by Ramy Vance
“Were you asking me about the mission?”
Jollies didn’t answer right away. Finally, she said, “No.”
Alex pulled up the tactical display and nodded smugly. “That’s what I thought you were going to say.” Alex sighed. “Well, might as well get down to business. You guys know about the incoming ship. Hey, how come Brath didn’t come?”
“We couldn’t both leave. And yeah, we clocked the ship after you called us. It must still have power because it’s descending so slowly. It’s not a crash-landing.”
Alex pointed to the tactical display, noting their position and the position of the ship. She drew their attention to the creatures that were in the valley and those above the ship. “Looks like we’re not the only ones trying to pick this thing up, and if it’s important to the Dark One, then it’s important to us. I doubt if it’s supplies or anything like that. From what I could see, the vrosks were trying to rip the thing to shreds in the air.”
Gill leaned close to look at the display, his hair falling over his face. “This is a welcome addition to our tech,” he said before straightening up and opening his display. “Formulating plans will be much easier. If you’ve decided to start planning things, that is?”
A few months ago, Alex would have gotten defensive, but she’d grown pretty familiar with Gill’s wry sense of humor. That jab was as close to a joke as Gill ever got. “Yeah, I figured it might be the best route to keep from getting our heads blown off. And I’m open to contributions.”
Gill smiled as he brushed his hair out of his face. “I’d like to hear what you’re proposing first.”
Alex pointed to the blank spots on the map display, east of where they were currently. “The ship is heading in that direction and we don’t know what’s there. The descent is still pretty slow, so we can easily make it there before the ship does. I want Jollies to do a quick recon of the area and give us an idea of what we’re walking into since she’s the fastest.”
Jollies zipped back over to her dragon and climbed aboard. “The display will automatically update for you guys?”
Alex nodded as she pointed to it. “That’s what it did last time. I’m pretty sure it’s sourcing information from our HUDs and dragon anchors.”
“Okay, I’ll be back ASAP. Don’t do anything fun without me.”
Jollies took off, heading east toward whatever lay over the hills.
Alex turned her attention to Gill. “I want you to check out the hills. You’re the quietest of us all, and the only one I trust to get a better picture of what’s trailing the ship. Jim’s mech is too loud, and it’s not a secret that I’m not good at laying low.”
Gill nodded, turned off his display, and went back to his dragon. He left without saying a word, rising into the sky like a giant black cloud and disappearing.
Jim went back to his mech and jumped inside. “So, I’m guessing my role is to sit here quietly and do nothing?”
“Not nothing, but I don’t have anything specific for you to do. Ideas?”
Jim looked at his tactical display. “No, I think you’re right. I just don’t like having to sit on the sidelines because of the whole mech thing, but like you said, the thing is too damn loud and not nearly as maneuverable as your dragons. Sneaking makes sense, and I can’t do what Gill is about to.”
Alex wondered if there was a hint of jealousy in Jim’s voice. She could have just been hearing something that wasn’t there. And then she wondered why she would hope Jim would be jealous of Gill. That didn’t make any sense.
Jim was playing with the controls on his mech. “At least I can calibrate this thing,” he muttered under his breath. “Got a feeling we’re going to need heavy firepower in a little bit. I didn’t need to get close to see there are a lot of monsters trying to get into that ship.”
Alex had climbed back onto Chine and was scratching the dragon behind his horns. What do you think is in the ship?
Hopefully an enemy of the Dark One. We could always use more allies, Chine answered.
Wouldn’t that be sweet?
At best, maybe it is something to help end this war sooner.
It took Jollies less than an hour to return, but the tactical display was updated long before that. Alex could appreciate why Myrddin had added it to their tools. As soon as Jollies had arrived at the valley and done the survey, the display had changed. If something had happened to Jollies, Lord forbid, it wouldn’t have kept the team from receiving the intel.
Gill, on the other hand, took a little bit longer to get back. The three dragonriders were patiently waiting for him around a fire they had started. They watched the ship continue to descend. Alex was surprised the vrosks hadn’t gotten inside yet. She’d seen what vrosks could do up close, and it wasn’t pretty.
Jollies was already bored with waiting, and she’d only gotten back a few minutes ago. She paced up and down the length of a tree branch until finally jumping from the tree and landing on Alex’s shoulder. “Okay, if you aren’t going to give me any details now, the least you can do is tell me what you did,” she whined.
Alex wanted to flick Jollies off her shoulder and let the conversation end there, but she knew it was because she was getting anxious, waiting for Gill to get back. Sending members of her team out alone always made her uncomfortable. “Fine,” Alex relented. “We got into a fight with some giants and ended up running across a bunch of pixies living in the forest.”
“Figures you two would get into a fight on a date. And there are pixies out here in the forest? I had no idea. What were they like?”
“Actually, now that I think of it, they were different from you or any of the pixies in the Nest. Not nearly as high energy. They were still beautiful, though.”
“That’s because the pixies in the Nest, including me, aren’t woodland pixies. Most of us come from pixie cities. Things move faster there. Roy said it was like the difference between humans who grow up in the country or something called New York. Anyway, I’d like to meet them at some point. I haven’t spent a whole lot of time with woodlanders.”
“Is that a common thing? I mean, not knowing much about another branch of your own race?”
Jollies shrugged. “Depends on how you look at it. Most high elves don’t know much about drow other than what they’ve read. I’ve heard it’s the same for you humans. You don’t know much about humans in other countries. Isn’t that the basis for most of your wars?”
Alex couldn’t disagree with her. “One of our leaders, a long time ago, said the only way humans would stop fighting each other was if we had to work together to fight something bigger than us.”
Jollies laughed as Alex chuckled ironically. “That’s a sad thought,” the pixie whispered. “But I think you could say that about any of the races throughout the realms. Even the elves, regardless of what they’d have you think. Gnomes are the only race that has had an extended peace.”
Alex found that hard to believe. “Really? Brath seems so angry, and so do all the other gnomes.”
“That’s just because gnomes are prickly. They haven’t had a war in hundreds of years. That’s why their homeworld fell so quickly. They had the weakest army of anyone attacked.”
Alex let that irony sink in as she leaned forward and stared into the flames. She could see Jim’s face through the fire, also pondering what Jollies had just said. He’d been quiet since the recalibrations on his mech had been finished—deep in thought, his eyes distant.
Behind Jim, Alex saw Gill’s dragon land. The rider walked up to the flames and took a seat next to Jim, who patted him on the shoulder. “Glad you made it back,” Jim said. “These two were trying their best to depress the living hell out of me.”
Jollies stuck her tongue out at him. “I was not trying to depress you. We were just talking about the war.”
Gill nodded as he scooted closer to the fire. “A good conversation for light hearts. It is something we should talk about. It makes no sense to fight a war we don’t understand, even if i
t concerns us. Otherwise, we aren’t much better than the Dark One’s tools.”
“Do drow have wars?” Alex asked.
Gill took his time answering, as he did anytime he was questioned about drow culture. At first, Alex had thought it was because he didn’t want to talk to outsiders about his people. Over time, Alex had determined that it was more about trying not to misrepresent his people. “We drow haven’t fought a war for some time. Maybe a few thousand years.”
“How do you settle differences, then?”
“Most drow aggression is done through subterfuge. Behind the scenes kind of stuff. The drow are technically at peace with everyone but really at peace with no one. It’s one of the reasons people don’t trust us. When your entire race is known for being sneaky, it’s hard to get people to see anything other than that.”
The four dragonriders sat in silence, watching the flames and thinking over what had been said. Then Alex pulled up her tactical display and announced, “We better start planning. Come on.”
Chapter Eight
Alex discovered within minutes that she hated planning anything more than a few steps ahead, but she wanted to get better at it. Obviously, trusting her gut was only going to keep her out of trouble for so long. Planning ahead seemed like the best way to stay alive.
It also helped that she wasn’t going at it by herself. The tactical display allowed everyone to see what was going on and chip in. That was great because both Gill and Jollies had excellent insights into some of the proposed ideas.
The four dragonriders sketched out an idea of how long it was going to take the ship to actually touch down. While they were charting the potential crash site of the ship, Alex received a comm from Myrddin. He told her he’d arrived back at Middang3ard and was in the process of pulling together whatever reinforcements he could. Obviously, his call for reinforcements held much more weight than Jollies’ and Brath’s.
After that was taken care of, Alex looked at the game plan the four had come up with. Gill and Jollies were going to try to clear out the area where the ship was going to land. From the recon the two had performed, it didn’t seem like the Dark One’s ground troops knew for sure where the ship was going. They seemed to be just guessing, and thanks to the combination of the tactical display, Alex’s eyes, and Gill’s and Jollies’ recons, the dragonriders were fairly certain they had a better projection of where the ship was going.
If there were any of the Dark One’s ground forces in the area, Jollies and Gill could get started taking care of them. If the ground forces were too numerous, they could radio for backup from Alex and Jim. There wasn’t much distance between the two areas, and it would be easy enough to move back and forth as long as they weren’t overrun.
Jim and Alex were going to try to thin the herd of monsters that were heading to the ship. If the giants suddenly decided to change course, there was going to be a much worse problem. It was better to take them out now instead of waiting until they posed a threat. That was where the valley and its surrounding hills were going to come in handy.
At the moment, Alex and Jim were outnumbered by the giants. The plan was to use the rocks and boulders on the hills to take out some of them, bringing the total down to a more manageable number.
The dragonriders went over their plan one more time, asking questions here and there when they needed clarification. It was straightforward enough, and the only thing that could really go wrong was incorrectly predicting where the ship was going to come down. Even if that happened, they could all easily correct their course once they had cleared out the Dark One’s forces, though.
Alex flipped down her tactical display and stood. “You guys ready to get going?”
Jollies groaned as she floated on her back. “I wish I had known it was going to be a mission like this,” she whined. “I would have brought along something to eat.”
Jim went to his mech and pulled out a picnic basket. “Go crazy, you guys,” he said as he tossed the basket to Alex. It was filled with sandwiches nicked from the cafeteria, along with a selection of desserts and treats. Alex noticed he had included some gnomish hard candy as well, one of Alex’s favorites.
Gill picked around until he found some fruit. “I’m sorry you two won’t be able to finish your picnic,” he said softly. “The lake was probably beautiful at this time of day.”
Alex reached over Gill’s hand to grab a piece of jerky. “Yeah, it was. Jim told me you let him know about the place, right?”
Gill nodded, his face betraying no emotion, as usual. “When he told me you were going on a date, I could think of no better location,” he replied. “Glad you enjoyed it. Jim, you and I are going to have to go swimming there soon. Brath still hasn’t been either.”
Jim grabbed a sandwich and started to scarf it down. “Sounds good to me. Honestly, after all this crap is finished, it might be nice to go for a dip before we head back to HQ. It’s hot all night, right?”
“I didn’t bring any swimming clothes.”
Jim laughed as he took another bite of his sandwich. “I highly doubt anyone in our company is going to complain about seeing your ass. And it won’t be anything I haven’t seen.”
Alex felt her face burning bright red and tried to find something to look at. Unfortunately, her eyes fell on Jollies, who was an even brighter red than Alex. Jim was having way too much fun with all this. “If you guys are done messing around, I’m ready to get going,” Alex said.
Gill smiled politely as he took a seat underneath Timber’s wings. “I’d prefer a little more time to eat if possible. Like Jollies, I haven’t had a chance to eat.”
Alex couldn’t argue with him. Everyone else was still in the process of eating, even if she was starting to get anxious, waiting around. That, and it would be easier to avoid being teased if they were in active pursuit.
Alex walked over to the picnic basket and looked for something that looked appetizing. “You know, this is the first time we’ve all been around for a meal in a few weeks, I think.”
Jim chewed as he nodded, scratching his chin. “Yeah, it has been a while. I can’t remember the last time we all had lunch or dinner together.”
“You would think things would have slowed down after the last mission. Seems like I hardly see you guys anymore unless we’re trying to save the world or something.”
Gill looked up from his food. “I don’t think any of our missions have qualified as saving the realm yet, but I do understand the sentiment. I miss you guys as well. Brath does too, even if he’d prefer not to say it.”
They were right. It had been a while since she and Jollies had spent any time with each other, even though they lived together. Today was the first day she’d seen Jim for longer than twenty minutes. Gill had been pretty much a shadow for the last two weeks. “We should make this happen more often. Minus the part where we have to chase a spaceship and kill a bunch of giants.”
Jim finished his sandwich. “Yeah, I could do with more hanging out and fewer threats of death. That sounds like a much better way to spend my holiday.”
Alex placed her hand in the middle of the group. “Promise. We all make sure to have a life outside of missions. And I’m going to count you as Brath, Gill.”
Gill placed his hand on top of Alex’s, and Jim placed his on top of Gill’s. Jollies landed atop the pile of hands and nodded solemnly. “Promise.”
Jim and Gill repeated the promise as well, then removed their hands. “Good. Now let’s go save a spaceship.”
Chapter Nine
Alex and Jim took off toward the rocky hills that rolled through the green valley as the ship above continued its slow, constant descent from the heavens. Alex couldn’t keep herself from wondering what was inside. All of the time she’d spent with the riders had been concerned with how they were going to get to the ship, not its contents.
That could have been because none of them wanted to think about the last time they’d had to deal with anything from space. Their last excursion had
ended up with them defying direct orders, most of them nearly dying, a harrowing psychedelic experience, possibly sharing a mind-meld with the Dark One, and Alex losing her arm.
It was easier not to talk about those things, and on the whole, that was what Team Boundless had been doing. That was probably why they hadn’t been seeing much of each other. Sitting in a room with Jollies for too long would have prompted conversations Alex didn’t want to have. She was already getting weird looks from other students. Everyone’s eyes gravitated toward her arm.
Alex hadn’t had a chance to have the robotic nature of her arm covered. Myrddin had mentioned something about it when it was first installed, and now she almost wished she had gone the magical route instead. She still wasn’t used to seeing steel bones instead of skin, but then again, she was only recently getting used to seeing anything.
The arm worked perfectly and she rarely realized it wasn’t the one she’d been born with, except when she accidentally exerted too much strength. But she was quickly learning to control that.
Alex had been glad to be alone with Jim for a little bit but had been worried the conversation was going to turn to her arm, or even worse, what she’d seen within the meteor that had fallen from the sky.
The experience had been too much to wrap her head around. Sometimes she would think about it during the day, and a well of dread would creep into her stomach, the room would get distant, and things would become fuzzy. She tried to keep from thinking about it.
That didn’t stop the nightmares, though. Alex had never been so happy Jollies was a night person as when they had returned from that mission. The nightmares had arrived in droves, each of them concerned with the rock in some way. She hardly remembered them when she woke. She figured it was just stress, but part of her worried there might be something deeper. She had been connected to the Dark One or one of his minions on a mental plane. Maybe she’d brought something back with her.