Dreadnought_WarMage

by Charles R Case

  Around the city was farmland, growing plants Sara had never seen. To her surprise, she saw a pixie on a small tractor in the distance, plowing a field. The design of the tractor was very unusual, and had the same glowing lines of Aether running across its surface that their Aetheric armor did when powered. She stood slack-jawed in wonder, and noticed a few pixies doing the same, as they noticed her and the others.

  “Come, we must meet with the Elders in the town center. You will be able to sight-see when we are done,” Nyx promised, beckoning them forward with a wave of her hand, as she and the guards stepped onto a well-maintained cobbled street between fields.

  As they approached the city, Sara began to see that it was more modern than she had originally thought. The windows were all glass. The streets had electric lighting. There were tracks down the center of each road, conveying streetcars full of pixies who stared at the giants walking down their streets. They passed an open market full of pixies doing their shopping.

  As they went further into the city, a crowd began to gather around and follow them. The pixies cleared a path for the guards and Nyx, but their eyes never left Sara, Boon, and Baxter. Alister and Silva rode on their companions’ shoulders, their heads held high, as if riding parade floats.

  Sara could tell they were headed for the center of the city, where the tallest building spiked into the sky. She guessed it was a hundred meters tall, and could see windows in twisting, irregular patterns, as if the floors were at random levels. Looking at the building beside them, which was three meters tall and had three floors, she guessed the central spire must be a hundred or more floors high.

  They came to a plaza around the spire, and, to Sara's surprise, there was a fountain with two life-sized human statues standing in regal poses in the middle. Both humans were men; upon closer inspection, Sara could tell they were twins. They wore skin-tight suits, not unlike the battlesuit she would wear under her Aetheric armor.

  “Alant and Altis?” Sara asked Nyx as they passed.

  “Yes, this memorial was constructed after their deaths. Over the millennia, it has been rebuilt many times, not unlike this city.” She pressed her hands together and bowed to two smaller figures at the base of the fountain.

  Sara didn’t see them at first, but she should have known to look for them. There was a fox-like creature, and a cat very similar to Alister, with odd, too large ears. They were statues of Alant and Altis’s familiars; it seemed that the pixies showed them special respect.

  “Come, the Elders await us in the meeting place,” Nyx said, continuing on to the central spire.

  There was a human-sized set of wooden doors set into the front of the building, and two smaller doors built into them for easy pixie access.

  Nyx indicated the larger doors, and said to Baxter, “Would you mind? We can open them, but it takes us a few minutes at the mechanical controls.”

  Baxter gave a slight bow. “Not a problem, allow me.”

  He pulled on the handle. The door didn't budge. He gave it another pull, and it screeched a little in the frame.

  “It seems to be stuck. When was the last time they were opened?” he asked, giving another pull to no avail.

  “Um, it’s been a while. We usually open them on festivals, but the last festival was six months ago. Just give it a good yank. It should come loose,” Nyx said, her face red with embarrassment.

  Baxter set his feet and yanked hard on the door, rattling the whole frame, but not having any success with the door. He scratched his head and turned to Sara with a smile. “You mind giving me a hand?”

  Sara noticed that a rather large crowd had gathered, and felt bad for poor Nyx. “Sure, step back, please.”

  She sent what she wanted to Alister, and the spellform appeared instantly in her mind. She poured a trickle of Aether into it, forming a small shield on the inside of the building, against the wooden door. Alister manipulated the shape of the form in her mind, as Sara continued to feed it.

  The shield moved with inexorable force, pushing against the stuck door until, in a rush, it burst open, swinging so hard it slammed into the outside wall. The small shield spell continued to move out of the doorway at a steady pace until Sara dismissed it.

  The bang of the door had made a large portion of the watching pixies duck or run for cover, and Sara mouthed ‘sorry’ to the crowd. Several of the guards had raised their rifles, but quickly lowered them.

  Nyx had a hand over her heart, and was breathing heavy. “Oh, my. We really should have maintained that better. You’ll have to forgive us, it has been nearly thirty thousand years since a human has needed to use these doors.” She motioned for them to follow as she entered the building.

  Sara was not surprised to see electric lights illuminating the interior as she stepped through the doorway. The architecture reminded her of somewhere she couldn't place, with stone tile flooring and rich wood accents. The first three floors of the building were centered around a single large room, with an intricate pattern inlaid in the floor’s center. Small staircases wound around the walls, giving the pixies access to the upper levels.

  In a semicircle on one half of the room was an ornate wooden structure that provided seating for seven pixies. They all wore robes similar to Nyx’s, but they were much older than the Keeper of Records, some even showing wrinkles along with their white hair. There were four males and three females, seated alternately. Each wore a serious expression, and two smoked long pipes, causing a blue haze to settle over the room.

  “War Mage, please, come,” the female in the center said, her voice high and pleasant despite her obvious age.

  Sara walked to the center of the room, with the others following close behind, and bowed, as seemed to be the custom among the pixies. “Greetings, I am Sara Sonders, a War Mage. This is Alicia Boon, also a War Mage. And this is Sergeant Major Baxter, my bonded guard. I am glad to be here; there is much to discuss.”

  “That there is, like the fact that you broke our door,” the male to Sara's right said in a grumpy, gruff voice. Blue smoke puffed from him as if he were steam-powered.

  Sara's eyebrows rose slowly. “Oh. Uh, sorry?”

  “Oh, don't mind Trin, he’s always bothered by something,” the woman in the center said, throwing Trin a dirty look. Once Trin huffed and looked away, she turned back, all smiles. “It is a pleasure, my lady. I am Givis Hostern, elected High Elder. Welcome to Alantis, capital city of pixie-kind.”

  “Thank you, Givis. I must say, this is all a little unexpected. A hidden city full of pixies? It’s amazing,” Sara said in wonder.

  “Oh, if this impresses you, you should visit Serit City in Luxembourg. Now that is a sight to behold,” Givis chuckled.

  “There are more cities like this?” Boon asked, gobsmacked.

  “Of course there are! You think we could all fit in one city?” Trin gruffed.

  Givis flashed him a look that could strip the paint from a barn, then smiled at the humans and said, “There are many cities across the world, though not nearly as many as you have. Most have been updated, but here, tradition keeps us a little behind the times. But I am guessing that your companions have brought you here for something more than chitchat about pixie culture. What can we do for you, my lady?”

  Sara gathered her thoughts. This place, and what she’d had to do to bring Baxter to see it, was a little overwhelming. There is an entire race that has been living just out of sight for as long as there have been humans. She found the idea so far from her reality that she was distracted to the point of missing the High Elder’s question.

  Boon, seeing her captain freeze up, jumped in to cover for her. “Madam, we are seeking the War Mages Alant and Altis’s dreadnought. There is technology onboard that we must recover to help us in the war with the Teifen.”

  “Ah, yes. The Exitium,” Givis said with a grave nod. “It has been preserved for ones such as yourselves. The Lords hid it well, knowing that the seas would rise to bury it, keeping it far from the grasp of mer
e mortals.”

  Sara blinked a few times. “It’s at the bottom of the sea?”

  Givis smiled. “Of course. What safer place is there?”

  19

  “Commander, there is a Sir Reitus on the line for you. He says he is the captain of the prince’s guard,” Mezner said from her station, as Grimms studied the holo projection of the surrounding systems.

  They had picked a warp point that would take them deeper into Elif territory, but it was a relatively short jump—only an hour, even without Cora pushing the speed past their normal capabilities. The captain wanted to give everyone some time to think out their next move. Ambassador Foss and Dr. Hess had joined the crew on the bridge, and they were debating how to deal with the Empori.

  Grimms pushed off from the projector table and crossed his arms. “Put it on the main screen,” he told Mezner.

  The image of compressed space was replaced with that of a handsome Elif man, his black hair pulled back in a ponytail. He had sharp features and intense green eyes that did not look happy. “Colonel Grimms, I am Sir Reitus, head of Prince Paelias DeSolin’s head of security. Why has the prince not been allowed to board your ship? The Empori is rather crowded and, with the damage we have received, not suitable for his Highness.”

  Grimms recognized the question for what it was. This guard was not asking because he wanted to know, but because his lord had ordered him to. He felt an immediate sympathy for the soldier, but he could not endanger his own ship for the whims of a childish lordling.

  “Sir Reitus, I apologize for the delay, but we are working on a problem that will need some care to solve. Would the prince not be more comfortable aboard his own ship for now?”

  Sir Reitus began to answer, but cut off before the first word escaped his lips, and looked to the side, obviously listening to someone. He gave a nod then turned back to Grimms. “I apologize, but the prince wants you to know that this treatment is far from what he would expect from humanity.”

  Ambassador Foss leaned in and spoke privately to Grimms. “Colonel, I suggest that we at least bring his Highness aboard. Our peoples will need to work closely together in the future, and if the reports are true, he will be the emperor.”

  Grimms gave a nod. “I understand the politics, but there is a signal originating from that yacht, and we don't know if it is coming from an Aetheric device attached to the ship, or if it’s is being sent by someone onboard.”

  In his comm, Cora spoke up. “Tell them we will be in contact in one minute. Say we are making arrangements for the transfer.”

  Grimms looked back at the screen. “We are preparing accommodations. Please allow us a few minutes; we will contact you shortly.”

  Sir Reitus bowed his head. “I thank you, Colonel. My prince will be relieved.” The communication was ended, and the view returned to normal.

  “I assume you have a plan, Captain?” Grimms asked, looking to the ceiling, as he did when talking with Cora.

  “We need to determine where the signal is coming from, and use that to our advantage, if we can,” Cora said.

  “Yes, but if the signal is coming from a traitor onboard the yacht, then we are just bringing that problem with us,” Grimms retorted.

  “There would never be a traitor in the prince’s guard,” Foss scoffed. “Royal guards are the most vetted soldiers in the empire. It is preposterous to think that one could have slipped through the rigorous testing.” Dr. Hess nodded in agreement.

  “That may be, but I’m not going to risk my homeworld on the Elif’s reputation. If you remember, that did not work in our favor in the last war,” Grimms said, feeling cornered.

  Cora interjected. “It’s not a matter of trust, Commander. This is simple elimination; if we can rule out one or the other, we can mitigate the danger. We have been ordered to retrieve him, so now we just need to figure out how to lose the Teifen.”

  “Sir? I have an idea,” Ensign Hon piped up from his station.

  Grimms turned in surprise, but gestured for him to continue.

  “I’ve been going over the tactical data sent to us from the Elif communications networks over the last few weeks. In the data are last known ships’ positions and strong points. We could use that information to set up an ambush,” he said, turning a little red at all the scrutiny.

  “What good are ship locations, if the information is weeks old, Ensign?” Grimms asked. He realized the young man must have an idea, but he was not seeing it.

  “Well, ship locations would not be much use,” he admitted, becoming animated as he sent information to the holo projector. “But take a look—this is a Galvox shipyard. The system is uninhabitable, but there are a large number of asteroids and planets, and the Galvox have been using them for resources to build their fleets. In addition to serving as a shipyard, the site is used as a training ground for the crews. All the reports say that the Teifen don't know about the system; that if they did, they would have attacked years ago. The Elif have a satellite in orbit, out in the system’s Oort cloud, so the info is fairly up to date. They’ve found that the Galvox have hundreds of finished ships in the system, with thousands more under construction.”

  Grimms zoomed in on the system, getting a good look at the most recent images from the Elif satellite. The system was crawling with Galvox ships and installations. There was a huge shipyard orbiting the swollen star, soaking up the energy that poured off it as it burned the last of its hydrogen. Hon was right; there were thousands of ships in various stages of completion.

  The Galvox were not as magically inclined as the rest of the sentient races, but they made up for that by having a population that dwarfed all three races by a factor of five. They fought by overwhelming the enemy in ships that were unshielded but agile, and bristling with weapons.

  If he zoomed in far enough, he could see swarms of the little beings crawling all over the ships in spacesuits. At first, Grimms was confused as to what they were doing, then he realized they were putting the ships together by hand. He watched as five of the short bastards wrestled an armor plate into place, and a sixth stepped up with a handheld welder.

  I suppose when there are hundreds of trillions of them, manpower becomes cheaper than automation.

  “This is perfect!” Cora said excitedly. “The Galvox don't have the best sensors, so I can hide us right on top of them with the gravity manipulation trick I used before the jump. We can warp insystem, detach the empty yacht, and jump back out to the edge of the system. I’ll monitor for any transmissions, which will tell us where the signal is coming from, and then the Galvox will attack the Teifen when they jump in!”

  “It won’t be that easy. We’ll need to get the Galvox interested before the Teifen arrive; otherwise the Teifen will be able to jump away before any damage is done. We also don't know how long it will take the Teifen to arrive,” Grimms said, scratching his beard.

  “Sir, I just picked up another transmission from the yacht,” Mezner interrupted.

  “They can send messages while in warp?” Grimms asked.

  “It’s more of a locater signal. If I had to guess, I would say that the Teifen at least know what direction we’re headed in, if not our destination,” Mezner said.

  Grimms thought it over for a minute as the rest looked on. Eventually, he gave a nod. “Okay, here’s the plan…”

  They dropped out of warp at Theta coordinates, and waited.

  The prince and two of his guards had been moved to a private room aboard the Raven, while the rest of his crew and guards, forty-four in all, were being kept in the hangar for the time being. Sir Reitus was brought to the bridge, and introductions were made.

  The guard was still in his Aetheric armor, and stood much taller than a normal Elif—which was tall, considering the average height of the Elif was a few centimeters over two meters. He was pleasant and cordial, and when asked to, he stepped out of his armor and stowed it in the hall.

  After ten minutes of the humans and Elif waiting together, the first Teifen
ship warped in.

  “Warping in three, two, one,” Cora counted down, as soon as the ship appeared.

  They were once again in the warp field, traveling on a direct line to the Galvox system, before the second Teifen ship had arrived.

  “Warp time is six hours, twenty-three minutes,” Connors reported.

  “Good. The trap is set, now we just need to cover our bases,” Grimms said, turning to Sir Reitus. “We have a problem. I’m going to need your help.”

  Sir Reitus bowed ever so slightly. “I am at your disposal, Colonel.”

  “We need to make sure no one from your ship is sending signals to the Teifen.”

  Sir Reitus was taken aback. “I find it very unlikely that that is possible, sir.”

  “I understand your reluctance to believe that one of your own could be feeding the enemy information, but we need to be sure.”

  Cora spoke up, seeing the aggravation on the soldier’s face and deciding on another tact. “Sir Reitus, I am Captain Cora Sonders. We would be most appreciative, and better able to assist your prince, if we were able to eliminate some possible sources of the transmissions. This is just a precaution, and in no way are we accusing you or your people of foul play.”

  Sir Reitus looked around the room for the owner of the voice, and was confused when he didn’t find her. “Is this the new ship the emperor spoke of? With the ancient tech?”

  “You’re a quick one, Sir Reitus. Yes, this is the Raven. Welcome aboard.”

  20

  Sara stripped down naked in the cargo area of the shuttle, as it hovered over the water. She pulled her battlesuit out of her backpack and began putting it on. Boon was doing the same, but with more conservative movements as she threw glances toward the cockpit, checking to make sure that Baxter was still up there, and not sneaking a peek at her.