Resurgence of Ancient Darkness (17 page)

“All right, Ramsong, you got us here. What are our orders?” asked Charles.

“We either take this station now, or they send a full assault team in,” I said.

Charles cursed and said, “I have family here. We have to take this station.”

“Agreed, but how? We still don’t know how our main force was captured,” I said.

“We have to try another assault on their HQ. No need to hide our intentions; we can go in in full force,” said Zal.

“Charles? You are the ranking naval officer here. What do you think?” I asked.

“I think Zal is right. I take my men and we charge the door in the main hallway, guns blasting. You six wait for them to open the doors to send out reinforcements and then teleport in. That puts the guards in a crossfire, and we can then rush for the primary control center. Once there we can take over the station’s defenses, and victory should be easily achievable.”

“Sounds practically like a suicide run,” I said.

“Do you have a better idea?” he asked.

“Yes. Zal is an illusionist: I propose we send in you three and him in disguise, and when they open the doors to let you in, we can teleport,” I said.

“Fine, we can try that. If it fails, we break out our guns and switch to my plan,” he said.

“Agreed. Let’s move out.” I didn’t like the plan very much, but I couldn’
t come up with anything better. We were running out of time.

We split up and approached the corridor from multiple directions at multiple times to hide the fact that we were a group. Once everyone was in place, Zal cast his illusion and they walked towards the door. As I expected, they were able to make it all the way to the gatehouse before being stopped. I knew that at this point the guards would be checking IDs. “
Everyone, get ready. If that door opens, teleport immediately.”

It took what seemed like years, but Zal’s illusion worked and they were allowed to pass. As soon as the inner doors opened, I sent “
Now!”
and teleported in.

As we appeared, Charles and his men overpowered the guards at the control console for the door and sealed it.

“Block it!” I called out and Gaia cast Wall of Stone, closing it off.

“Move out!” called Charles.

We rushed as fast as we could with alarms ringing all around us. Whenever guards appeared in front of us, one of our pyromancers would start throwing waves of fire down the hall, which sent them running. Everything seemed to be going too easily, but I wasn’t about to stop and complain.

“There! Ahead and on the right!” called out Zal.

“Go!” I yelled, hoping to inspire everyone to run faster. Time was not our friend on this rush. We needed to get inside that control room and seal it before they could organize a proper counter to our charge.

“It’s locked!” called out Charles as he reached it.

“Stand back!” I said and as he dove clear, I sent my mage bolts at the door, blowing it clean off the hinges.

“That is going to make it hard to close again,” said Charles as he rushed the room.

Inside there were only six men, and we quickly overpowered them. “Gaia, secure the entrance!” I said as Charles and his men began working the controls.

“On it!” called out Gaia. Soon a wall of stone blocked the entrance to the room. “That will hold anyone for a while, at least.”

“Good, we almost have control. It seems the attackers were too stupid to change the command codes,” said Charles.

“There!” said one of his men.

On the screen I could see the station’s sentry defense robots coming to life. They must have been disabled somehow during the initial attack, and they were undamaged and ready for action. As they stood and raised their weapons a cheer rose up from the station’s occupants, and the pirates, or whatever they were, surrendered.

“We have an unauthorized launch in progress,” said Charles.

“Who? Where?” I asked.

“A small hauler of some kind, but at my guess, it's the leaders of this attack making good their escape. They are not responding to hails,” he said.

“That might explain why our attack seemed to go so easily. They were already pulling out. Call that ship in to the navy and see if we can catch it at some point. Any sign of the rest of our team?” I asked.

“Still looking,” he said.

One of his men gasped and then said, “I’ve found them on a recorded log, sir.”

On the screen I saw a recording that showed a line of people being forced to walk towards a box. When they got close to it, they saw something inside which attracted them. Whatever it was, it was the last thing they would ever see, as they fell over dead as soon as they reached in to touch it.

I watched with horror as one of my magi died on the screen. “Where is that box now?”

“It’s on that hauler that just left,” said Charles.

It had been three months since the Shadow Fox had launched on its own mission. The Nevermore felt a bit empty without Dusty, Spectra, Phoenix, and Shea. I was wondering how Dusty and his team were doing, but there was no way to reach him, as we were both traveling cloaked. Any communication would risk detection by either mundane or magi forces, and we had plenty of enemies among both. While being cloaked meant we were effectively cut off from everyone, we could not risk traveling any other way, as it was too dangerous to travel outside the Wizard Kingdom. War and lawlessness was far more common than order and peace.

“Shadow, this is the system, but it appears to be empty,” said Flame.

“There should be a major shipping hub here,” I said.

“Master, nothing is showing on our passive scans,” said Karlith.

“Flame, take us to its last known coordinates,” I said.

As we traveled towards the station I slowly stretched out my awareness, looking for any indication of what had
happened. There should have been a large number of haulers and other ships flying through this system, making use of the hub. Traders and merchants had traveled this route consistently for many decades now.

“Shadow, we are approaching the location now,” said Flame.

I pulled my senses back in and looked at the visual scanners.

Karlith cursed quietly and said, “Nothing but fragments left.”

Where the station had been was a large field of small debris. Whatever had destroyed the station had done the job about as thoroughly as it could be done. Nothing of any use was left.

“Is that all of the station?”

“It looks like there is enough mass out there to cover sixty to seventy per cent of the station. The rest might have been consumed by whatever event did this, or picked up by scavengers, Master,” said Karlith.

“Have you any idea what happened?” I asked.

“No. There was no reason for such wholesale destruction; the amount of energy needed to do this was much greater than needed to accomplish the goal of eliminating the station. The debris has already cooled off, so the attack might have been a while back,” said Stalker.

“It doesn’t make sense. That station was very valuable. Why destroy it? If they had the kind of power needed to do this, surely they could have taken it for themselves,” I said.

“Master, if we drop our cloak we can use active scans, which might give us more information,” said Karlith.

“Not yet,” I said. “Flame, start spiraling out from the center of the debris field. Maybe we will pick something up on the passive scanners.”

I sat back in my command chair and reached out again with my powers, looking. If there were any magi nearby they might sense me, but it was a risk I was willing to take. I needed to know if there was anyone hiding in the area before we dropped our cloak.

Hours passed and we found nothing. Whatever destroyed this station must have moved on already. I gave up my search and said, “Keep up the spiraling for a day or two. If nothing has appeared by then, we can risk our active scanners.”

“Sure, Shadow,” said Flame.

“Karlith, what type of vessel out here could generate enough power to do this?” I asked.

“Nothing. It would take a naval fleet at the very least. All that I would have expected to see out this way is small-time pirates, thugs, and merchants. None of them would be likely to do this, even if they could,” he said.

“Someone did, but who would want to?” I asked. I wished that Spectra was with us. Her experience would be helpful at this time.

“I’m not sure, Master. The obvious guess would be a rival trade consortium, but they would be more likely to capture the station than destroy it,” said Stalker.

“Even if they destroyed it, they would be unlikely to waste the resources needed to destroy it so completely,” said Karlith.

“Yes,” I said as I looked at the tactical display. “Someone must have been mightily angry at the station.”

“What if some disease broke out on the station? Might they destroy it to stop the spread?” asked Flame.

“It is unlikely. There are much more efficient ways to handle that,” I said.

“I guess, but maybe this one was especially nasty and the usual ways didn’t work?” persisted Flame.

“Since we lack any other explanation, that is possible; but if that was the case I would expect some kind of marker here, warning people of the potential contamination,” I said.

“Still, it’s as good as any other guess, so we should take that into account in any action we take,” said Karlith.

“Master, there might be as many as a dozen tribes and consortiums fighting for control of this space. To any one of them, capturing this hub would have been a very strategic victory. None of them would want to see it destroyed,” said Stalker.

“Do we have any contacts out here? Someone who can provide us with some information about what is happening out here?” I asked.

“No, but there is another trade hub nearby. It’s smaller and usually has very little traffic, but with this one gone it’s probably much busier now, Master,” said Stalker.

“Let us pick up some of the debris and ask engineering to try to determine what caused the destruction. Once that is done, Flame, lay in a course to the other hub. Stay cloaked, though; there is no sense in drawing attention to ourselves just yet.”

“Flame, I am going to the gym. I will see you at dinner,” I said.

“Sounds good, Shadow,” she said.

It would be several days before we reached the other trading hub, so I decided to check on our new training program. Spectra had convinced me to enroll all of the Dragon Guard in hand-to-hand combat training, but I still did not understand why. Phoenix’s case seemed to indicate that physical conditioning was important, but there was no reason to suspect that martial arts were a requirement beyond that of general fitness.

There were many training rooms on the Nevermore II, as the primary goal of the carrier was to train an elite army of wizards. Each of these rooms had many layers of magical shielding and physical armor to help contain stray spells. It appeared, merely by coincidence, that they were also very good at containing blaster fire. This led to the Dark Knights using them as live fire target ranges on many occasions.

I walked by the rooms, looking through the viewing windows into each, and started to notice a pattern. I found it difficult to make sense of the pattern, though; it had been many decades since I worked in intelligence, and I was out of the habit of this kind of observation. There was definitely something here, though, something just beyond my grasp.

“
Ashton, please meet me at training room fifteen
,” I sent. As chief medical officer on the Nevermore II, he would be trained in making sense of puzzles and might be able to help me out.

“
On my way, Master Shadow,”
he sent back.

Master Kellyn and Rannor were still the only two magi with access to the healing arts, so most of our ships had mundane doctors. We were fortunate that Ashton was a magus, but he had never really developed his powers beyond the most basic skills. Being a magus meant that at least he fitted in, while most of the Battle Wizard fleet had doctors who were mundanes and never really fitted in with full magi crews.

I continued to watch the magi in room fifteen while I waited. Rigal and Ferran were working on some drills with staves. They weaved back and forth around each other, looking for weaknesses, but not finding many. They were almost perfectly matched. I suspected they had trained together too often, and that was stifling their ability to improve.

I was thinking of walking into the room to talk with them when Ashton arrived and asked, “Hello, Master. What can I do for you?”

“Ashton, thank you for coming. Walk with me a bit,” I said. Then I led him on a tour of the exercise rooms, stopping at each one of them and making some minor comment. When we had completed the loop and returned to room fifteen I said, “Watch this for a moment.”

I entered the room and called out, “Hello.”

They both jumped to attention and said, “Hello, Master!”

“Relax, no titles in the ring. Suppose we vary your training a little?” I suggested as I pulled my staff out of the air. “You two versus me!” I moved with all the speed I had and swung my staff high at Ferran while snapping a back kick out towards Rigal to separate them.

Rigal spun off my kick and countered with a sweep heading for the back of my legs while Ferran turned and blocked my swing, pushing me back into Rigal’s sweep. I rolled with Ferran’s blow and flipped backwards with a double kick towards Ferran, who now found himself overcommitted and fell right into my kick.

As I landed I spun around with a clearing sweep of my staff to evaluate my opponents. Ferran had fallen out of the ring, and Rigal started to charge. I waited for him to come in, then sidestepped while redirecting his motion, sending him towards the wall.

Back and forth we went like this. I kept both of them off balance enough that they could never team up to come at me at once. After about ten minutes of this, I raised my hand to stop the fight and said, “You two are good, but you fight each other too much. Vary it and find new opponents.”

“Yes, Master,” said Rigal, who was now breathing quite heavily.