Mission Pack 2: Missions 5-8 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  Roddy scratched the top of his head with one foot while balancing on the other. “Hmm. It’ll be hell on the cargo ramp, but I think we can use the hydraulics to jack the ship up as it opens. Yeah… I think we can get it out. Grab your gear. Mort, hold science steady long enough to get them out.”

  That was it. She had run out of excuses. Esper was going to have to be the hero.

  # # #

  The Squall was a racing-class version of the navy’s Typhoon IV all-purpose starfighter. With the hull armor reduced to composite polymer and the weapons and shields removed to make way for a larger engine, it was a fragile, high-powered speed machine. Having been well secured in the cargo hold during the crash, it had taken only cosmetic damage, mainly from unsecured cargo colliding with it. However nothing changed the fact that both the Squall and the Typhoon were designed for a single occupant. So Roddy had removed the canopy of this particular Squall, turning it into an open-air ride. Esper and Charlie sped through the night sky with the wind in their hair.

  It was equal parts exhilarating and gut churning as Charlie piloted them toward the marines’ city on a heading provided by Parker and confirmed by Mort. Esper knew what he meant when the wizard claimed to feel the pull of an ominous pit of anti-science directly ahead of them. She kept up a nice chat with science, like a real estate broker selling it on the idea of moving to Ithaca and settling in. But it dug in its heels, threatening to exit the property and walk away from the deal.

  The Squall gave a sudden lurch, and Esper squealed. The little racing ship’s gravity stone was an unfortunate casualty of Esper’s suppression of magic, so she felt the sudden change in G-forces. Though Roddy had assured her that the improvised safety harness he’d fashioned from cargo straps would keep her secure, she was still seated on the back edge of the cockpit, feet inside the pilot’s compartment and her backside parked on the hull. With no other convenient handhold, she grabbed the back of the pilot’s chair.

  “You OK back there?” Charlie shouted over the rushing wind. “Sorry about that!”

  “What was that all about?” Esper shouted back.

  “Bird or something,” Charlie replied. With gentler adjustments, they settled back in on their original course.

  By reflected planet-light, Esper could just make out the tops of the tree-grass. Without undermining her own arguments, she couldn’t enact magic to sharpen her eyesight. “How’d you even see anything?”

  “I saw us hit it, and made sure it didn’t happen,” Charlie replied.

  Esper couldn’t imagine what it was like being able to see a split-second into the future. “You sure you should be using magic? Maybe we should just fly higher, where there are fewer birds.”

  “There’s a reason we’re only doing 120,” Charlie replied. “If you conk out on me, the gravity stone reactivates… maybe we walk away from the crash. We go higher or much faster, probably not.”

  She wanted to make a counter-argument, to tell Charlie that the faster they got to their destination and the fewer sudden bird dodges she had to endure, the more likely she’d be able to hold off the onslaught of anti-scientific sentiment in the area. But Charlie had a point. It was the same point that she herself had argued less than an hour ago in trying to worm out of this mission. Charlie not only accepted the fact that Esper might not be up to the challenge, she had volunteered knowing full well they might crash in the jungle. Trust mixed with sensible precaution was a hard thing to argue against.

  Esper perked up. On the horizon, she saw something poke above the treetops. “I think I see it!” It wasn’t directly ahead of them, but just off to their right.

  “On it,” Charlie confirmed and then adjusted course to put them on target to the distant landmark.

  Even in the warm jungle night, their airspeed through the Ithacan sky brought a chill. Esper pushed down the thought of physical sensations and concentrated on keeping the ship’s science functioning. Though it was too soft to be heard over the noise of their flight, Esper murmured a quick rhyme to keep her focus, making it up as she went.

  Remember all those lovely photons,

  Give us back our wayward protons.

  Electro-neuro-bio-light,

  Magnet-o-quantum powered flight.

  “Which one is the gray one?” Charlie asked. Esper snapped awake from a daydream, lost in her own bubble of concentration. The Squall bucked. Its engines cut out and fell silent. They began losing altitude, and they didn’t have much to start with.

  Fighting to ignore the sensation of her stomach rising up her abdomen, Esper resumed her little song. Charlie worked frantically, switching switches and buttoning buttons. None of it made any sense—she was beginning to know how Mort felt around complicated equipment. But whatever Charlie did got the engines to cough and fire back up; Esper promised herself she wouldn’t drift off again.

  “Forget I asked,” Charlie said. They made a pass over the city. It was immense, far too large for the scant number of marines that had reportedly taken up residence. Everything had a faint red hue in the reflected planet-light, which didn’t help matters, and there were obelisks by the dozen.

  The Squall rolled, and only Esper’s rhythm with the rhyme kept her from missing a repetition and letting them crash upside down into a stubby square tower. “Stop that!” Esper ordered, continuing to repeat the rhyme in her head.

  “Sorry, someone just lobbed a spear at us,” Charlie shouted. “I didn’t see who, but someone knows we’re up here.” The ship jerked as Charlie dodged another projectile.

  “Find us that obelisk, quick!”

  “This is a standard search pattern!”

  “Come up with a non-standard one! I’m starting to lose my grip on science.” It was an odd sensation. Years had passed in the dreamworld where Mort tutored her. Maintaining the status quo was a skill every wizard learned as a form of self-defense. Keeping hostile magic in check was vital to survival, otherwise it would only matter who acted first to win any confrontation. But Esper hadn’t been prepared for just how grueling it would be to keep an area beyond herself stable in the face of a monolithic force that insisted on its own rules.

  “There!” Charlie shouted, and she put the Squall into a steep bank. Esper was pressed against her improvised seat. When they straightened out, she saw it, too. Their new heading put them on a direct course for one of the taller obelisks, shaded a few hues darker than its nearest neighbors. A spiral ramp wound around it, nearly all the way to the peak.

  “Land us on that ramp, right at the top!” Esper ordered.

  “You got it!”

  The obelisk grew steadily larger as they approached, as did Esper’s apprehension. They were above a city filled with angry marines—dozens of hostile Tannys—who knew she and Charlie were coming. If they had any brains, they’d only have a few guesses as to what the two of them could be up to. They’d be on guard at high-value locations, or rushing there if they weren’t in position already.

  Charlie set the Squall down on the sloped surface of the obelisk’s ramp with remarkable smoothness. There was hardly a bump as they touched down. The two women scrambled free of their harnesses, and Charlie dug the disintegrator rifle out from behind the pilot’s seat where they’d stowed it.

  When they both hit solid ground, Charlie pressed the weapon into Esper’s hands. “Lead the way,” Charlie said. She edged over to the raised side of the ramp and peered over. “We’ve got company. They’re at the bottom, but those fuckers look fast.”

  The rifle had a menacing heft to it. It must have weighed a good ten kilos, all devoted to ripping apart molecules at the elemental level. She blinked. Atoms? She remembered something about atomic bonds breaking, but having seen the weapons fired once, it really seemed more like it dissociated elemental earth. Holding the weapon at eye level, she squinted at the indicators on the side. They were blinky. Beyond that, she couldn’t make pigs or puppies out of them. At least blinky meant that it wasn’t empty. She frowned.

  “Blinky means
it’s not empty, right?” Esper asked.

  Charlie grabbed the rifle out of her hands. “Never mind. I’ll handle it. Just don’t expect me firing on those marines. I’ve never killed a human, and I’d rather not start today.”

  “How’d you never…?” Even Esper had killed someone, even if it had been an accident. For a decorated starfighter pilot, it seemed unlikely that Charlie never had. Carl bragged about the number of kills he’d made during his navy service.

  “Zheen, Eyndar, bunch of other xenos,” she replied. “Never a human. No laaku, no tesuds, or any other ARGO species. Now find that glyph thing Mort mentioned or we’re going to have to do some murdering to get out of this alive.”

  Esper gave a curt, military nod. “Right.”

  There was an open doorway at the end of the ramp not ten meters from their landing spot. There was no sign of a door, nor any evidence of bricks or plaster or anything other than a single, unbroken stone surface. The whole obelisk appeared to be one piece. Taking out a hand lamp, Esper led the way inside.

  The interior of the obelisk was a hollow mirror of the outside. It had a vaulted ceiling, rising to a blunted point matching that seen from the outside. At the center, a smaller obelisk jutted from the floor like a scaled down model of the one in which they now stood. Shining the hand lamp on it, the surface crawled with tangled carvings, indecipherable given her level of arcane training. If Mort had been there, maybe he could have puzzled out some sense from it, a set of instructions or at least dire warnings against pointing disintegrator rifles at it. But all Esper knew was that if this place had a most important, can’t-function-without-it bit, it was this little obelisk.

  “LOOK TO THE STARS AND GAZE UPON MY WONDER.” The walls and ceiling vanished, turning clear as glass. “OBEY ME. I AM DEVRAA. THIS WORLD AND ALL WHO DWELL UPON IT ARE MINE.”

  Charlie ducked for cover and aimed the disintegrator up toward the ceiling. “What the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know,” Esper replied. “Probably that god-creature the navy people mentioned. Just shoot the silly thing.”

  “The rifle’s not working!”

  The words struck Esper like thunder. She stood there a moment, dumbstruck. This wasn’t happening. She’d kept the Squall aloft the whole trip to the alien city, but this was too much. So close to the source of the anti-magic effect, the universe had its fingers in its ears, blocking out her arguments that science should reign.

  “WORSHIP ME. I SENSE THE POWER WITHIN YOU. BECOME MY HIGH PRIESTESS.”

  “What’s it saying?”

  Esper shushed her. “Ignore it.”

  Charlie peered outside, down at the oncoming marines. “We need a backup plan. We don’t have much time. What would your friend Mort do?”

  Esper blinked. What would Mort do? He certainly wouldn’t sit here moping. He wouldn’t keep knocking his head against the same wall, either. If the universe wasn’t going to let science sneak in to get a disintegrator working, maybe it was time to push in the other direction. She grabbed the miniature obelisk in both hands. Hey, Universe. This little chunk of rock is a thorn in your paw. You haven’t been acting like yourself because of it. I’m not asking you to pull it; I just want you to look the other way while I do. I know… I know. It’s tougher and sturdier than I am, but I’m willing to look past that if you are.

  “STOP!” a voice thundered throughout the room. “THIS I CANNOT ALLOW!”

  Esper smirked. Anything that Devraa didn’t like sounded pretty good to her. Consider, just for a moment, that muscle and bone are harder than rock. If you can manage that, I promise you’ll feel better afterward—back to your old self.

  “YOU MUST NOT—”

  The smaller obelisk snapped off in Esper’s hands. With a squeeze, she crushed it to gravel. “That did it!” A tingle ran through her, not just of the universe readjusting to science as usual but of sheer, thrilling power. For that brief moment, she felt like Mort—a wizard to be reckoned with. And then that moment passed, and she remembered the urgency of escape.

  “Nice work. Knew you had it in you.”

  “Let’s get out of here before the marines get here,” Esper said. She ran for the exit, Charlie following close behind.

  But the marines were already upon them. Charlie brought the disintegrator rifle to bear on a half dozen marines, all armed, all breathing hard from a ten-story run up a spiral ramp. They were just as close to the Squall as Charlie and Esper were.

  “What have you done?” one of them demanded.

  “We took back science,” Charlie replied, nodding down at the rifle in her hands. Esper noticed that she kept the blinky side angled away from marine eyes. “So you all just back the fuck off, or I dust you. Never bring a spear to a disintegrator fight.”

  But those first six weren’t the only marines to respond to the threat their god’s obelisk faced. Armed stragglers continued to arrive. One of those shouted in recognition. “Esper! What do you think you’re doing here?”

  “These yours, Rucker?” one of the marines asked.

  Tanny strode to the front of the group, spear in hand but not aimed for a throw or thrust. “They’re Ramsey’s. Wish I’d gotten here sooner so I could have talked them out of this. I am so sorry about them.”

  “Tanny?” Esper asked. “What are you doing with them?”

  Tanny swallowed and shook her head. “I feel better than I have in years. I’m not constantly fighting myself. I just hope whatever you did in there isn’t permanent.”

  “No idea,” one of the marines said. “But Devraa is wise. If it can be repaired, he’ll tell us how.”

  “Devraa is wise,” the other marines echoed, though Tanny remained silent, focusing a stern glare on Esper.

  “Drop the weapon and come quietly,” Tanny said. “We won’t hurt you. You have my word.”

  “Even if we believed you,” Charlie said, keeping the rifle trained on the mass of marines closest to their position. “We’ve got a working ship and a charged disintegrator. I don’t think you’re in a position to bargain.”

  Tanny snorted. “That’s my disintegrator rifle. It’s all residual charge siphoned off the Mobius’s engines; it doesn’t even have a power pack. If you fired it in there, you’re out. Besides, Esper would never let you kill us instead of surrendering.”

  Who was this Tanny standing there at the fore of the marine squad? This wasn’t the same woman who took Esper shopping and tried to help her get laid. She wasn’t the gruff, loyal pilot who kept them on the sensible course despite Carl’s kooky schemes and reckless plans. And this certainly wasn’t Kubu’s Mommy.

  “What have they done to you?” Esper asked softly.

  “Done?” Tanny asked. “They freed me from Recitol and from Plexophan, Adrenophiline, Pseudoanorex, Zygrana, Cannabinol, and Sepromax. Can you believe that when I was in school, I was lousy at chemistry? For thirteen years, my body’s been pumped full of so much toxic shit that if it got out of perfect balance it practically killed me. Half the things I thought, I couldn’t tell whether it was me or some multisyllabic concoction doing the thinking. But now I see clearly. I stayed with Carl because he was the one who enabled my addiction. He had the connections to get all that shit on demand, and unlike my family, he didn’t keep trying to pack me off to detox.”

  “And now you’re with them?” Esper asked.

  “You’ve been a good friend, Esper,” Tanny said. “Like I said, I wish I’d gotten here in time to stop you. But what’s done is done, and I’m not in charge here. There have to be consequences for damaging one of Devraa’s temples. But I swear to you, I’ll do everything I can to protect you. You have my word. Maybe Devraa will take another wizard into his service. Think of it as penance.”

  A quick burst from the disintegrator interrupted the two women’s private conversation, and the tip of Tanny’s spear was gone. One of the marines reacted with frightening speed and threw his weapon. Charlie vaporized it in mid-air. “Not empty yet. Next one to make a move gets a ne
w body cavity.” She leaned over to Esper. “Get in. We’re leaving.”

  “You can’t take us all,” another marine said, edging forward as if to dare Charlie to fire.

  “If I were you,” Esper said. “I’d start running. When Mort senses the tech’s turned back on, they’ll be on their way in the Mobius. It’s not 100 percent, but it’s got engines and guns.” She climbed atop the Squall and started strapping herself in.

  “She’s bluffing,” Tanny said. “You never were any good as a liar.”

  Something rose inside Esper, a churning bile that warmed her from belly to brain. Her teeth clenched. “I’m trying to save Charlie from having to kill you,” she snapped. Letting go of the ends of her harness straps, Esper dropped back to the ramp and stalked toward the line of marines.

  “Esper, get back here!” Charlie shouted.

  But Esper was past listening. Her chest rose and fell in shuddering breaths. “This is it? You’re with them now? You just—”

  “It’s complicated,” Tanny shouted back.

  “You don’t turn your back on your friends,” Esper countered.

  “Or the corp,” Tanny said. “If I go back, I’m just giving in and giving up. Here, I can be me, not some chemical approximation of human.”

  “Get. Out. Of here,” Esper growled. “I don’t want to see you again until you come to your senses. We’d have helped if you let us. But fine, go be with your crazy marine friends and your blasphemous cult. I’ll pray for your soul, but Lord help me, if you don’t get out of my sight I may not be able to stop myself from throwing you all off this ramp.”

  “I’d like to see you—”

  “No!” Tanny cut off the boastful marine with an upraised hand. “She’s a wizard and not like that fop Azrael. I can’t beat her in a straight fight, and I don’t know how much she’s learned since the last time I tried.”