A lifetime of memories threatened to overwhelm him. After his father’s death, losing Rodrom had almost taken Vincent out of the pilot seat. Only the small hope that he might still be alive had kept Vincent from breaking down completely, and that same strength kept his mother and stepfather from giving up too. Now there was a chance he might bring Rodrom home, and finally take something from the war besides death and destruction.
Zombie sent the question across the net along with his resolve and adrenaline-fueled calm. Vincent’s turmoil mixed with Zombie's focus, and it became abundantly clear why the bionet connection was necessary. Before Vincent lost himself completely, he grasped on to Zombie’s calm and pushed the memories and emotions back.
Another voice cracked across his mind with the slight distortion Vincent recognized as coming from beyond the portal.
Vincent took a deep breath. He didn't need some paperpusher trying to pull him off the mission now. Gritting his teeth, he keyed the correct channel for voice communication; he wasn't going to use the bionet again unless it was absolutely necessarily.
"Medical, Reaper One. I must have a glitch in my programming. I am mission-capable, over."
There was a pause.
"Well, shoot," Vincent muttered. "Looks like I've lost external communications." As he spoke, he saw one of Rover's claws grip the side of his fighter as the little mechanic moved to fix the damage. Vincent couldn't stop Rover from reestablishing long-range contact—it was his primary purpose, after all. But if he didn't hear the orders for a short time, he couldn't well disobey them, could he?
His short-range radio had been miraculously spared in the unfortunate overload, and he keyed a local channel. "Duchess, Zombie, Reaper One. I'm alright, just had a momentary shock. I've temporarily lost communication with higher. We need to expedite the mission." Vincent was careful not to say anything that could be used against either wingman, should things go south. The Duchess was the most likely replacement if he were relieved, and Vincent knew if it came down to a choice...
the Duchess returned. When she spoke, Vincent realized it hadn't been her who had talked him down. She usually beat Zombie to the punch. When they touched down he would need to seriously evaluate how she was doing.
Vincent’s first reaction was to tell him what he’d told the medic—that it was just a fluke—but they both deserved a real answer. It was their fat in the fire.
"My brother was one of the captured scientists," Vincent said, preparing in his mind the next few maneuvers. He had to work fast before his coms were repaired.
Zombie's confusion was stark in the bionet connection.
"He's my step brother, Major Derek Rodrom. And he's down there somewhere."
Chapter 48
Rodrom
"Bring me the human!" Lorelei snapped from within a tree shelter, startling Rodrom out of his focus. He looked up from the patient he was treating to see two guards approaching him. Rodrom bent back down to finish packing the shrapnel wound, finishing just in time to be growled at by the guards.
"You two must be my nurses. Hold pressure here, would you?" Rodrom didn't deem it necessary to look up, both to cement the illusion that he could not understand them, and because he was genuinely irritated to have been interrupted.
"Come with us, ironblood," the first trilled, and when Rodrom made no move, reached down to grab his arm. Before the guard made contact, Rodrom pushed himself up and stepped away. Simply gripping a staff had been enough to burn images into his mind, and every time he touched a new patient it was like cranking up the volume on a radio in his mind.
"Calm yourself, Fluffy. I’m coming," Rodrom said, allowing the guards to lead him to the tree where Lorelei worked.
Rodrom bent to slip under the root entrance, and was greeted by the now-familiar sight of elven medicine being practiced. Alien as the Verdantun might be, Rodrom could tell the healers were worried.
He looked to Lorelei, and felt a sharp pang of regret and anguish. He had never seen such cracks in the mask she used when interacting with him, and with her beautiful features marred by what was so clearly pain, Rodrom was certain he would do anything she asked of him.
"They can't fix him," Lorelei said softly in English. "He's dying, DerekRodrom, and weavers aren't enough."
Rodrom stepped up beside her without prompting. The other healers in the chamber were too focused on their chants to notice him. Sprawled out on a raised root table in front of them was a Verdantun in the throes of agony; Rodrom quickly realized, to his horror, that the elf was trapped between transformations.
Like a malfunctioning hologram, the Verdantun was in a constant state of flux. In one moment a high-cheeked, amber-skinned face appeared, then in the next it morphed into the muzzle of a snarling bear . Fingers became paws, fur became skin, muscles enlarged, shrank, expanded, and twisted. At the center, like the eye of a hurricane, was a patch of unshifted, unchanging skin. The Verdantun's right breast, beneath which his heart beat.
"He was struck with one of the metal shards. It pierced his weaveroot. He cannot take a true form," Lorelei explained.
Rodrom looked down at the shifting elf in confusion. "Can it be removed?" he asked.
"No, DerekRodrom, his weaveroot is as much a part of him as yours is a part of you. He may have beast blood in his veins, but to remove it is to kill him."
"Not the weaveroot, the metal," he clarified, fully understanding for the first time that the alien tech growing inside him was not going anywhere.
"I... I know not," Lorelei stammered, her expression pained. "We do not cut, you know this. How could we remove anything?"
"You send these healers away and let me do my job," Rodrom said firmly, ignoring the dissonance in his mind that had been growing since he entered the chamber. Between the weavers, Lorelei, and the wounded soldier, it was almost too much: His weaveroot screamed in a symphony of pain and determination, drawn from the rhythms of those surrounding him.
"Yes," Lorelei whispered, shocking Rodrom more than the situation already had. She had never relented so easily before. Who was this soldier? Before he could ask, Lorelei raised her staff and her musical voice rang out clear: "Weavers, leave me, there are too many wounded this day. I will continue his healing. You are needed elsewhere."
As they always did, the Verdantun obeyed Lorelei's command without question or comment. They simply ceased their chant and moved from the tent without so much as a backwards glance. The thought that Lorelei was more than a simple camp healer was already planted in his mind; none of the others carried a weapon quite like hers, and they all snapped to attention like toy soldiers when she spoke.
"I will sing him into as deep a slumber as I can manage." Lorelei planted her staff and slid her hands up to the sides of the soldiers face. There was a change in his biorhythm as she did. "You must remove the metal from him. I know you have created tools from discarded weapons. Please."
Rodrom did not think to question her. He simply dropped to his knees beside the soldier and opened the hidden compartment in his bag, bringing forth the glass scalpels he had made from a stolen knife.
Lorelei saw the blade and nodded once, then sang a song so hauntingly beautiful it rocked Rodrom back on his heels for a moment. His training reminded him again and again that this wasn't his crisis, but to hear such raw emotion mixed with the power of the weaveroot… It was too much to ignore.
Lorelei stopped singing for a moment and
stared at Rodrom. "Of course, you are so new to its songs. How could you concentrate?"
From one of the plants that grew along her arm, she pulled out what looked to be a large seed. Cupping her hands around it, she sang a strangely uplifting and quick set of notes. Vines pushed out from between her fingers, twisting up and around her arms. When they grew to almost her elbows, she stopped, and opened her palm to show that the seed had grown in size and shape. It was a rough four-pointed star, with vines twisting around each point and then out in two strands. In the center was an unshaped green gemstone. She handed it to Rodrom.
"Take this and place it around your neck. It will temporarily block out the life song of those around you. So you can concentrate."
Rodrom grasped the pendant and took hold of the two vines. He reached up to tie them around his neck, where they came alive under his touch and weaved into a circle, leaving the pendant hanging just low enough to hide beneath his shirt. He looked up and breathed a sigh of relief. He had not appreciated how much he enjoyed silence until the music ended.
As Lorelei looked on, Rodrom gritted his teeth. "Today, we work miracles," he said, and pressed his glass scalpel into the shifting alien’s flesh.
Chapter 49
Johnston
Johnston stared at the monitor in disbelief. He was no stranger to what lay beyond the portals, but at least those things made a bizarre sort of sense. They had an order about them. Fire elementals defied the laws of nature, but they did what you expected fire to do. Burned things. Elves turned into monsters, shaped trees, and did other druidic things. Dragons, Ogres, and Goblins destroyed everything in their path.
He had never seen the kind of power that came out of the shuttle, and even his Psykin was beyond terrified.
At first it had seemed that the crew of the shuttle had thrown a girl to her death, and he had watched in a mixture of confusion and horror as she tumbled to the planet below. Then the sky split apart and the girl fractured into an untold number of lighting bolts, all directed at the shuttle.
From his bridge, he controlled the half-kilometer-long gunship and all her fighters. He should never have felt powerless, and yet, in that split-second, he could do nothing but watch as the girl split, arced, and flashed towards the civilians. It seemed he had finally found the source of the problems that had plagued his ship.
But the shuttle was not destroyed by the lightning as he had expected. Instead, the girl reformed on the hull, clinging to the emergency railing, looking like nothing more than a civilian in horrible danger.
"What the bloody hell are we looking at?" Johnston demanded.
For once, he was met with blank stares. No one on the bridge so much as breathed.
"We must have something on record. Some rumor, some idea of what we are dealing with. She must be some kind of elemental that can control electricity." The more he spoke, the more he convinced himself that this must be the case. It was something he had seen before, could wrap his head around, and could blow out of the sky.
The girl shattered into light once again, hitting the forward edge of the wing and bouncing along like a rag doll. Then she was falling again.
Perhaps the creature would destroy itself?
It would never be that easy. As the thing tumbled off the wing and fell, the sparkling blue electricity died away, only to be replaced with the glow of flames. Billowing fire shot out of the girl—so bright that Johnston had to glance away from the screen—and then she was gone. A phoenix glowed in her place. Wings of flame twisted and wreathed around an impossibly bright center as the creature rolled out of its fall and shot back toward the shuttle.
Fleet intelligence listed enough about elemental magic to tell Johnston that what he was seeing was impossible. There had never been a record of a humanoid breaking apart to become energy. Arm themselves with it? Constantly. Create armor from it? Easily. But never had a person become the element, and certainly not two different ones.
"Tactical, I want you to blow that monster out of the sky."
"Aye, sir."
When it rains it pours, Johnston thought. And he would rain down everything he had on whatever fresh new hell the enemy had created.
Chapter 50
The Exile
A wave of positive emotions crashed against Exile's Web as her platoon advanced on the enemy. With the tide of battle changing to favor the Terran forces, the regular infantry surged forward along with the Condemned, their resolve as explosive as the missiles that cleared their path. With the Condemned at the head, a spear of determined soldiers left the safety of their hardened buildings to assault the jungle beyond. From behind her, Exile felt as well as heard the clatter and rumble of engines as more tanks streamed in from the portal to reinforce the advance.
All of the men on the field were visible in her mind's tactical map, so Exile knew that even with the reinforcements, the Reapers in the air were paramount to the success of their extraction of the scientists. Despite their resolve and apparent skill in combat, even the Condemned had their limits, and they were still vastly outnumbered.
The intel the Condemned had gleaned from their advances into the jungle had estimated the camp to be due west from their position, although they had not gotten a chance to see it. With the Reapers flying overhead, they would spot it before the ground forces went too far off course.
Exile opened herself fully to her Web as she kept pace beside Killswitch, this time broadening her view to the entire battle, and took stock of the advance.
Roughly three battalions of regular infantry were moving to forward fighting positions, leaving some five battalions’ worth behind. Four thousand men had been injured or killed in defending the portal. That left Exile with fifteen specialists, twenty-five hundred regular infantry, and twenty-eight functioning tanks to assault an unknown greater number of elves. No easy feat, but she did not waste energy on contemplating failure. She simply couldn't accept that outcome.
As she ducked through a blast hole in the dome and into the alley beyond, she allowed the positions of the other troops to intermingle with her normal vision. As she did, the lights of individual consciousness sparked into view. Her platoon of specialists had experienced enough difficulty with their coms, and she did not believe the others would fare better, so she took matters into her own hand. Using her Web, she pushed a gentle suggestion into the minds of the tank commanders.
Their minds flared in her Web as the suggestion took hold, and before her own men moved more than two hundred meters down the rubble-strewn path, the tanks had kicked into high gear and pushed to the front of the charge. Someone on the far side of the portal had had enough sense to equip half the tanks with bulldozer attachments, and those fourteen tanks moved to the front, slamming into the overgrowth around the facility to begin clearing paths for the men behind.
As if on cue, as the tanks reached the tree line, three of the Reapers broke free of the fighting above and strafed the jungle, each letting loose a string of bombs and peppering the trees with plasma fire. A series of muffled explosions erupted seconds after as the miniature bombs tore apart foliage and overgrowth, as well as any elves who had been caught in the line of fire. With the Reapers’ help, the tanks’ advance into the jungle went from next to impossible to merely difficult.
Exile reached out for Killswitch.
Killswitch grunted. "I realize that, ma’am, but even with the bombs and those dozers, it'll still be slow-going."
Killswitch's only reply was a flash of irritation, then as their path took them close to the tanks, he said, "My men's AMI units don't have a lot of range, and with coms down, you're our best source of communication. Can't you link us together like some kind of telepath radio?"
AMI units’ range, but she didn't have time to explain that, or give him the technical knowledge to fix it.
"Last nymph I worked with could," Killswitch muttered. "Alright, well, you're in charge anyhow. Best start giving orders."
They reached the rearmost tank, and Killswitch crouched behind it. Without waiting for a reply from her, he leaned out past the treds and peered into the jungle beyond. He pulled himself back just as two spikes whistled past.
Pushing down her annoyance, Exile reached out to the rest of the platoon, all of whom where adopting positions similar to Killswitch.
As she did, she sent another suggestion to the commanders of the foot soldiers, urging them into the jungle beyond. Many of them would die in the close quarters, but she pushed anyway, with the quiet hope that they would not all perish. And if they did, she would still climb over their corpses to ensure her mission was completed.
Part 5
Chapter 51
Ele
Fire poured from Ele being like a river, forming into wings that pushed her through the air. The shuttle was her target; she could see the people inside. Gone were the colors of the sky and ship. She saw only the glow of the engines—only that which was like her.
Her thoughts were sluggish. It was difficult to remember why she needed to destroy the bright spots. She knew she was angry, and they were the reason why. Her fire pushed her through the sky. When she got close enough it would immolate them.
She never got the chance. Though she had no real body, when the round slammed into the center of her blaze, it still felt like she’d hit a wall—a wall that had been launched from a cannon and had fallen from orbit. It hurt. A lot.
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