Resurgence of Ancient Darkness

by Vincent Trigili

  “More like centuries, Master,” said Kymberly.

  “How did it end up with Glimmer?” asked Flame.

  “It seems obvious to me, Master. He created it,” said Karlith.

  “That would make him a necromancer,” said Stalker.

  “I do not think he created it,” I said. “The first order of business needs to be to destroy those gems before whoever made them comes looking for them.”

  “How do we do that?” asked Flame.

  “I’m not sure we can, Master,” said Kymberly.

  “What do you mean? We can just slap some antimatter charges on it, and it would be history,” said Karlith.

  “Master, the amount of energy stored in those gems would make an average supernova look small. Even if we could somehow detonate it, the explosion would be catastrophic to the entire sector,” said Kymberly.

  “Shadow, can’t you just drain their energy off?” asked Flame.

  “No. Spirit energy is life force and not really a form of energy; at least, not in the same way that electricity is. I have only limited dominion over it,” I said. “Kymberly, do you know of any way to destroy them?”

  “Yes, Master, but it is beyond me. They would need to be taken to the Spirit Realm, and there they could be destroyed. The power they would release would not be much different than the energy that is already there, so it should be safe.”

  “What part of it is beyond you?” asked Karlith.

  “Master, I could not even get to the Spiritual Realm, never mind cast powerful enough spells to destroy so many,” she said.

  “Do you think Spectra could?” asked Flame.

  “Oh, yes, Master. I would think so,” she said.

  “But she is months away, at best,” I said. “Is there anyone else?”

  “Kymberly is the most experienced Spiritualist we have currently on board,” said Flame.

  “I might have to travel to the Shadow Fox and see if Spectra can help, but first we need to decide what to do about Glimmer. I suspect he is a victim, but if he is not we need to know right away.”

  “I agree, Master. Can we bring him here so we can hear his side of the story?” asked Stalker.

  “Good idea,” I said and contacted security to have him escorted to us. Once he arrived I said, “Glimmer, we investigated your crate and would like to ask you some questions about it.”

  “Sure, but I don’t really know much,” he said.

  “Well, let’s start with where you got it from,” I said.

  “It was salvage. We answered a distress call from a small cargo liner, but by the time we arrived everyone aboard was already dead. So we stripped her of anything of value, including the crate, and moved on. My ship logs will have the details of that,” he said.

  “How long ago was this?” I asked.

  “Several months. We easily sold everything else we’d brought on board, but from that point forward we were plagued by one disaster after another. My crew would literally die at their stations at key times, causing system failures and situations to escalate out of control. We never did find out why they all died. They just fell over like robots whose power cells had run out,” he said.

  “But you told us it was the crate’s fault?” I asked.

  “It has to be. More than once we jettisoned it, and it kept reappearing in our cargo bay. Once we even jettisoned it into a star, but soon it was back in our cargo like nothing had happened. That's why I was heading to the Wizard … to find you guys,” he said.

  I noticed he was much calmer today. His story was similar to the first one he had told, so it was probably the truth; but I was still uneasy. What if he had brought the crate here to fill it with spirit power from all of us?

  “Master Shadow, whatever it is it is trying to get out again,” sent Rigal.

  “Can you contain it?” I sent back.

  “Yes, Master. It is trying harder, but it is still well within my ability to control,” he sent back.

  As he sent that, I noticed that Glimmer’s calm façade was showing signs of cracking. I reasoned that that meant whatever Rigal sensed attacking his shields was the crate trying to return to Glimmer. “Glimmer, is this ship here the same one that you picked up the salvage with?” I asked.

  “No, we crashed that one into a Red Giant with the crate aboard,” he said.

  “What! Are you telling us that you locked that crate up in a spacecraft, which you then sent into a sun, and the crate still came back? How is that possible?” asked Karlith.

  “Yes, that’s what I am saying, but I have no idea how,” he said.

  “We have it trapped for now. It has tried to reach you several times since you came on board, but we have it under control. We plan to destroy it. Do you have any objection to that?” I asked.

  “No! Please destroy it now! And please lock me up until it’s gone!” he said. I could see sweat building up on his brow, and his hands were grasping hard at the chair. He seemed to be fighting something and losing.

  “Security to the main conference room,” I sent as Flame asked, “Lock you up? Whatever for?”

  “I can feel it calling me. It wants me to rescue it. So pretty, can’t I keep … ? NO! Get out of my head!” he screamed.

  “Karlith, hold him till security arrives,” I said.

  Karlith grabbed Glimmer with his massive arms and pinned him to his seat, but Glimmer struggled mightily against him. Power was building around Glimmer, and Karlith appeared to be weakening.

  “Karlith, look out!” I yelled, as I began to weave a cage around Glimmer. Before Karlith could react Glimmer exploded into action, easily throwing off the massive Zalionian, and turned to run. Before he could get away, I closed my cage of power around him. He flailed against the walls of the cage, screaming, “Get out of my head!” over and over.

  Chapter Fifty

  I approached Admiral Doug Dougherty’s office and rapped once on the metal door. It had become something of a tradition to knock on his door instead of using the chime, but I wasn’t quite sure how that had developed.

  “Come in, Bill,” he called out.

  “Good to see you, Doug,” I said as I entered. I noticed that his magus assistant, Starbiter, was present. “I hope I’m not interrupting something?”

  “No, you are not. Let me guess: your mother wants us to visit for dinner this week?” he asked.

  “No, actually that is not correct,” I said.

  “No?” he asked.

  “She wants you to come by tonight,” I said with a chuckle.

  He bemusedly shook his head at that. “Any word on our missing hauler yet?”

  We have been trying to find that ship ever since it escaped apparently carrying some kind of doomsday box which not only kills instantly, but somehow convinces people to commit suicide by freely reaching into it. “Yes, actually. We found the remains of it. It seems our friends met up with some bad company and didn’t fare well,” I said.

  “What of the box?” he asked.

  “Gone. The ship’s corpse has been picked clean. Nothing much is left, not even the ship’s logs,” I said.

  “That leaves us with no way to track that cursed thing,” he said.

  I simply nodded and then went over to his bar where I made myself a small drink. I knew I should not be drinking on duty, but occasionally I allowed myself a little something. Somehow those occasions always seemed to coincide with my visits to Doug.

  “In other news, your plan worked out very well with that rebel colony,” I said.

  “That is good to hear,” he said, leaning back with his own drink.

  “So much so that I plan to record it as standard procedure for that type of event. We still have a few more planets to approach about rejoining the kingdom, and it will be good to have that system in place for them,” I said.

  “Yes, I think you will find that way works best in most cases,” he said.

  It was sometimes difficult to read h
im. He always kept his hand close to his chest when we talked about military matters. He was a great friend, and would talk openly about anything else, just not current military operations. “Have you debriefed your magi yet?” They had just now finally made it back. Almost all my men were lost, and several of his magi. It was a costly mission.

  “Yes, but they did not seem to know very much,” he said.

  “Same with my men. That leaves us with no idea who captured that station, why they did it, or any information about the box,” I said.

  “True, but what concerns me more is the assault that failed. How were our people captured? What went wrong? Their second assault went almost flawlessly, but they could give us no information about the first,” he said.

  “Yeah, that has been bugging me too. It seems that they had superior firepower compared to the hostiles in both the jailbreak and the second assault, so what could have happened in the first assault?” I asked.

  Starbiter, who almost never talked in my presence, said, “The reasonable assumption is that whoever was on that hauler was the one who stopped the first attack, and to control that box he must have been a powerful magus.”

  “What about those people you found on the trash hauler?” I asked.

  “Now that is a major mess. All of them have been transferred to various hospitals and are being treated. Where we can, we are tracking down families, but we have no record of many of them,” he said.

  “Any idea why they were taken to begin with?” I asked.

  “The only clue we have is that there is a comment in the captain’s log about making a collection for the harvest,” he said.

  “Not much of a clue,” I said.

  “No, but it does imply that there may be more ships out there like that one,” he said.

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Shea came over and began examining Spectra, who was still unconscious. Spectra had not moved or spoken since I had laid her there. The computers reported that her vital functions were weak but stable. I had stayed with her through the night, but hadn’t get much sleep.

  “Shea, how do you think she is?” I asked.

  “Master, I believe she is going to make it. I plan to give her one more dose in a couple of hours, and after that she should recover completely,” said Shea.

  “That’s great! Thanks, Shea!” I said and gave her a big hug.

  Just then Rocky walked in and said, “Master Dusty, how is she?”

  “Shea says she’s going to make it!” I said.

  “Excellent! But Master, how about you?” he asked.

  “Me? Oh, I’m fine,” I said.

  “Then, Master, join me for breakfast?” he asked.

  I looked back at Spectra and hesitated. I didn’t feel right leaving her side at this time. What if something happened while I was away? Would I ever forgive myself?

  “Master, you asked me to help you learn to be a leader when you made me your second-in-command, so please let me help you. You need to get back to your post; otherwise you are sending the message that you will abandon your duties whenever Spectra gets hurt,” sent Rocky privately.

  I sighed. I knew he was right, but it was so hard to leave her. “Shea, please call me the moment she wakes up. Until then, I have to make sure that table is destroyed.”

  “Sure thing, Master,” said Shea.

  I left and walked with Rocky towards the mess hall. On the way there, some members of my crew stopped me to make a comment about something or other. Most of the time the comments seemed merely to be an excuse to speak with me. I stopped and listened to each one patiently and tried to be encouraging to them.

  We eventually made it to the mess hall and sat down for a meal. “I guess you were right. They needed to see me for some reason,” I sent privately to Rocky.

  “Yes, Master. They just came out of a combat mission, and you were holed up in sickbay. Leaders give strength and stability to their teams. They needed to know you were alright,” he sent back.

  “Any word yet on the table? Have we been able to verify its destruction?” I asked.

  “No, Master. The debris cloud is still too dense. The planet’s weather is working against us and keeping the area covered,” he said.

  “Any idea when the weather will break in our favor?” I asked.

  “It could be weeks,” he said. “We don’t have enough information about this planet to know for sure.”

  “We need to know it has been destroyed before we do anything else,” I said. “Do you have any suggestions?”

  “Not really, Master. None of our probes could handle that weather,” he said.

  “Well, then, let’s get everyone together for lunch. I want all my senior staff to brainstorm on this. Ask them to think of ideas, and we’ll see what we can come up with,” I said.

  “Sure, Master, but we could just wait for the weather to clear,” he said.

  “If we must, we will, but I’d rather know sooner than later,” I said.

  While we were talking Phoenix walked up to the table and said, “Mind if I join you?”

  “No, go right ahead,” I said.

  “Thanks, man. It’s good to see you out and about,” he said.

  On his plate was just a salad, and not a large serving either. “Wow, Shea is really cutting back on you,” I said.

  “Nah, this is just a snack. I already ate,” he said.

  “I am proud of you, Phoenix. You’re doing very well with this diet!” I said.

  “Thanks. I just hope I can stick with it. I can’t stand the thought of being a mundane again,” he said.

  “Master, let that be a motivation for you, then. Every time you want to cheat on your diet, remind yourself of how you felt to be without your powers,” said Rocky.

  “Yeah, maybe,” he replied.

  “Phoenix, have you made any more progress?” I asked.

  “Actually, yes. I have pretty much regained all the basic powers. They came back almost immediately after I lifted that towel a few more times,” he said.

  “That's wonderful! What about the rest of your powers?” I asked.

  “I haven’t tried them yet. Shea wants me to wait a few days just to make sure I don’t overdo it. She did say that my illuminescence levels are returning to normal, so I’m on my way to a complete recovery,” he said.

  “Wow, Phoenix! That’s great! I did not expect them to come back so fast!” I said.

  “Yeah, Shea said the problem was that my body was too weak to produce sufficient levels of illuminescence to use my powers. I never really lost them: it was just like I was perpetually out of juice. Now that my juice is returning I should soon be back to full strength, and no towel will be safe!” he said with a grin.

  “I just can’t get over how great your news is!” I said. “I can't wait to tell Spectra!”

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Shea, Rocky, Phoenix, Skryth, and I met at noon to discuss the current mission status. First, Rocky briefed everyone on the current situation with the weather on the planet below. I said, “All right, everyone, I need ideas. We need to know whether or not we successfully destroyed the table.”

  “Master, I could rig a probe up with extra armor to fly into the storm, but it wouldn’t last long,” said Skryth.

  “How long would we get?” I asked.

  “A minute, maybe two,” he said.

  “Why is this storm so dangerous?” I asked. “Shouldn’t the Fox be able to fly into it with its shields up?”

  “No, I wouldn’t risk it, Master,” said Rocky.

  “Well, why not?” I asked.

  “The storm is intense, Master; much more intense than it should be. I doubt if our shields could stand up to the beating for long,” said Rocky.

  “And it isn’t just the rocks,” said Phoenix. “There is a massive build-up of static electricity that would easily fry our shields.”

  “Can we bleed off the electricity with some superconductor wir
e anchored to the ground?” asked Skryth.

  “If we had a way of getting it in there, and had many miles of it, sure,” said Rocky. “Unfortunately we have neither.”

  “An armored probe could be the delivery mode,” said Skryth. “Plus I can manufacture as much wire as we need. It will just take a little time.”

  “How much time?” I asked.

  “A few weeks at most, Master,” he said.

  “By that time the local weather might have resolved the problem for us,” said Rocky.

  “Then why don’t we just wait?” asked Shea.

  “Spectra’s last words to me were a plea to destroy that table before it was too late. I can't ask her for details right now, obviously. I can only trust that she knew something I didn’t. What other options do we have?” I asked.

  “Well, the problem is that the storm is stable, right?” asked Phoenix. “Can we just detonate a missile in the middle of it and break it up?”

  “There is far too much energy in that storm for a missile to have an impact. Any detonation would be ineffective at best, and at worst would make the storm stronger,” said Rocky.

  We debated back and forth for a while, with each idea crazier than the last. Soon it was apparent that we would just have to wait it out. I was tempted to shoot a couple more waves of antimatter missiles at the table’s last known location, just to be sure.

  “Wait, wait,” said Shea. “This storm is made up of – what, exactly?”

  “Rock, sand, electricity and wind, mostly,” said Rocky.

  “Rocky, you're a terramancer, right? Cymeion’s line is electricity, isn’t it?” said Shea.

  “Yeah … ” responded Rocky.

  “Well, can’t you use your magic to protect a shuttle as you fly in there? They’re your elements, right?” asked Shea.

  Phoenix and Rocky looked at each other in amazement. “Of course!” they said almost at once. Then Rocky said, “Why didn’t we think of that?”

  “Because you were too focused on using technology,” said Shea.

  “Excellent!” I said. “What will you need?”

  “We’ll need a third wizard to fly the shuttle and check the table, since we will need to focus completely on the storm,” said Rocky.