by Blake Vanier
“Holy cow. What happened down here?” Nero asks.
“What do you mean? This is my workshop,” Saraf says with a smile.
Nero looks around, mouth open. “This place is a disaster. How is that possible? Has Sosimo seen this?”
Saraf frowns. “Just bring me the Aether container.”
He puts the container down on the only clear section of table. A wooden container sits open with six crystal spheres resting in individual slots.
“What are we going to do?”
Saraf pats the Aether container. “We’re going to use the Aether stored in here to charge the wood.” He points to the crystal spheres. “Then, we’re going to use those Adter Tursents to check its cast.”
“How do we do that?”
“Each one of these crystals is fused with an essence of a different cast. When they contact Aether of the same cast, they glow. You can tell which sphere corresponds to which cast by the symbol etched on them. They are for Pahzan, Icor, Moltrik, Ru, Nesiv, and Biat Aether,” Saraf says. He points to each of the crystals in order.
When Nero shifts his perspective, he sees each sphere has a different color emanating from it: red, green, blue, brown, orange, and yellow. “And what do the different Aethers do?”
“Sosimo hasn’t taught you this?” Nero shakes his head and Saraf lets out a sigh. “What a slacker. Pahzan Aether allows someone to control the flow of energy, Icor Aether allows someone to interact with organic matter, Moltrik Aether allows someone to control electricity and magnetism, Ru Aether allows someone to manipulate the nuclear forces of atoms, Nesiv Aether allows someone to manipulate spacetime, and Biat Aether allows someone to tinker with essence. Got it?”
“What are nuclear forces? And what is spacetime?”
“What do they teach you kids in school these days?”
“I’m only twelve!”
“That’s no excuse. I was doing quantum mechanics when I was still in diapers.
“What’s that?”
“Oh, for Stone’s sake.” Saraf scrambles for a piece of paper and writes some words on it. “Study these things, or next week I’m going to make you and Sosimo do one-thousand pushups.”
Nero looks at the list and gulps. It reads:
Thermodynamics, electricity and magnetism (emphasizing electromagnetic radiation), radioactive decay, the strong force, general relativity, and the proper Borukin form for pushups.
“Are you making this stuff up?”
Saraf waves his hand. “Bah. Let’s get back on task.”
Saraf opens the top of the Aether box, pulling out a flexible cable. Nero sees that it glows with green, pulsing Aether. Saraf touches the end to the wood, and the wood's Aether turns green and brightens while the container’s glow lessens. Once Saraf removes the cable, the wood turns to violet.
“The wood takes the Aether from the container and puts its own cast on it. Most organic material has an Icor cast. It’s the more exotic materials that have different casts.” He puts the cable back and closes the container. “Now, we can test the Aether of the wood. The groovy thing about Katashne’n wood is it works with every cast and it can store an incredible amount of Aether, which makes it very valuable in making artifacts.”
It also turned red when the amulets were touching it… “Does that mean each of the ball thingies should glow?”
“Yepper!” Saraf ruffles Nero’s hair. “You need to stop being so negative about your feeble brain. It’s proving to be decently capable.”
The Entity is also violet. Is it the same? “Where do you find entities like this wood?”
“I don’t think there is such an entity.” He slaps his hands together. “Let’s begin.” Saraf takes the Pahzan sphere and touches it to the wood. The wood's Aether turns red and the sphere brightens. When Nero lets his perspective go back to normal, he sees the sphere glowing white.
“Alright, good. One down,” Saraf says. He grabs the Icor sphere, touching it to the wood. The sphere again glows. When Nero shifts his perspective, the light from the sphere and the wood are both green.
Saraf tests the blue Moltrik, the brown Ru, the orange Nesiv, and the yellow Biat. All of them glow when they contact the wood. Saraf sits back in a chair. “It’s Katashne’n wood alright, just covered in so much junk no one paid it any mind.” He slaps Nero on the back. “You’re impressive.”
Nero feels his cheeks begin to glow. “How do you usually tell?”
“Without all the bark and once it’s been polished up, it’s a dark wood with occasional light grains running down it.”
“Is that what’s in the handle of that dagger?”
Saraf nods. “It is. That's why I was so angry when I thought you had tried to steal it.” Saraf smiles. “Though I'm fortunate life spun its wheels the way it did. Two hundred Anterren for this is an incredible deal. I’ll have to find a way to make it up to you.”
“Thanks.” Nero feels strangely light. “How much is it worth?”
“For a chunk this big? Depending on the quality of the wood under this mess, I would say… a golden shoed donkey… maybe even two for that matter.”
19
The Hunt
Isis
Animals scurry away as the quick, heavy pounding of many feet approaches. Figures emerge from the woods, running with an unexpected agility. Their faces are hidden behind full helmets, their bodies are covered by armor, and they each carry an Aether rifle. The tallest one leads the pack.
“Is he alive?” Isis asks through the microphone buried in her helmet. Her breathing gives only the slightest hint of exertion.
“Yes, Ma'am. We took him without serious injury and got him to a medical pod at our field base. He seems quite mad though,” Lieutenant Colonel Phillips replies through her earpiece.
“He’s a traitor. What would you expect?”
“He's acting like a savage animal. It’s hard to explain. We can barely communicate with him.”
Isis gracefully leaps over a fallen tree. “How did you capture him? Could he have head trauma?”
“We were patrolling grid Alpha-Charlie thirteen when we came in contact with Uniform-Alpha. He incapacitated two of the squads, and a third is missing. The two traitors, Echo-Alpha and Echo-Bravo, were with him, but they aren't nearly as quick. The slower of the two, Echo-Alpha, sustained several shots to the legs. He was captured. A jumper picked him up shortly after.”
“What happened with Echo-Bravo?”
“Before they could engage Echo-Bravo, Echo-Alpha jumped up and started to run. It took three mid-inf to drag him down and chain him. The wounds to the legs hardly bothered him.”
“They must’ve only grazed him.”
“No, Ma'am. Two shots hit him right in the meat of his left thigh, and another in his calf. He shouldn't have been walking, let alone running… Excuse me, Ma'am, one moment.”
Isis's earpiece goes quiet. She quickens her pace.
A moment later, it pops back to life. “Sorry, Ma'am. You may want to hurry. We just brought Echo-Alpha back from cardiac arrest. The medic doesn't think we'll be able to do it again. Would you like me to send a jumper?”
“Negative. There aren't any landing spots. I'm only two kilometers away. I'll be there in three.”
Isis kills the connection with a thought. She pushes herself faster, running through the trees at a dangerous pace toward the green arrow on her visor display. The distance indicator below her target designation rapidly falls off. In under three minutes she reaches the field base, her soldiers following in formation. A mid-infantry soldier, standing outside of a medical pod, flashes green on her display. ‘Lt. Co. Phillips’ hovers over his head. She acknowledges the visual, causing the glow and designation to disappear from her visor.
Phillips approaches. “It's too late. They revived him a second time, but shortly after, his heart stopped.”
Isis sidesteps Phillips and enters the pod. Medics surround a bed that has a sheet draped over a body. “What happened?” she asks.
The medical captain in light infantry gear and a medical insignia on her arm approaches. “We're not sure, Ma'am. It's as if his body just gave up. The wounds on his legs were well tended. He shouldn't have died.”
“Was there head trauma?” Isis asks.
“No, Ma'am, not that we could see. But his body was covered by black spots. We checked for disease and did not find a match. I can't say anything for certain.”
“Could this be linked to his mental state? Could this explain why he betrayed us?”
“There's no way to tell, out here. We’ll have to take him back to the lab and run some tests with the proper equipment.”
“Is this an infectious disease we need to take precautions for?”
The captain shakes her head. “I don't think so. We ran blood through the analyzer and I can say with confidence that if it does spread, it’s with difficultly. There would need to be perfect conditions, or something else involved.”
Isis sends out a command to her squad to set up a holomap. “Alright, Captain, do what you need to do. Get me some answers as soon as possible.”
Phillips follows Isis outside, where her squad has assembled a small projector on a tripod. They flip it on, and a green three-dimensional holographic map of the region appears.
“Show me Uniform-Alpha’s estimated trail, and highlight our recent contact locations,” Isis says. A blue trail, followed by three red blinking pyramids, lights up along the projected mountains. The trail ends at the third pyramid.
“We’ve been following animal carcasses for more months than I want to count and we’re virtually on top of Borukin territory. Every engagement has been on its terms and it’s picking us off a few at a time. That’s going to change.”
“Glad to hear, Ma'am.”
“What's the status of the vultures?”
Phillips pulls up his wrist computer. “The two vultures are loitering at twenty-five thousand meters. Each is carrying a smart duster, two SEIBs, three umbrella clusters, and eight RPPDs.”
“Primary target,” she says, poking the mountains past the last red pyramid. A yellow pyramid pops up that rotates and changes in size. “Considering its path so far, we should expect our primary target to be in this area. I'm going to take my unit and another platoon of mid-infantry and set up here.” She indicates an area ahead of the yellow pyramid in the valley of the mountains. “Phillips, I want you to position everyone else on the opposite side of the target from me. You need to form a line so tight mice can't slip through. Comb down the mountain. When you make contact, focus on pushing the target toward my anvil.”
“Yes, Ma'am.”
“You have ten minutes to deploy your men before I launch the smart duster, and then I’ll set up. You may use the entire payload of the second vulture if need be. Bring both of them down to fifteen thousand meters and set them to ready.”
Phillips taps several commands into his wrist computer, and the camp begins to buzz with activity. Sleek black aircraft, similar to the levitraft, begin to ferry soldiers to their locations. After ten minutes of preparations, the field base is nearly empty. Isis, Phillips, and a few squad members are huddled around the holomap.
“Assuming it has continued to move, we'll deploy here.” Isis taps on the yellow pyramid, dragging it forward.
She pulls her wrist computer up, selects ‘smart duster’ from the second vulture and touches 'drop on target'. A two-minute countdown appears next to the package name. The last second turns over, and fingers of smoke sprout in every direction from a flash in the sky. A deep thud follows after a short delay. The tips of the fingers of smoke begin to fall, flashing intermittently with a popping that echoes over the mountains. The yellow pyramid on the holomap is covered by a spreading blanket of blue, diffusing like dye in water. Some of the blue darkens and turns red.
“That’s our spot,” Isis says, tapping the growing red area. “Redirect appropriately and we'll see you on the other side.”
“Yes, Ma'am.” Phillips types a few commands on his wrist computer and hurries off to a waiting jumper.
*****
A bird lands in a tree above Isis and her squad of perfectly camouflaged soldiers. Only with movement can their shape be distinguished.
Her earpiece buzzes to life. “We have contact, Ma'am. Grid Delta-Golf twenty-two. Converging on the target and forcing it toward you,” Phillips says.
Isis steps behind a tree to pull up her wrist computer. She adjusts her squad’s position with respect to Phillips’s contact point, sending out the command. Her soldiers quietly move. Two grey smoke trails streak down from the sky; distant thuds make the trees quiver.
“Echo-Bravo is down,” Phillips says. “But there’s a new target, and it looks to be one of the other missing men. His combat suit is in shambles, but he's fast… Designating him as Echo-Charlie.”
Three more spears of grey smoke strike the ground, followed by explosions. Isis looks at her wrist computer and sets up three target areas, with unique call signs, for the RPPDs.
Isis closes her computer and pulls up her weapon. She opens a channel to her squad. “Prepare for contact. Focus on the primary target, but be aware we have a new threat: Echo-Charlie. Echo-Bravo has been taken down.”
Rapid gunfire explodes in the distance.
“We lost visual of Uniform-Alpha,” Phillips says. “It should be heading your way. Echo-Charlie is injured. We’re reining him in.”
Isis adjusts her grip on the stock of her weapon. “Good work, Phillips.”
Her visor picks up movement in the distance. A red indicator appears around the object, estimating its distance.
“I've got a visual. Close in!” Isis yells over the channel to her team.
Her visor displays green friendlies converging on the target. Aether fire burns the air. Suddenly a green indicator flies through the air, jerks to a stop, then falls to the ground where it begins to blink yellow. A name and a medical status pop up on Isis’s display.
Isis sprints toward the target as more friendly indicators are knocked down and begin to flash yellow. Before she can assist the others, the target breaks through her defensive line, moving with unhindered speed.
“Damn it!” Isis angles her direction to intercept. With a thought, she deploys two RPPDs at the red target indicator.
When the ten-second timer reaches zero, streaks stab down and twin explosions shake the trees, wiping the target indicator from her display. On her visor, she pulls up a map, finding she is the closest to the target. Other soldiers are approaching.
“I'm making contact and need support!” she yells to her squad.
The trees give way to smoke. She slows to a walk, pulling up her Aether rifle as a man lifts himself from the ground; a new red indicator appears over him. She fires a burst, but the man instantly moves out of the way, spinning to face her. She fires again. He dodges just as easily. As his eyes settle on her weapon, he furrows his brow. A sudden violent tug rips it from her hands. The man sprints toward her with startling speed while she pulls out her side arm, firing. Even at this close range, he still dodges to the side. He grabs her wrists and they struggle, her suit straining with the effort.
I can’t win this. She commands three more RPPDs to hit right on top of her. The area around her glows red and a ten second timer pops up on her visor.
9…
The actuators in her suit’s arms begin to pop and give out from the struggle. Pain shoots through her arms with each one.
8…
The crushing grip on her wrists causes her to drop her sidearm.
7…
The man lets go of one wrist and punches her in the side. Her armor cracks with her ribs.
6…
She swings a desperate punch at his face, which he does not bother to block. Her fist knocks his head to the side.
5…
He straightens his head, throwing her three meters through the air.
4…
Her broken ribs slide past each other as sh
e lands and tumbles to a stop.
3…
Isis gasps for air as the man takes a casual step toward her.
2…
With one last effort and immense pain, she fights to her feet and runs. Her suit grinds and whines with the movement.
1…
He looks up at the sky and makes a move.
BOOM, BOOM, BOOM!
The blast lifts Isis off the ground, slamming her into a tree. The impact and the incredible pain in her ribs is stunning. She remains still, despite the blistering of her skin through the holes burnt in her armor.
“Do you think I want this?”
Adrenaline kicks in. She forces herself to move. The man is limping toward her, several of his wounds bleeding freely. She struggles, on her side, to crawl away.
“I can’t help what I’m doing. I just want to live,” he says with a calm voice. His breathing is labored.
He pulls her up by the shoulder. Isis clutches his free arm but cannot compete with his strength. He grabs the edge of her helmet, ripping it off. For a moment, he looks at her. His right eye is a deep black. The black has spread to the surrounding flesh and down along his jaw. His face is covered with stubble. His hazel eye is filled with remorse. Isis grabs his wrist with both hands. She is powerless to do anything.
The man closes his eyes. “I'm sorry.” The pressure on Isis's neck increases.
So this is my end? Pathetic… A foreign presence worms itself throughout Isis’s body with such aggressive violation that she would scream if she could.
A burst of gunfire tears into the man, sending him sprawling off to the side. Isis falls to the ground.
A soldier kneels next to her and holds her head up. “Ma'am, can you hear me?” He pulls off his armored glove, checking her pulse.
“Is he dead?” Isis tries to prop herself up, but the soldier stops her.
“Yes, Ma'am. I flattened him.”
“Did you check his pulse?”
The soldier glances at the unmoving man. “Ma’am, we need to get you to a medical pod immediately. You’re in bad shape.”