Like the fact they didn't have guards posted anywhere, as far as she could see. This was clearly a civilian compound, which meant she'd have almost no trouble sneaking around at night. Especially as an old friend of the cult leader's husband. Strangely, this place felt more like a monastery than a cult...Fox quirked her lips as she checked her access kit. It consisted of a lock-hacking device and a silenced pulse-gun that was set to stun. With any luck, she'd be in and out before anyone had noticed anything was missing. Hopefully the gun wouldn't be necessary tonight.
Time to move.
She took a deep breath, nodded and stepped out of the room they'd put her in for the night. She followed the network of hallways, recalling the layout from her files. There was a lot here. Too bad she didn't have time to explore more of it. Especially the area past where she was headed. It looked...interesting, but she was here to work, not explore.
Fox made her way down several flights of spiral stone stairways to what she knew was the basement. She wanted to do this quickly, but thrilled at the rush of getting her ninja on. Her pulse was elevated, but controlled as she stood at the heavy door to the cider cellar. Holding her breath, she silently pressed the cold iron latch and stepped inside.
By the dim light of a few oil lamps, she could make out few details. Straight ahead in the far wall was the hidden safe her files had described. Fox had to move a heavy keg of cider to get to it, and was breathing heavily by the time the lock was exposed enough for her to reach. It was an outdated mechanical device, and Fox hacked it in seconds. She was rewarded with a click as it popped open, and she smiled as she saw her prize. Inside was exactly what she'd been hoping to find. A beautiful meta-chip amulet. The precious memory gem resembled a flawless ruby pressure-set between the arms of an ornately fashioned golden omega. First-rate craftsmanship, she noted as she slipped it into her pocket.
There was a grunt behind her, and she snapped her head around to find the source. Deep in the shadows beside a large wooden keg Wendell sat hunched over, eyes half-open and swaying slightly. He saw her, sat up a bit, and waved.
“Hi, Eli.” He hiccupped, and wiped a trickle of cider from his mouth with his thick wrist. “This...isn't what it looks like.”
Fox stopped and tilted her head. “Which is what, exactly?”
“I'm not drunk,” he mumbled, and made to stand, but slipped instead, falling on his large rump with a grunt. He tried to get up, and then looked up at Fox. “Hey, why are you down here? What...what are you doing? You shouldn't be down here.”
Fox smiled, and said casually, “Rama wanted me to get some wine for him. What's his favorite?” She gestured at the casks around them, but Wendell shook his head.
“That...doesn't make sense,” he burped, and finally managed to stand up. “Rama...he doesn't drink.” He paused and wiped his eyes, looking closer at Fox. “What's going on? Why are you down here?” he asked again, getting antsy. She saw his feet starting to shift, and his hands twitched. Wendell spoke again. “I'm...just gonna go check with Rama, okay? I'm sure he'll know what's going on. He'll know.” The portly older monk tried to move around Fox, but he was too slow. Fox sighed, and put a hand on his chest to keep him from passing.
“Sorry.”
“Sorry?” Wendell asked, concerned. Fox nodded, blinking.
“Yeah. Can't have you telling anyone I was here.”
Wendell tried to remove Fox's hand, but Fox hadn't been drinking, and easily twisted Wendell's arm behind the soft man's back, eliciting a wince of pain from him.
“Wha...why are you doing this?” Wendell gasped. “What's going on?”
“I'm sorry, Wendell,” Fox whispered as she pulled her pulse-gun and pressed it into his kidney. “This won't hurt a bit,” she lied, and pulled the trigger.
“Don't touch that!” Eli shouted over the memory-music filling the cabin for their long voyage, almost wanting to yank his hair out as Rok pulled his hand back from another button. “You know what? Just...just go into the back, okay?” Rok coughed, and then whistled along with the song as he left the cockpit. “And don't touch anything else back there!” he yelled over his shoulder, exasperated. Eli groaned, dragging his palms over his eyes. “What have I gotten myself into?” he muttered as he considered how his life had been inexorably changed over the last two days.
They'd left the Garden Citadel for Altonas less than two hours ago, but the teenagers on board were driving him crazy. He briefly wondered if he'd been that difficult as a teenager, and could almost hear his parents laughing. He set his jaw and looked at the warp displays, confirming everything was still working. “Kids,” he muttered.
Oh, and apparently he was married now, too. Even though Kita was absolutely amazing, recent events were all moving a bit fast for his taste.
“Hey,” she said, slipping into the cushioned seat beside him with a grin. He tried to smile, but what came out was more of a nervous grimace. She swatted his arm playfully, and whispered. “Calm down. Hey, guess what?”
“Huh,” he mumbled absently.
“You're gonna to be a daddy!”
“What?”
“A sugar-daddy, maybe,” she laughed, raising an eyebrow. “Seriously, you were a lot more fun last night. Just relax,” she said, massaging his shoulders. “Here, let me help,” she teased, leaning in.
“You...you can't joke about that!” he sputtered, and she raised her hands, grinning. He blushed, eyes wide, and busied himself with the console. She grinned at him, and tossed her head back, sending her dark curls to the side, and settled into her chair. Her chair, he chuckled. That was fast. She was beautiful though, he had to admit. His pulse raced just seeing her there with her feet on the dashboard, toned legs on display as she stretched out. He took a quick breath as memories of last night flooded back, but kept his composure. He had to admit, she did have some amazing talents...
Eli’s focus snapped back to the warp readings. One of them looked strange. He gave the console a technical tap, and it corrected. He shook his head, concerned.
“Skippy?” he yelled, answered by a nervous little buzz. “You see that?” Skippy beeped affirmatively. “Well, what was it?” Skippy buzzed, apparently uncertain. “Well, check it out! I'd hate to get stuck out here in the middle of nowhere.” Another buzz.
They couldn't afford to be stranded, especially in the spectral storm. It was the one place a rescue vessel couldn't reach them. Reflexively, he checked the probe readings. Good, they were all properly calibrated and accounted for...but wait! The loader wasn't responsive! He tested a few other controls to see if he could fix it with a software tweak, but it refused to budge. “Skippy, I thought you did a maintenance check at the Citadel!”
Skippy gave an indignant beep of affirmation. “Well,” Eli said, “get down there and check it out anyway! If there's something we need to look at, we have to fix it before we blow right on past Altonas.” Skippy beeped affirmatively, and zipped down the vent shaft, a shortcut to the probes.
Kita was sitting up attentively and working at the co-console. She scrolled through menus like a pro, and got his attention to show him a reading on her screen. She flipped it over to him so he could take a closer look at it. “Check this out,” she said with excitement. “Is that what I think it is?”
Eli cursed, taking off his hat, but nodded. “Yep. Looks like someone did a hard hack on us.” He started blazing through the program interface to find a workaround, and Slowpoke groaned. Sounds like indigestion, Eli noted. That means I need to do this quick. His pulse racing, he kept looking for a way to reverse the damage to his system, but couldn't find the right solution. He gritted his teeth. There had to be something he could do!
“I think I found it!” Kita exclaimed, breathless, and copied another panel over to his console.
“Yeah,” Eli nodded with relief. “That would do it, all right.” He tapped his earbud. “Skippy, take care of that probe assembly, and double-time it. I need to do this right now.”
It looked like someone ha
d bugged the probe assembly during the restock at the Citadel to transmit their coordinates once they fell out of warp. Would have worked, too, except that someone else had triggered a cascading defrag sequence that had started to counteract it...but who would have had the opportunity to...that kid! What was his name?
“Rok!” Eli yelled, getting up from his chair and walking back through the hatch into the crew quarters. Rok coughed and looked up from talking with the other two kids at the table. They were all looking at him with a wary expression. Eli took a deep breath, holding onto the coolant pipe for support. Rok stood up with a nervous glance at his friends, but Eli held up his hand to allay his concern.
“Where did you learn to hack like that?” he asked, looking Rok square in the eye.
“Hack?” Rok asked with genuine confusion on his face. Stella giggled.
Eli crossed his arms and planted his boots on the floor. “Yeah. Did you have a teacher or something? Where'd you learn it? Someone had to have taught you, right?”
Rok shook his head and coughed again. “I...don't think I understand what you're asking me.”
Eli motioned for Rok to sit back down, and plunked into a seat across from him, leaning forward to whisper. “Look kid, I've met a lot of people, but none who just stumble across hacking. Especially not at your age. What are you, ten?”
Stella and Mtumba exchanged a nervous glance, but Eli shrugged it off.
Kita walked in and leaned against the wall, watching him. Rok looked at her.
“What's he talking about?” Rok asked her.
“Eli, I don't think he knows what he did.”
“What did I do?” Rok asked with concern.
Eli raised an eyebrow at him. Then he shook his head and took a deep breath. “Wow. Well, if you wanna pretend ignorance, fine. But I want to thank you for exposing that hack. It would've signaled our position to somebody, and experience tells me that could have put us in a tough spot.”
Rok looked at him sideways, but nodded. “Okay,” he said, blinking. “You're welcome, then.” Stella whispered something to Mtumba, and they laughed.
Eli got up and walked back to the cockpit, shaking his head at the strange nature of this mission. These kids were hard to get a bead on, but something told him that there was more to this than he was seeing right now, and that might be all right if it kept his ship outta dodge. Still, it was unusual, even for him. All of it. The tracking bug. The fact that a kid had started to hack it. He wasn't sure what to think about any of it, but one thing was clear. He was involved in something more than a simple transport.
What was he going to do about Kita? He still had trouble believing they were married. It was a foreign idea to him that you could wind up married by spending a night with somebody, but Kel told him afterwards that was how it worked in the tribe. Even if it was only technically for one year at a time. Eli supposed he was lucky he didn't already have a few more wives, if that was how it worked everywhere. He shrugged, secretly happy that it was Kita he'd wound up with, and not someone else. Maybe they could work it out after all. Who knew? Stranger things had happened.
18
Event Horizon
“Can anyone tell me why that premise is incorrect?” Professor Davenport asked the network participants, his voice coming through Sten's earbud clear as a bell. He showed up on the optical display sporting his black ecumenical vestments. Sten sent his code in, and the professor said, “Yes, Mister Karth?”
“Because it relies on a presupposition which cannot be proved.”
“Close, but not quite,” the professor replied quickly, and pulled up a diagram showing a mathematical model of a wormhole. “The Casimir effect allows for negative energy densities that we can observe, yes? I believe we can all agree on that.” Laughter rippled over the line, as the entire network was undoubtedly aware that their citadel, the Alba, was at this very moment using that singular effect to generate a wormhole to their rendezvous with the Prime Citadel.
With a knowing smirk, Davenport continued. “And by amplifying an area rich in quantum foam, we can magnify the event horizon past the Planck scale by...how much would you say?”
Another student connected in, answering, “That depends on the vibration frequency and power applied, sir.”
“Yes, very good,” Davenport continued. “But once that's done, all we have left in order to secure a handle...or if you prefer, a wormhole...is to do what, exactly?”
Sten knew this, but didn't want to answer two questions in the same lecture. It always annoyed him when other students would do that. Seemed presumptuous, somehow.
The professor's image flickered, and Sten blinked. Did he have a bad connection? Annoyed when it happened again, he tapped his earbud and decided he'd call his provider to complain once the lecture was over. It flickered again. Didn't anyone care about providing good service, anymore? What was going on?
“Anyone?” Davenport asked, but then put his hand to his ear. “Oh dear,” he said. “Ladies and gentlemen, I regret to inform,” it crackled out, then resumed, “must end this session prematurely...” There were groans and whispers over the line, but then people started falling out of the session. Lots of them. “Please forgive the-” and then Davenport's signal was cut out too.
The building Sten was in shuddered, glass shattering in the next room. An alarm sounded, informing everyone to evacuate the building.
Frightened and confused, Sten got up and walked unsteadily to the window-wall, turning off the flickering shade circuit. Looking outside, he saw why people were still falling out of the network. Fire and smoke were rising from all across the citadel, and he could see several massive buildings falling, crumbling down as he watched in horror. His fascination with what he saw next compelled him to stay at the window despite his fear. He could hardly believe his eyes.
In the sky were at least three great black dragons, so dark they seemed to suck the very light out of the air. They were ripping the citadel apart as though its massive chrystum structure were nothing more than frail strands of paper being blown about by the wind. He shrank down as one dragon screamed past his window, followed closely by five men in black and silver flight armor. Brigadier Knights! Thank the stars! Maybe there was a chance they'd survive this after all!
The entire building was rocked to the side more than a meter from what must have been the huge beast's tail damaging the exterior wall. Sten heard a sharp cracking sound, and saw a hairline fracture spider across his large window. The battle came round again as the dragon and Knights circled back to where Sten could see their aerial struggle through the glass.
Smoke contaminated the air, and Sten was coughing, his eyes stinging and watering. He felt so weak, so helpless. So fragile. All the security he'd thought he had mere moments ago was nothing more than an illusion, and here he was, suddenly faced with the absurdity of his petty pride. It was a cold, hard reckoning. There was so much he could have done differently. If only he had another chance...
The dragon and the Knights rendered the air in front of him into a floating battlefield, one of the Knights slashed in twain by the tail of the beast. Sten felt his stomach lurch, but couldn't turn his eyes away. Two other Knights tried to move in, but the dragon was just too fast for them, and they also fell. One more to its deadly twisting tail, and another to its powerful claws. Snapped like dry tinder as the battle moved in a tight swirl of activity through his cracked window.
The last thing Sten saw were the solid white eyes of the great black dragon as it swooped around at him, its gaping maw sundering forth a deeply splitting roar. “Oh God,” he whispered, reflexively raising his arms in a useless gesture to protect himself, right before the large window exploded in at him and his world went completely dark.
A new dragon war had begun.
“Mtumba, do you think we'll be okay?”
“What do you mean? We're okay now.”
“Well, I guess so, but I'm worried about what Mama Teke said the other night around the fire.” Stella
shifted in the bunk, hung over the edge, and saw Mtumba lying there with his arms behind his head, looking up. Stella whispered again, “You know, about Rok. About us. About whatever it is that's coming for us. I think he has allergies.”
Mtumba laughed. “Sorry, no idea. And our life hasn't exactly been a cakewalk, recently, in case you hadn't noticed.” He yawned, blinking once and turned onto his side mumbling, “Besides, I'm sure Rok'll be fine. Mama Teke said he had to talk to some guardian, and then he'd be fine. We’ll all be fine.” The exhaustion was evident in his voice, but Stella wanted to talk about this now.
“That's not what she said.” Stella felt agitated, and scowled at Mtumba.
“Go to sleep,” Mtumba muttered. “We can worry about it tomorrow. When we're awake.” He yawned again, and snuggled deeper into the corner of the bottom bunk to escape her questions. “I'm tired.”
“Fine,” Stella sighed, annoyed, sliding onto her back. “But I wish we could talk about it.”
“We can,” Mtumba mumbled back with a small laugh. “Tomorrow.”
She shivered, and adjusted the covers, her only companion the steady buzz of the ship as they passed through the spectral storm toward Altonas. They'd be there sometime tomorrow, Captain Eli had assured them at dinner. Apparently, it was really far from the Garden Citadel. She missed it already. She'd felt safe there with Mtumba's family, and was having trouble understanding why they had to leave, but Mama Teke had said that when the ancestors spoke, you either listened and did what they said, or ended up in a big heap of trouble. Stella said a silent prayer for her friends, and eventually managed to drift off to sleep. They had a busy day tomorrow, and she needed to get some rest.
Stella's dreams were troubled, and she woke up tired. At breakfast, Mtumba looked at her from across his bowl of grop and winced at her expression. “You should eat,” he said, concerned, taking a big bite. He rolled his eyes up, made a face, but swallowed. Then he shrugged. “Not so bad, and who knows, there might not be anything this tasty on Altonas,” he grinned. Stella shot him a look of annoyance, her bowl of grop untouched. Rok laughed and took a bite of his own food.
Phoenix Rising (Dragon Legacy) Page 12