will do, Border Guard.”
Skreet closed the line.
Blake took a breath and sank back into his seat. They were through.
2
Maddox was making himself another drink when Blake stepped back into the communal sitting room. He was in a jolly mood. By contrast, Nyara looked pensive.
“See?” said Maddox. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“I’m impressed
,” said Blake. “I don’t know of anyone capable of forging border codes for Ilmaris.”
“Who said they were forged?” Maddox turned and deposited another drink in Blake’s hand.
“But how else…?”
“These are things of which you need not worry my friend. What’s important is we’re under way.”
“With a tampered tracker, no doubt.”
“It’s the only way we’re going to see our business through without any unwanted interference.”
“And that guard, he was working for you?”
“Temporarily. The Border Guard is under a lot of pressure these days, Blake. It’s not the vocation it once used to be. And with the elves becoming more and more vocal about disbanding the whole enterprise, people get worried for their security. Who knows if he’ll be in a job at all in the next few years?”
“Looks like you’ve thought of everything.”
“I just have a talent for finding the right resources for the right situation. And paying them well enough, of course.”
“Well, I hope it’ll be worth it.”
“It will be. For everyone. Isn’t that so, Nyara?”
But as Blake glanced at the elf again, he saw none of her uneasiness had subsided.
“Let’s see, shall we?” she murmured softly. “There’s a long way to go.”
3
As the RV descended toward the planet’s surface, Blake watched their progress through one of the portholes. The craft had already begun to rattle. Soon, they would be plunging through Terevell’s atmosphere and the void of space would soak away to be replaced by the fierce, heightened colours of the planet’s surface. Blake realised his breathing was shallow and his chest tight. The last time he had visited Terevell had only been five or six months ago. He had taken a small party of excited tourists from Miria to the Ilmarisian northlands, one of the few places any humans were permitted to set foot. But Blake hadn’t been back to Ilmaris since his hunting days, and it reminded him of dark, unhappy memories. He gulped down the last of the drink Maddox had given him, just enough to steady his nerves. Then he gathered himself, tearing his eyes away from the window. Putting the empty glass down, he stalked across the communal area and pushed through a heavy blast door.
A short corridor lay beyond. As he approached, the open door at the end of it, he could already hear the dwarf and Maddox talking loudly at each other over the thrum of the ship. Blake stepped over the lip of the entranceway and was instantly assailed by smells of oil and metal and fuel. He found himself on a walkway overlooking the hold. It was more or less empty, save for a rock buggy that was fastened by means of heavy chains to the floor. Maddox was shouldering a lightweight, long barrelled big game hunting rifle—known as a Beastmaster—over his heavy camo jacket. Next to him Uldo Rorg was looping a grenade belt around his waist. In contrast, Cid stood impassively at the back of the hold close to the hydraulics of the rear cargo door. The golem swivelled his one glowing eye up toward Blake as he entered. There was no sign of Nyara.
“Blake!” Maddox shouted as he spotted him. There was no internal shielding to soften the noise as the RV began its descent. “We’ll hit landfall in the next few minutes. Best suit up.”
Blake nodded and started down the steps. His bags had been laid out against a bench. He approached and began to busily organise his pack, stuffing it with the rations and the two flasks of whisky he had brought with him. Securing the jag rifle to the pack’s side, he then strapped the machete to his thigh and slung on a heavy-duty armoured vest. Once the wires of the force shield were secured about his arm, he headed to the steel case where he kept the aethyne lance.
Opening the case, Blake pulled the slim, wickedly pointed spear free—no longer than the length of his arm—and was instantly aware Uldo and Maddox were watching him. He ignored them as best he could, gripping the shaft between his fingers. The impressions he had once tooled to fit his own grip felt familiar in his hands, and he still marvelled at the lightness that made up the adamantine composite body. At the back end of the spear were two cloudy and idle sun stones. These would direct the necessary energy into the razor-sharp, cold iron spearhead that lent the weapon its true power. Once the lance was twisted and the stones began to glow, the heat that flowed through the length of the lance would react with the compressed gases imprisoned inside the cold iron. The spear tip would then be enveloped in its dark smoke and crackling black flames, honing its effectiveness. The dwarf had called it shadow fire for a reason. It was powerful enough to cut through most any surface.
Out of the corner of his eye, Blake realised he was still being appraised. It prompted him to slide the lance into its lead-lined brace loop across his back. Then he pushed to his feet, before taking in the viewing panel on the back wall of the hold. The tilt of the planet could now be seen in a broad, gleaming curve. They were about 40,000 feet now and dropping like a stone. In a few minutes they would reach the surface.
“Where’s Nyara?” he asked as Maddox came sauntering up, pulling on the heels of his gloves.
“She’ll be along soon enough.” Maddox’s interest was not in Blake, however, but on the screens. They had already sunk through the highest bands of clouds and the broad, brown continent of Mardea was spread out before them.
“Better hurry up, we’ll be landing soon.”
“Don’t worry. She’ll be ready.”
Blake grunted. The sooner he could get this thing over with, the better.
Then Maddox said, “You know, this must be strange for you, going back to your old hunting grounds after all this time.”
“Somewhat, yeah.”
“Good opportunity to lay a few ghosts to rest though, eh?”
Blake slid a glance toward Maddox. “Killing this dragon won’t make much difference to that,” he said, unable to keep the edge out of his voice.
“Hey. I didn’t mean anything by it. Nyara just told me this dragon…it has a more personal dimension for you. I would like to think that this little expedition can offer you some closure, that’s all.”
“I doubt it. Besides, the only thing I’m interested in is the money, Maddox. That’s the only reason I’m here.”
“Fair enough.”
And dropping his eyes from the screen, Blake went on to attend to the rest of his equipment, snatching up his ultra-beam shotgun from the duffel.
Which was when Nyara stepped into the hanger.
Blake turned when he heard the door clang shut and saw the elf slip down the steps, her soft, durable elven hiking boots barely making a sound. She was already wearing her camo-gear and sporting the weapons she had chosen for the expedition, with a wytchwood crossbow with armour-piercing, strike-tipped quarrels in several clips about her waist balanced on one shoulder to compliment the Spirit Blade she had strapped to her chest.
“We’re almost at landfall,” she said, pulling her hood up and over her head.
Blake looked to the screen again. Now he could see the landscape of Ilmaris unfolding below them, the twinkling expanse of the ocean receding from view. Skreet had levelled off the RV as they approached the border, and from the camera views underneath the fuselage, it was the first time Blake could see the formidable peaks of the White River Mountains. By now, Skreet would have deployed the spectral disruptors to disguise their passage through elven airspace and avoid detection by their simple tracking systems. Then, as the mountains began to shrink away in the distance, the towering majesty of the World Tree came into view.
Behind him, Blake heard Uldo whistle.
“So that’s it, is it?” he murmured. Now all eyes were on the viewing screens. “I never thought I’d live to see it.”
That had been Blake’s own reaction too once, a long time ago. He remembered gripping Kaylen’s hand on the armrest when the passenger lander had brought them into the wonder of Terevell for the first time. He had been so thrilled back then. Now, seeing the World Tree again only made him feel sick.
“How tall is that thing, do you re
ckon?” Uldo wondered.
“Three thousand two hundred standard feet.” It was Cid who had spoken, his grating metallic voice cutting through the creaks and rumbles of the hanger around them.
Uldo whistled again. “I hear even in the spring it has snow on its upper branches. And that’s where the Eagle Riders have their aviaries.”
Blake wasn’t so sure about the snow, but everyone had heard of the infamous elven Eagle Riders and their giant Ghost Eagles.
“Okay. That’s enough gawking people,” Maddox said as the World Tree slowly disappeared to the east. “We’ll be at the landing zone pretty soon.”
He was right. Blake saw them approach the edge of the Great Eastern Forest, a sprawl of greenery that seemed to go on forever. Skreet then applied the airbrakes and directional thrusters, reducing the RV’s speed and offering him more control. They had already descended to around a thousand feet now at a gentle low glide, swinging over the vast tract of wilderness near enough twenty times as big as anything on Earth. The faintly teal-tipped leaves of the huge blue oak trees below gave the whole forest a vibrant, unnatural sheen from the air. And the remembered familiarity was such a distraction to Blake as the RV began to bank toward the south, that he didn’t notice the two dark shapes falling out of the glare of the sun until they were almost on the craft. By then, it was too late.
The first impact rocked the ship so violently Blake almost lost the grip on his shotgun. Then came the screeching of alarms as the RV lurched and tried to right itself. There followed a second powerful concussion and Blake steadied himself against the wall.
“What the hell was that?” Maddox cried.
The RV dipped and everyone adjusted to keep their feet.
“Something just hit us!” Uldo exclaimed. “You think we’re being fired on?”
“No.” Blake threw the holster off his shotgun and started to run, managing to reach the rail before the RV rocked again. “That was something natural.”
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