Dreadnought_WarMage

by Charles R Case

  “Boon, he’s not going to look. Will you just relax?” Sara said, sealing her skin-tight suit closed. She began unstrapping her armor, before remembering she would need to help Alister into his suit. “Shit, we didn't get a suit for Silva,” she realized, smacking her forehead. “How could I forget that?”

  “Oh. Should we just stay up here then?” Boon asked, pulling her hair out of the back of the battlesuit and sealing it up.

  Sara shook her head. “No. I think you guys should come. We’re going to learn quite a bit, and having you there will save me from having to explain it to you after the fact. I’ll just take us down in a shield bubble.”

  Boon thought about that. “Won’t you need to use your hands? I mean, we’ll have to get in the ship somehow; we don't want to cause a hull breach, and I don't think battlesuits are rated for pressure. I know they are used in vacuum, but pressure is way different. Alister will be exposed, as well.”

  Sara cursed. Of course they weren’t rated for pressure; the armor was, but not the suits. So far, this was the worst diving party she’d ever put together. Granted, it was the only one she’d ever put together, but oh-for-one was no way to start.

  “Baxter. We’re decent, come on back,” Sara yelled to the front of the shuttle. “We have a problem.”

  Baxter stepped out from the cockpit, still in his battlesuit from earlier. “What’s up?”

  Sara waved a hand at Alister and Silva, curled up on a chair together. “We need to protect them from the crushing depths, and I can't make a shield bubble, because I will need to gain entrance to the ship when we get there.”

  Baxter didn't even think for a second before saying, “Just have Boon keep them in a small bubble with her. Alister just needs to be near you, right?”

  Sara and Boon stared at him until he felt self-conscious and asked, “What?”

  “Why the fuck didn't I think of that?” Sara rolled her eyes and opened up her armor.

  The suit opened up like a blooming flower, exposing its padded interior. She turned and stepped backward into it, and it closed around her. She shot a small amount of Aether into the spellform that was recessed in the interior of the faceplate, bringing the suit to life. The faceplate became clear to her eyes, giving her an unobstructed view. She could see Boon’s suit closing up, and Baxter just getting his open.

  Sara stepped to the wall controls and opened the ramp. The shuttle was hovering a few meters above rolling waves of deep blue. She held onto the edge of the opening and walked out onto the ramp, then turned back to the others.

  “Okay. Boon, you keep them safe and follow close; I don't want to lose my powers because Alister and I are too far apart,” Sara warned, as Baxter stepped close and attached a rope with a carabiner, then did the same to Boon and himself.

  “Don't need to worry about us getting separated this way,” he explained, his black faceplate hiding the smile Sara knew he wore.

  She rolled her eyes again. “Good thinking, Baxter. Boon, grab the kids; we’re off to the pool.”

  Boon scooped up the two waiting familiars and, with a toss, launched them into the air. A shield bubble half a meter in diameter popped into existence around them, then floated to her side. She gave a thumbs-up. “Ready.”

  Sara knew that, while the spell seemed simple enough, Silva was having to constantly change it to keep the bubble moving along beside Boon. It was a spell a human mind would not have been able to perform, but it took barely any thought for the pixie.

  Sara nodded, turning to the end of the ramp as the others stepped up beside her. “Ready?” They nodded in response. “Jump!” she yelled, hopping off the ramp, and the others came a heartbeat behind her.

  They fell the few meters, crossing their arms to their chests as they were taught in diving school at the Academy. They plunged into the waves and sank like bricks.

  Sara watched as the blackness engulfed them, and her heart began to speed up with every meter they sank. She was in the Navy, but she and the ocean had never gotten along too well. She was fine with the beach and swimming, but the depths were the last place on Earth she’d yet to explore. In a lot of ways, space was easier. With the arrival of the Elif and their tech, a lot of research had been conducted, but only on a very small scale. They learned that the Aetheric armor could withstand any depth that Earth could throw at it, but she still found it disconcerting to be free falling in open water.

  Sara felt a spike of nervousness from both Alister and Baxter, and turned to see how they were doing. She panicked for a second when she couldn't see them, then realized that they had fallen far enough that the light from the sun was no longer reaching them. If she remembered correctly, that was around two hundred meters. According to the map Givis had provided them, the location of the dreadnought was at a depth of just over two thousand meters.

  Sara sent a mental command to her headlamps, and the area around her bloomed to life. She caught sight of Boon’s and Baxter’s suits switching on their lights, and was finally able to see Alister and Silva in their shield bubble. They were curled around one another, their eyes large as they took in the hostile environment. Sara sent calming feelings to Alister as she mentally wrestled her fear away for his sake. She watched as he calmed, his grip on Silva loosening.

  “Boon, be sure to keep calm. Silva is getting your nervous energy, and it’s putting her on edge,” Sara said over their comms.

  She barely caught Boon’s nod in the dark waters. “Right. Sorry, Silva.”

  Sara saw the ferret relax a little, and felt better. The last thing they needed was for Silva to lose concentration and collapse the shield bubble.

  Sara turned back to the job at hand, and began cycling her faceplate’s view. She set it to a wire overlay of a sonar pulse. The pulse took a while to get back to her, but once it did, the onboard computer updated the information in real time.

  The wire frame view was a little less daunting, but only slightly. It looked like they were still over a thousand meters from the seafloor, but falling fast. She could pick out several anomalies that the computer interpreted as fish, as well as other living things that gave her the creeps. She highlighted on her view the exact location of where Givis had said the entrance would be. She could see it was pointing to the base of a large mountain, situated on a flat area that eventually fell to deeper depths beyond its edges.

  They were a little over two hundred meters from the supposed entrance, when Sara sent another sonar pulse for a more detailed image. The flecks of stuff that flew past her faceplate made it look like they were speeding through a snowfall, but she didn't want to know what the flakes were; she guessed they were something gross.

  The mountain loomed before them, their lights only illuminating a small section of its sheer side. Sara sent Alister what she wanted, and a spellform immediately appeared in her mind. She powered it, and a flat shield appeared under her feet, catching her as she fell onto it. She almost lost her balance, but Baxter landed beside her and, with a hand to her shoulder, kept her upright. Boon landed last, and Sara caught her around the waist to steady her.

  “Everyone okay?” the captain asked, looking at the others for signs of damage or panic.

  “I’m good. After the first five hundred meters, it actually got a little boring,” Boon said, reaching out and grabbing the shield bubble with the pixies in it. “Are you guys okay?” she yelled, pressing her faceplate to the shield to transfer the sound, like they had been taught to do when someone’s radio went out.

  Alister opened his mouth in what Sara recognized as a “Merow,” even if she couldn't hear it, and Silva just gave a nod and rested her head on Alister’s back.

  “I’m good, Captain. Why did we stop?” Baxter asked, looking at the dimly lit wall of rock.

  “According to the directions, we’re here,” she answered, waving a hand through the heavy water.

  “It’s in the mountain?” he asked.

  “I guess so. It wouldn't be much of a hiding place if it were out in the
open. The marker says it’s right there, but I don't see an opening,” Sara said, double-checking the location with the map. We’re right where we are supposed to be…

  “Maybe it moved? The ocean floor is always resettling, and this area is full of volcanic activity,” Boon said, shrugging.

  “She said they map it regularly. I’m guessing the entrance just got covered up with sediment. Hang on, I’m going to try something,” Sara said, stepping forward.

  She had Alister provide a second spellform, and sent a spike of power into it. A section of rock blasted up off the rock wall, clouding the water with a thick, white dust.

  “What the fuck was that?” Baxter asked, stumbling as the shock wave hit them.

  “Force blast. I started it inside the rock, and shot it upward. Sorry, I should have warned you,” she said, trying to make out the wall in the cloudy water, but seeing nothing as the cloud enveloped them. She sent out another sonar pulse, and the hole finally revealed itself. “There it is. I’m going to move us closer; don't fall off the shield,” she cautioned as Alister morphed the spellform, sending it forward at a walking pace.

  Boon stumbled back a step, but Baxter steadied her with a hand and a nod. They moved through the cloudy water, toward a circular opening that was far from natural. It was several meters wide, allowing the shield to slip easily inside.

  “These walls aren’t organic,” Baxter noted, shining his lights on the smooth surface. “I think it’s the same composite material we use as paneling on the Raven.”

  “I think you’re right. How has it stayed so clean?” Boon asked.

  “If I had to bet, I would say that this passage has been sealed the entire time,” Sara mused. “There’s no chance anyone could have stumbled upon it, if it was covered. Hey, I think we’re coming up on the ship.” She squinted through the gloom and saw a dim reflection of the light. The passage suddenly ended in an airlock that was the same design used on the Raven.

  “Yeah, I think this is it,” Baxter agreed, stepping forward. He brushed sediment from a control pad cover that was attached to the hull, beside the door. “It’s dead. How are we going to get in?”

  “We don't want to flood the ship, so we can't force the door. We can try the manual override,” Sara suggested.

  Baxter knelt down and found the small door the contained the pumping mechanism. He cleaned it off as best he could and, after a few power-assisted tugs, popped it open. Inside was a handle that looked a lot like an emergency brake; it even had the button on the end. He reached in and depressed the button, pumping the handle, but Sara could tell it was moving far too easily.

  “It’s been disabled,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Sara.

  “Boon, I’m going to need you to create a shield around us and seal it tight to the hull of the ship. I have a feeling this is like the core; inaccessible to anyone but a War Mage. If I’m right, I’ll need to touch the control panel with my bare skin,” Sara said, stepping up to it.

  “Okay, give me a second. I haven’t cast two spells at once before.” Boon set her shoulders, but then stood up straight and said, “Oh. Well, that’s pretty easy. Thanks, Silva.”

  Sara laughed. “Yeah, the pixies are pretty good at this. Okay, keep the shield powered. I’m going to start creating breathable air, and I need you to open a small hole in the bottom of the shield bubble so I can push the water out. Got it?”

  Boon nodded. “Got it.”

  Sara began feeding the spellform that Alister formed in her mind. The act of creating something from pure Aether took a lot of power, but she had plenty. After nearly thirty seconds, the water began to boil, as the air content overcame the water’s ability to absorb it. Sara pushed harder, burning through her well of Aether at a rate that would have scared her before becoming a War Mage.

  Soon, the level of water began to lower, as the top of the shield bubble filled with compressed air. Sara poured more and more power into the form, surprised at how much it was taking to move the volume of water. After nearly three minutes, the level was below the shield platform they stood on.

  “Okay, wow. That took a lot. Go ahead and seal up the shield bubble so I can bring the pressure back down.”

  “Sealed,” Boon reported from behind her.

  “Okay, I’m going to reclaim enough air to get us back to one atmosphere,” Sara said, bringing up a pressure reading from her suit’s sensors. Her eyes widened when she saw the number. “Holy shit. We’re at two hundred atmospheres. That’s incredible.”

  “Yeah, decompression at that level would rip the flesh from your bones if you opened up your suit. Be careful, ma’am,” Baxter said nervously.

  “Don’t worry, I will be,” Sara assured him, smiling at his concern.

  She began feeding a new spellform from Alister, converting the compressed air back into Aether. The process was much easier than creating the air, but still used a bit of power. Sara kept an eye on the pressure meter, as it fell much faster than it had risen.

  A minute later, she sent a mental command to her glove, and it clam-shelled open, filling her suit with a strong smell of ocean and rot. “Oh, god. The smell.” She gagged, then held her breath to keep from dry heaving as Boon laughed. She threw a dirty look Boon’s way, and reached out, touching the control panel. She pulled her hand away quickly, shocked at how cold it was. She was surprised there was no ice on it; the panel must have been only just above freezing.

  Taking a breath to prepare for the cold, she began to choke at the smell. She mentally chided herself for the stupid move. Dumb ass. She pressed her fingers to the panel and waited, fighting the cold and hoping her hunch was right.

  After a few seconds of doubt, she had begun to run through other ideas on how to get in when the panel came to life. Instead of the usual controls that would appear on the Raven’s airlock, a green line slid down the panel, like the scanner on the cores’ boxes, and she smiled.

  She pulled her hand away and closed the glove, then waited a minute for the air to recycle in her suit before taking another breath. The smell was still there, but much less so now that the filters were working in a closed environment again.

  A set of lights burst to life around the airlock, causing the crew’s faceplates to dim in response, to keep them from being blinded. A ka-chunk reverberated through the hull, causing them to stumble back a little. The center of the airlock began to spin, causing a thick crust of sediment to crumble and shower down onto the shield platform. The center stopped spinning, and a split appeared, bisecting the door horizontally, and began sliding open, scraping sediment from its surface as it slid into the hull.

  The interior of the airlock was exactly the same design as the Raven’s, with soft blue light filling a compartment large enough for twenty people.

  Sara turned to the other two and shrugged. “Easy peasy,” she said, laughing. “They definitely made access impossible for anyone but a War Mage. Next time, we should come down in a shield bubble from the start. That took way too much power.”

  Boon turned and looked back the way they had come. The corridor through the mountain was lit by the powerful lights around the airlock, but fell to blackness a few meters out into the ocean. “This is insane. How did they bury this ship?”

  “One thing you will learn is just how much one War Mage can do. Imagine what two could do together,” Sara mused, cocking her head to the side. “Come on. Let’s see what they left for us.”

  Boon turned back, the small shield bubble containing the familiars in her hands. They sat curled together, but alert.

  Sara pointed at Alister, catching his attention, then gave him a thumbs-up while sending him a questioning feeling. He opened his mouth, and she recognized him saying “Merp.” She gave the ‘okay’ hand gesture and stepped into the airlock.

  The others followed, and she flipped the switch on the wall to cycle the airlock. The outer door slid closed, and the wall monitor flashed a red message. She activated the translation program in her suit, and the mess
age changed from ancient human script to English in her view.

  “Just waiting for it to cycle,” she told the others, translating the words for them. “You can drop the shield outside, Boon.”

  “Right,” she said, a second before a crashing BOOM shook the ship. “What the fuck?” she screamed, looking around for the danger.

  “I think it was the water collapsing against the hull,” Baxter said with more calm than Sara thought was possible after hearing that.

  “Maybe next time we collapse the shield in increments,” Sara suggested, giving a nervous laugh.

  The flashing red changed to green, and the inner door ka-chunked and split open, revealing the wall of a darkened corridor that looked brand new, if not a little dusty. They stepped into the corridor, looking left then right, the light of their suits falling to darkness in both directions.

  “Be sure to keep those two in there,” Sara instructed, gesturing to the familiars. “The air is no good in here.”

  “Got it. Which way?” Boon asked, then jumped when a strip of blue light in the floor of the center of the corridor lit up, leading to the right.

  It began to pulse in a wave.

  “To the right, I think,” Sara said, stepping past Boon and following the pulsing light.

  21

  “Prepare to detach the yacht,” Grimms ordered, watching the countdown of the warp. They were twenty seconds away from arriving in a heavily populated Galvox system. The plan was to detach the yacht and jump away, leaving the yacht as bait. They needed to jump in close enough that the Galvox would send ships, but not so close that they could be detected as well. Cora was getting ready to cloak them, but it would take her a second to calibrate the engines, and they would not be able to change direction once she was manipulating the gravity field, so they would be exposed for the first thirty seconds or so of the operation.