“How many teams can we make with that?” Shara asked.
“The limit is the Source-casters, including you, that gives us fifteen teams. If we create some non-source teams, the guides then limited us, but we could still have thirty-eight.”
Taeri clicked his tongue thoughtfully, “We could do all thirty-eight, with the Source-casters as the front-line teams that get close and start attacks. If the other teams coordinate with them, they won’t be too disadvantaged. They can set up traps, hit patrols or Xenai that get separated and such.”
Shara smiled, “We could even use their disadvantage to our advantage. Let them get sensed, to pull the Xenai into traps the source teams have set up, too. Once they know we have teams out there, they’ll find the teams that can’t hide their presence first. Which means, we buddy up the source teams with one or two of the teams that don’t have Source-casters. The Xenai will hunt them down and get hit by the others or led into more traps.”
Taeri pointed at her while looking at Hafi, “It’s almost like I trained her.”
Hafi looked over the map table, tapping his fingers, “We don’t know how they’ll respond. They could sense a team of six and send a hundred Xenai in response. Then you’d be facing the same problem we are now, and the teams would just get slaughtered. It’s safer to just use the source-casters.”
Taeri and Shara looked at each other. Taeri shrugged but Shara shifted in her seat and glared at the map table, “We could still use them, just make sure they are out of range of the main army. If we control their patrol’s movements and lead them into traps that way, then do the same with the next set of patrols, we can get quite a few squads down before we have to change tactics and have the non-source casting teams retreat and just support the source-casting teams.”
“Even so, like you said, eventually they will catch on that it’s not just patrols running into each other and you’ll have to switch it up. At which point, what’s stopping them from obliterating the non-source-casting teams?”
Taeri chimed in, “Combine the teams for a while. Make the source teams bigger so everyone is hidden. Then, split some out again, but really we’d be keeping everyone else hidden and still with them. We can hide our numbers until they commit a smaller number of Xenai than they need. Then, we overwhelm them, for once.”
Hafi nodded, “Could work, assuming you guys can stay on top of when the Xenai put together the pieces.”
Taeri looked over at Shara, “Seems like that would be a job for her team.”
Hafi looked over at Taeri with his propped up leg, “Fine. You two will lead one team each and coordinate between all the teams. We’ll get the teams assigned, and you guys will need to leave tonight. I’ll make sure I put someone on your team that can carry you and maybe wipe your ass, too.” Hafi turned his face toward the door of the tent again and yelled, “James!”
The boy’s head popped through the flap, “Yes, sir?”
“Get me the rest of the officers.”
41
Tani
For three days Tani, Odi, and Delilah had sat with Alynn. With no access to proper source training, they did the next best thing: they read Illara history of Lifecasting to Alynn as she recovered from surgery. They encouraged her to sense her own body and what was happening inside of it. They told her to focus on controlling her pain first. By the end of the day of the surgery, she was smiling.
Tani found that sleeping was difficult. She wanted to sit in the corner of Alynn’s room and watch everything. Every few hours there was something new—a slight movement in her fingers, a whispered request for water, or a twitch in her leg. These small things grew over the days until she could pour her own water from the table next to her bed. The room echoed with her delighted laughter when she regained a long lost simple ability. Tani buzzed with excitement, and both Delilah and Odi could not stop smiling.
Today Tani wanted to push Alynn further.
“Are you ready?” Tani asked, holding out her hand.
Alynn nodded and pushed herself up to a sitting position before grasping Tani’s hand. She turned on the bed, her legs moving in jerky motions until she could drop them off the side, balancing on the edge.
“Odi,” Tani called, “Get her other side.”
The boy stepped forward and held his mother’s hand. Tani nodded to him, then looked at Alynn, waiting. Alynn took a deep breath, then pushed against them, moving herself forward until she could bring her weight down on her feet. She trembled and clamped down on Tani’s hand.
Tani reached around with her other hand and placed it on her back, giving her a soft rub, “You’ve got it.”
The crushing pressure on her hand lessened, and Tani could feel Alynn shifting more weight onto her legs. She continued trembling, but Tani suspected the trembling reflected her atrophied muscles, something she could ignore when moving by source.
“You’ll tremble until your body gets used to walking again. It doesn’t mean you can’t.” She said, and with another reassuring pat to Alynn’s back, Tani let go of her hand. Tani stepped in front of Alynn, placing her arms out and in a position at Alynn’s sides to catch her if she needed to.
“Odi, get behind her.” She said.
Odi slid his hand out from his mother’s grasp and stepped around to the opposite side of her, pushing up against the bed to give her some space. Tani took a small step backwards and waited for Alynn to follow. This time, she immediately responded, her eagerness clear in her eyes as she stared forward at Tani. She shifted her weight to her right leg and then her left leg moved forward, dragging on the ground. She took a second to rebalance with her legs split and Tani took another small step backwards. Alynn followed, her shaking leg raised into a higher step this time. Tani continued the slow crawl backwards, Alynn following and Odi behind her until Tani’s back was to the wall. She stepped to the side and guided Alynn to turn around. They kept going until they were back at the bed.
Sweat covered Alynn, her face flushed, but she was smiling at Tani as she climbed back onto the bed, not even asking for assistance.
“We did it!" She said.
“Yes, now get some rest. Your body needs a lot of rest to catch up with what you can do with source.” Alynn laid back on to her pillow, grabbing Odi’s hand as he sat down next to the bed. She smiled and closed her eyes.
Tani paced the best she could across the floor of her quarters. Alynn’s progress was incredible, but the danger of her implant loomed over Tani. She couldn’t let a patient accidentally turn into a second Merende. Lifecasting without anatomical training was dangerous. If Alynn tried to cure herself rather than suppress her symptoms, as they were teaching her, she could end up killing herself. Mystics help her if she tried to heal another person without training.
It wasn’t entirely impossible for Alynn to be accepted into training at the Academy once Tani could prove the viability of her work, but she couldn’t risk exposing the project so soon. It would be years before she might be able to continue her work and release details on her patients. Even for Alynn and Odi, her first supporters, she couldn’t take that risk. Tani would make sure she got basic medical training and tell her the story of Merende, of course. But she could not risk the project.
42
Ayna
Ayna glared at the report on her LightTab. After receiving the first report on Tani’s latest experiment, she had asked for two more from her other sources. The first one had to be a fabrication. Now, she had finished reading the third report, and they’d all confirmed the same thing: Tani had two patients with untreatable conditions that now seemed to be healed.
Only the truly desperate had gone to Tani before. What hesitation had been there for the more fortunate had vanished. The Underground was climbing over itself to get in line to be treated by Tani. Even with her limitations on the scale of her operation, the truth was, her waiting list was shorter than those for Topside doctors. Other than restructuring the entire medical system of Prin, the only way Ayna could stop her n
ow would be to arrest her.
What kind of leader arrests someone for helping people?
Ayna had too many problems already without adding more conflict between the citizens of Prin by taking away a form of medical care. Even if the experiments were wildly dangerous and no one knew the long-term effects of what she was doing, Ayna knew she could not convince the people the risk was too great. They would see any action against Tani as the actions of an oppressor.
Ayna sighed and started writing up a response to her contacts outlining the details and constant surveillance Tani’s program needed. She needed an updated list of every patient and a record of every surgery and to find out if they got new staff or expanded. She needed to know everywhere Tani went. If she stepped foot outside that lab, Ayna needed to know when and why. She sent the message to all of her Underground contacts.
She turned to the other problems, pushing away the worry about the cat-like girl. There would be more reports and more worry later. Now she needed to deal with the Artificer situation. Conlan, with Dom’s help, had made some progress with the Martian crystal. They’d been able to get composition data from Mars. The Warden of the male prison had followed her advice, and they’d freed a few prisoners with engineering and physics degrees. The former prisoners had already made good progress remodeling the lab to build devices to activate the source in their crystal, per Conlan’s instructions. But there was always some problem. Either Dom didn’t have the composition data, or she had chosen not to share it with her.
The Artificers requested that the blueprint data of the old Terra spaceships be put on the partition, which Ayna obliged. After the Artificers first few meetings with the Mars team, they determined there was enough difference in the ships they had compared to the blueprints for them to be useless. They were starting from scratch to document the design of the Martian ships and then integrate source crystals.
Dom had provided a high-level overview of the direction of study for the Blight crystal, but no actionable information. All Ayna knew was that they were testing the Blight crystal not as an individual type of source, but as an amplifier for other source. They believed when combined with other elements, it would strengthen their effects or bring out unique properties. Dom had provided no data on their tests or exact results, and neither had Bobi, and Ayna hated being in the dark.
It’s time to stop holding up my end of the bargain, if they won’t hold up theirs.
Ayna stood, pulling her fur-lined hooded cape off the chair. She threw it around her and slipped her LightTab into her dress pocket. She needed to speak with the Prin Guard stationed at the U.
“Ayna!”
The doors to her office flung open and Bobi marched in, followed by two guards that he shook off like they were fleas each time they grabbed one of his arms.
“Why did you kick us off the Blight crystal project?” He crossed his arms and stood before her desk.
She waved the guards away, “It’s fine—Sorry I didn’t tell you in person, however you weren’t at the lab when I stopped by early this morning. The collaboration needed for the project to be successful just isn’t there. I’ll be handling it with my team moving forward. I have instructed the guards at the U to escort you in to retrieve your property. Nothing has been touched, we just deactivated your access codes.”
Bobi uncrossed and recrossed his arms, staring her down. “We have been making progress, we just have had nothing at a state worth sharing, yet.”
“I know you’ve been making progress. And you should have been sharing everything, whether or not you thought it was worth sharing. I told you that from the beginning.”
“What would your team have done with a bunch of unsubstantiated theories about Source? They would have rolled their eyes and ignored it. It was better to wait until we had something that would get their attention.”
“Thats the same as saying you might as well work on it alone. If I’d wanted that, I would have just given you a sample. I’m sorry, Bobi, but there are no second chances here.” She tapped on her LightTab, pushing the script for calling security into her office. “Go get your books, Bobi. If you want any help to move them, I can have the guards assist you. It was a lot to move in the first place.”
Bobi turned his head as the guards re-entered. His voice went flat and cold, “No. We’ll be fine.”
He let the guards take him by the arm and lead him out. A few seconds later, Kingston popped his head through the door, “So, that didn’t work out well, I assume?”
“No need to be cocky about it.”
Kingston offered an apologetic smile, “Wasn’t trying to be cocky. I just wanted to let you know that my offer still stands.”
Ayna’s LightTab lit up with an urgent message. She set aside her meager lunch, leftover fruit and corn mash from breakfast. It was from Doctor Hunt.
I don’t know who the hell you had on the fucking Artificers when they were packing up their shit, but you should fire them. The Blight crystal samples we had are all gone.
43
James
James grew cold as the night lagged forward. Gathering the officers and listening to them bicker about Hafi’s offensive strategy had sapped what little strength he had left after their first victory. When Hafi finally dismissed him, his body begged to rest, but James knew he wouldn’t be able to sleep until he had seen Shara. She would be getting ready to leave. The part of James that disagreed with Hafi’s new plan was the part that was convinced he would never see her again.
He found her by Taeri’s tent, fussing over the old Illara as if she were his personal nurse.
“Stop it!” Taeri yelped and swatted her away from his splinted leg, “It burns!”
She set her hands on her hips and scowled down at him, “You are going to have to put on your big boy panties and suffer.”
James stepped up to the small campfire next to them, “I don’t think anyone wants to see Taeri put on his old man diapers.”
Shara turned her scowl on him, “Well, if he doesn’t let me heal him he will need them. All he’s going to be able to do is shit himself as the Xenai run him down and kill him.”
James looked over at Taeri and shrugged, “She has a point.”
The old Illara crossed his arms over his chest and glared at James, “I don’t recall inviting you to join us. It’s bad ‘nuff dealing with her stubborn ass without you riding in to take her side.”
“Calm down, Taeri,” Shara said, “I’ll just be a few more minutes. The bone is regrowing, it’s just not regrown enough yet.”
“Nobody told me healing bones is as painful as breakin’ ‘em,” He said, fixing his mouth into a child’s pout that transformed his rough face into that of an overgrown and angry cherub. He squirmed and flinched as Shara began life casting on his leg again.
Stifling his laughter, James sat on a nearby tree stump, leaning forward to warm his hands by the fire while he watched Shara work. He focused on her hands, but found his eyes kept wandering up her body to her face. The flicking of the fire on her made her even more noticeable. She wore a scowl of focus as her hands weaved over Taeri’s leg, her mouth set in a firm line. Her cheekbones and the angle of her chin looked more prominent, accenting the diamond shape of her face.
Forgetting about Taeri while watching Shara, he suddenly noticed eyes watching him. He shifted his gaze and found Taeri staring at him, one eyebrow raised. James felt the heat rising in his cheeks.
“There. It still needs to heal, but you should be able to move around. Just make sure if you have to run, you don’t have to run for very long. Too many hard impacts and it’ll break again.” Shara said.
Taeri continued staring down James as he responded to her, “Alright, I’ll be careful. I’ll try not to go for any long runs in dick forest with my mouth open.”
Shara giggled.
“Go on now. Let me get a little rest before we head out,” Taeri said, making shooing motions at Shara, then he unwrapped his leg, freeing it from the splint.
“You try to and I’ll assault you with rocks.”
Shara patted the side of his face. “If you think I can’t protect myself from some measly Mooncasting while I heal you, you will be in for a surprise.”
Taeri stood up, gingerly placing weight on the formerly broken leg. “See? I’m fine! Get lost.”
Shara sighed and turned to James as he stood up. She quickly closed the gap between them and slid her arm into his and walked beside him, calling back over her shoulder to Taeri, “I’ll be back!”
James walked silently, enjoying Shara’s arm in his as they left the light of the fires and entered a dark area of the camp where everyone had retired for the evening.
Shara reached over and put her free arm on his and squeezed, “I have to get together a few things before we all head out. I wish Hafi put you on my team again—we did some good murdering earlier.”
James smiled and slowed to a stop, looking at her in the moonlight, “Yeah, we are good together.”
She smiled up at him and slipped her arm out while turning to face him, “Any idea what you are going to do here? Seems like Hafi wants to settle in here as long as possible. Maybe you could take up a hobby. Perhaps knitting?”
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