The governor, sensing that the mage in front of him was not the same battle-worn person that had broken through his doors only minutes before, decided that perhaps diplomacy was the better option.
“Stop. This has gone quite far enough. You dare come here and attack me?” he boomed, standing as tall as he could.
“Oh, shut up, you worthless piece of shit,” Sara growled, and snatched him up in a shield bubble.
The governor immediately lashed the bubble with force, trying to break free. Sara began shrinking the bubble, causing the governor to become almost hysterical with panic.
“How are you doing this? Stop! This doesn’t need to happen. We can make a deal,” he pleaded, as the space in the bubble became cramped.
“Have you told your emperor about us? About humanity, and our return?” Sara asked, stopping the shrinking as if she were considering his words.
“He knows there are humans again, but not where you are,” he blurted, his voice full of relief that the shield had stopped shrinking.
“Why wouldn't you tell him where we are?”
He didn't say anything at first, so Sara resumed the shrinking. Then he nearly choked, he was trying to tell her so fast. “I was in a position to take the throne from him; with the victory over the Elif, I was already in favor with the other governors. If I could have just added you to my victories, my ascension would have been assured.”
“So the Teifen emperor has no clue where we are?” she pressed, needing to be clear.
“No. You were to be my victory. But we don't have to do this! I can keep you hidden from his fleets,” he pleaded.
“No,” Sara said coldly.
“No?” he asked. “I can make you rich.”
“No. You need to be put down; your cruelty has no limits.” She turned away, and the governor began banging on the shield and yelling curses at her back, but Sara was looking down at Boon, paying him no mind. “We are War Mages. That means we need to do what is best, not always what is right. Do you understand? We have a duty to protect our people, and if killing is the way we have to do that, then so be it.”
The governor pounded harder on the shield, his voice becoming frantic, “You can’t do this. You shouldn’t even be here,” he screamed.
Sara turned around slowly at that last statement, and shot daggers of hate at the uncomfortably compressed ruler. “Why is that? Is it because your people tried to hunt us to extinction thirty thousand years ago? Is it because you turned our allies against us, and forced them to make a bio weapon that sloughed the meat from our bones?” She stepped forward until her face was right in front of his, trapped behind her shield. “Or should we not be here because you mistakenly thought us weak?”
The governor stared into her eyes and recoiled in fear at what he saw swimming in their depths. “You have no idea, do you? We didn’t force anyone to turn against you. We didn’t have to,” he said quietly.
Sara frowned. “Lies. That’s all you have left, isn’t it? Just the lies you tell yourself so you don’t have to be the monster in your own story.”
He actually laughed at that. “No lies, War Mage.” He took an uncomfortable breath, and stared her down. “The true monster stares at you from the mirror.”
The shield collapsed to the size of a basketball, with a crunching finality. After a moment of quiet reflection, she let the shield bubble fade. The sound of splattering as the liquefied governor fell to the floor filled the now silent room.
Then Sara fell to her knees in exhaustion.
48
Baxter was by Sara's side as soon as she hit the ground. “We need to get her out of here. She’s spent. Gonders, call the Raven and have them wait for us. I can carry her…”
Sara put a hand to his faceplate. “I’m okay. It’ll just take me a few minutes to get my strength back. It’s good that healing Boon and mending my armor brought me a little back toward center, because we can’t leave ‘til we make sure this ship is destroyed and Earth is safe,” she said with a tired smile.
“Okay, then we need to get to the reactor room, or maybe the armory. We need something large enough to destroy this thing,” Baxter said, trying to come up with a workable solution.
“That won’t work. There are far too many enemies between here and any one of those places,” Gonders reminded him, punching holes in his half-baked plans.
“I have an idea. It’s going to be a little rough for me and Boon, so I’m going to be counting on you two to get us out of here,” Sara said, looking to Baxter and Gonders. She took a deep breath and pushed herself to her feet.
“Okay, but how are we leaving, if we’re not going to meet the Raven?” Baxter asked.
Sara smiled and cracked her neck. “The same way I got in.” She pointed at the ceiling.
“Oh, god. Nothing is easy with you, is it?” Baxter asked, hanging his head.
Sara slapped him on the back. “Better get used to it, life-bonded guard of mine.”
She led them out the double doors, and down the long atrium, until they came to the far end, to a hall that was closed off with blast doors. “This is where I came in. They closed it off to keep the ship from decompressing, but there is a hole that leads right outside on the other side of these doors. We’ll set the trap, then blow the door, and it will blast us clear before our nasty little surprise can take us with it.”
“We’d better hurry. I’m sure there are more guards somewhere on this ship,” Boon said.
“Right. Here’s the plan. Gonders, I need you to put us in a shield bubble, so we can survive out there; I lost my faceplate in the fight, so no airtight suit for me, and Alister and Silva don't even have suits.” Alister jumped onto her shoulder and gave a ‘Merow’ to the assembled mages. “Silva, where are you?”
The ferret stuck her head out of Boon’s hip pouch, and chittered before crawling around Boon’s torso and up onto her shoulder.
“Hello, darling. Do you remember those four spells Alant taught us?” Sara asked her. Silva chittered and rolled her eyes. “Okay, you don't have to be such a jerk about it. The fourth one, the one me and Alister did—not the binding one, the other one… you know which one I mean?”
Silva chittered again, and Sara took that for a ‘yes’.
“Okay, I need you to give that to Boon and cast it right here,” she said, pointing to a spot in the air between them. “I’m going to make a shield to contain it, then start powering the spell. I need you to keep the spell right here as we move away.”
“Got it,” Boon said, and cleared her mind, preparing to cast.
“Baxter, I need you to blow the doors once we get the spell going,” she said, then leaned in and kissed his faceplate where his mouth would be. “It’s so good to see you again. I thought I might have lost you.”
“Not a chance. I knew you would come,” he said, gently squeezing her arm.
With a smile she looked back at Boon. “Ready?”
Boon nodded, and Sara formed a shield bubble slightly larger than a human head. She nodded back to Alicia, and the girl began powering the odd spellform that Silva gave her. She gasped at the result.
A tear opened up in the space between them, instantly spewing forth a dark blue substance that filled the shield bubble, attacking the sides with incredible ferocity, and turning the shield orange, then red.
Sara grunted and powered her second spell. It was a modified force spell, designed to press in on the shield bubble. The air warped around the shield just as it failed; instead of the blue substance spilling out, it was trapped in the sphere of force. The two powers fought one another, the blue substance pressing out and the force pressing in.
Sweat had sprung to Sara's forehead, and she was squinting with concentration.
“What is that?” Gonders asked, leaning in to take a closer look.
“Aether,” Sara said simply.
“As in pure Aether?” Gonders asked in wonder.
Pure Aether would not stay stable for long. It wanted to be absorbe
d by space-time. Usually if a mage were to concentrate their own Aether on a spot, it would evaporate almost as quickly as they could channel it.
“How are you making so much?” she asked Boon.
“I’m not. I’m just holding open a hole in reality and letting it come through. This isn’t taking much power—for me,” she qualified, jabbing her chin at Sara, who was obviously struggling. “We need to go now. How about that shield, babe?”
Gonders nodded and, a second later, a large bubble formed around them. Baxter had everyone lay against the back of the shield, facing the door.
“When I blast the door, we are going to be sucked out. This will keep us from being slammed into the shield. Are you ready?” he asked Gonders, who gave him a nod. “Okay. Here we go.”
At first, nothing happened… then a red line appeared, in a circle slightly larger than the shield bubble, at the center of the blast door. The glow grew in intensity until it was nearly white. In a sudden rush, the door failed where Baxter had super-heated the metal, and the center circle was sucked out. The rushing air pulled them toward the door at an incredible rate, then out into the giant hole Sara had ripped into the ship on her way in. Baxter used a force spell to push them up and out of the hole as momentum carried them away from the ship.
Sara was sweating and shaking with the effort, pouring more and more Aether into the force spell that was holding back the building pressure of Aether pouring into their reality. By the buzzing in her head, and the muted sounds of the others’ voices, Sara knew she was pushing herself over the line to madness, but she could see that they were not far enough away from the dreadnought, and the longer she waited and maintained the spell, the larger the blast would be.
“Push,” she mumbled.
Baxter leaned in. “What?”
“Push,” she said again, unable to say more as she fought against the tide of power she was holding at bay.
Boon got it. “We need to move away faster. The blast will get us, too, if we don't put more distance between us and the ship,” she told him, while forming a second spell and powering it. She began pushing the shield, and they gently accelerated.
“More,” Sara grunted.
Boon pushed harder, accelerating them up to a full g, but it wasn't enough. After more prompting from Sara, she really let loose. She didn't want to hurt anybody, but she figured around three gs of acceleration should do it.
They were smashed to the edge of the bubble as it rocketed away from the dreadnought.
Sara was at her limit. She had fed more Aether into that spell than she’d known she had. She could feel the last dregs of her well drying up, but she wanted to wait as long as she could.
After a few more seconds, she couldn't take anymore. She screamed before blacking out completely.
The force spell ended, letting loose a torrent of Aether in an explosion of a blue substance that passed through anything it touched, expanding outward in an ever-growing sphere. It passed through the metal and composite of the ship. Through the bodies of tens of thousands of Teifen, both living and dead.
It spread out into space, reaching as far as it could for kilometers in all directions. Everything it touched was saturated with pure Aether, and as Aether likes to do, it fell through the fabric of reality, back to its own plane. As it did, it took with it everything in that cloud, leaving only pristinely empty space behind.
49
Sara awoke warm and comfortable, a thick blanket pulled up to her chin, and Alister curled up beside her. It took her nearly a full minute to realize she was in her bed on the Raven. The lights were dimmed, making the transition from sleep to wakefulness a pleasant one. She felt more rested than she could remember since first stepping on the ship.
The sound of a book page turning made her aware that she was not alone in the room, and she turned her head to the side to see Baxter, dressed in a tee-shirt and athletic pants, sitting on her couch and reading a book by the light of a small lamp on the side table.
He was so engrossed in the book that he didn't seem to have noticed she was awake.
She watched as he turned another page and took a sip of something hot from a mug.
The entire image was so contrary to everything he presented about himself; except that it was exactly who he was.
Alister lifted his head and saw that she was awake, then stood and stretched all four legs and his back as he walked to the edge of the bed and hopped down to the floor. Sara watched him trot over to Baxter and hop up onto the couch to curl up next to the big man. Baxter gave him a distracted pet, then turned the next page.
Sara was overwhelmed with a feeling of rightness.
She carefully slipped her feet from under the covers and sat up on the edge of the small bed. She was in a tee-shirt and a pair of shorts that she didn't remember changing into; if she were honest, she didn't care who had done it, just grateful that they had. She stood and quietly walked to the couch, dragging the blanket behind her.
Baxter looked up from the book. “You’re up,” he said, starting to put the book down.
“Don’t. Stay right there, I’m coming in.” She knelt down on the couch beside him, relocating Alister onto his lap. Then she pulled the blanket over herself and snuggled into his side.
“Do you want to know what happened?” Baxter asked, looking over at her as she rested her head on his shoulder.
“The fact that you’re sitting here reading a book while I sleep is all the information I need,” she said, closing her eyes and breathing in his soapy smell.
He didn't say anything, only patted her cheek affectionately before settling back in.
She was almost asleep again when she heard him turn the next page. Then she truly was asleep.
Isabella Gonders was standing in Alicia’s new cabin, waiting for her to finish getting ready in the small bathroom.
The cabin had been assigned when Alicia’s status as a War Mage became known to the rest of the ship. Captain Cora had said it was ‘proper’ for a ‘resource like Boon’ to have some privacy, plus there was a ferret to consider.
Isabella didn't mind at all; it gave them a place to be together without bunkmates getting in their business.
Alicia had told her they were going out for drinks—even if the drinks were non-alcoholic until they got back to Earth—so she had found something nice to wear. To the shock and awe of everyone she had passed on the way there, it turned out that Gonders owned a few dresses. She even had shoes that weren’t boots. The dress and shoes were both black, though; she wasn’t crazy.
“I hope you like it,” Alicia said, nervously opening the bathroom door and stepping out. She was wearing the blue dress Sara had gotten for her.
Gonders’ eyes widened. “You look beautiful.”
Alicia’s face flushed. “Thanks. Oh, you look amazing,” she said, looking up and seeing Gonders for the first time.
It was the specialist’s turn to flush. “Thanks. You ready?” she asked, holding out her hand.
Alicia took her hand and squeezed it. “You bet.” She leaned in and gave her a quick kiss on the cheek.
They headed out into the hall, toward the cafeteria and dinner, both of them smiling so brightly, they could blind an unprepared onlooker.
Grimms took a sip of coffee, and looked over the report, his brows furrowed.
“It’s not that bad,” Cora said.
“It’s not good,” he retorted.
“No. No, it’s not good, but at least we were able to rescue the empress. And fifty-three high nobles. They can rebuild with that.”
Grimms took another sip, laying the tablet down on the ready room’s desk. “There are only twenty-seven battleworthy ships left in the fleet. The rest either need to be overhauled completely, or scrapped. It’s going to take a year to get back to what we had, and even that was barely enough to defend from an already damaged armada. Next time, they could send a thousand, or ten thousand ships. We need help. The Elif are broken, the Galvox know humans exist again
, and the Teifen are actively hunting for us. Unless we get a miracle, I don't see how Earth will survive.”
“We’re not the only humans out here. What about the second dreadnought that humanity sent out at the end of the last war? We could always go and find them. Maybe they’ve gotten by better than we have on Earth?” Cora suggested.
Grimms thought about that. “They may not be anything like us, or want to help us, but it’s worth a shot. I’ll include the idea in my report when we arrive.” He paused, considering what he needed to say next. “Captain, the real question is… what are we going to do about Sara?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean she attacked the Elif embassy; there are going to be repercussions. No one is above the law,” he admonished.
Cora was silent for a while.
“The more I look at the histories on this core, and see how the galaxy worked in the old days before the war,” she began, “the more I think she just might be.”
“You think she’s above the law?” he asked, flabbergasted.
“According to the core,” Cora said, her voice full of concern, “she is the law.”
Dear Reader, Thank you for following Sara and Cora as they expanded their repertoire and made a statement the Teifen will never forget.
Boon is coming into her own, and nothing will show that more than her next step into this new future with Gonders.
The War is changing, and all is not right in the universe.
The Elif are gathering their remnants and preparing to take back their home…
But there may not be as much resistance as they first thought.
Why have the Galvox been so quiet?
Come join Sara and Cora as they find out that the galaxy is not as isolated as they once assumed.
(Book three will be available on July 1st)
Thanks, Charles R Case
P.S. My Cats are all judging me for not paying attention to them and writing all day, but if you were to leave a review, I could rub that in their face.
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