Sac'a'rith (18 page)

“If you’re truly putting me in charge, then that’s my decision to make, isn’t it?”
I sent.

“Zah’rak,”
she said.
“
M
y duties to Grandmaster Vydor have to take precedence now, but my real goal is to see the Sac’a’rith rise back up. I can see now that you’re the best hope for that. Narcion saw it, and I’m beginning to see why. You will have to define the new era of our people.”

I didn’t know what to make of that. Until then, I was sure she intended to keep complete control over everything. I had to admit that was part of my problem with this agreement; I didn’t want to give up control of my team.

I didn’t have much time to think about that before Crivreen came rushing in.

“Zah’rak, Felix is in trouble!” he exclaimed.

“What? What happened?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I just got a message from him that says, ‘I guess you were right: you never can go back,’ and it contains a coded location,” he said.

“And by that you know he’s in trouble?” asked Raquel.

“Yes!” he exclaimed. “He’s a loner. Only serious trouble would lead him to send a message like that.”

“How far is he from here?” I asked.

“Two jumps, maybe, but we still have to clear this Emperor-forsaken gravity well before we can do anything,” said Crivreen.

“Lay in a course, and see if you can find out any more,” I said. He ran off without another word, presumably back to the bridge. “Is that offer still open to Felix?”

Raquel smiled. “I suspect he could be a sorcerer for a decade and Grandmaster Vydor would pardon him and offer him another chance.”

“You don’t approve?”

“It’s not that,” she said. “Ten thousand years ago the wizards here were a military order, and discipline was fast and effective. I’m just having a hard time adjusting to this new reality.”

“We all are,” said Master Mathorn as he walked back in alone.

“Ragnar,”
I sent,
“are you okay?”

“I’m fine. I just have some exercises to work on
,
”
he sent.

“Crivreen talks about the Wizard Kingdom in such idealistic terms, but the way you two talk about the other wizards belies that,” I said.

“People are people,” said Master Mathorn. “Wherever you go, that will always be true. Grandmaster Vydor and his masters are working hard to live up to the ideal, but they’re still just people.”

“Yet you gave up everything to follow them?” I said.

“Yes - because they are trying, where others have given up,” he said. “Now, if you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to Shira about that stockpile the sorcerers took. We hadn’t heard of any movement from them out this way.”

“Sure. She’s over in hydroponics; right this way,” I said and led him there.

When we arrived, Shira was tending the small section she had created to grow food. It was now pretty barren since we’d eaten a lot of it at dinner, but I knew she would get us more soon enough. Even if it was just vegetables, it was a real treat to have fresh food for a change.

I had just sent a coded message to Crivreen when they finally found us. Blaster fire erupted all around our position, destroying our makeshift shelter and comm. station. Debris flew everywhere and the roof caved in right in front of us. There were too much smoke and dust in the air to be able to guess where anything was.

“Now what, Purwryn?” Marcus attempted to pile debris quickly between us and the direction the blasts seemed to be coming from.

“Run!” It’d been over a month since we had made our escape from the Paradise. The Resden agents were hunting us far more aggressively than either of us had guessed they would. I’d originally planned to put Marcus on a Phareon cruise liner and head off alone, but we never got that chance; they dispatched fighters almost immediately and we had been on the run ever since. It had been one close call after another, but this was shaping up to be the closest yet.

Marcus returned fire with his rifle, firing blindly through the smoke. “Obviously, but to where?”

“Anywhere but here!” I threw one of the sonic grenades I’d taken from a Resden corpse and ran deeper into the woods. We were on a small, forested planet where our ship had crashed after losing a battle with a Resden fast cruiser. I had hoped that Resden would have assumed we’d died in the crash, but that wasn’t the case; they sent a shuttle down with a landing party. I thought we had lost them, but they found us again. They must have picked up my outgoing transmission.

Marcus ran behind me as the grenade detonated, sending a shockwave through what I hoped was Resden’s position. “We should circle around and steal their ship.”

“You’re assuming it’ll be unguarded and unlocked,” I said.

“Locks won’t be a problem. Guards, maybe,” he said.

We were trapped on the planet, and without any cloaking tech we really had no place to hide. “A direct frontal assault would be suicide if there are any guards. We’d be caught between those guarding the ship and the ones following us.”

“Right, so we have to draw them as far away as possible and then sneak back around them,” he said.

A tree to my left exploded, throwing shrapnel everywhere. “Leading them doesn’t seem to be a problem, but how are we going to lose them?”

Before he could answer we had to dive for cover, as Resden fired on our position. The ground and trees around us were shaking from the pounding. Marcus got into position and returned fire, shooting mostly wild but as fast as he could, forcing them to seek cover. He was much tougher than I had guessed while serving with him on the Paradise. I suspected he had more experience of this kind of thing than he’d let on; certainly having him along had saved my hide more than once.

I shouldered my rifle and drew a pair of blasters. “I have an idea. You slip away while I keep them pinned down. We’ll meet back up at their ship.”

“But how are you going to get away?” he asked.

“Don’t worry about that. You just get that ship unlocked and ready to fly, or we both die here.”

He nodded. “Good luck.” He rolled over onto his belly and slipped away with unusual skill and agility, especially considering we were under fire. He was totally calm throughout this battle, while I could feel my heart racing at many times its normal rate. Sweat poured down my face, pushing dirt and grime into my eyes, but I didn’t need much in the way of accuracy for this plan.

I kept my blasters firing as fast as I could. Resden kept their heads down. They knew as well as I that firing at this rate would overheat my weapons and soon leave me defenseless. All they had to do was wait me out: that’s what I wanted them to think, and it was exactly what they were doing.

The guns got warm in my hands and I knew I’d have to stop shooting soon or risk damaging the weapons. I’d wanted to keep them from seeing that I was alone for long enough to give Marcus a head start.

Resden’s position was well shielded from the angle I was shooting at, and if I stood to run they would cut me down. My own position was not nearly so well protected. I suspected it was only a matter of time before they broke through. I had done my best to avoid using any magic since leaving the Night Wisp, but there was no way to escape this otherwise. It was time to expand my combat options.

I teleported just behind their position. “Surprise!”

They turned to bring their guns to bear, but it was too late. I quickly finished them off and holstered my pistols, now dangerously hot.

There was a noise behind me, and before I could turn a blast hit my leg and sent me tumbling. I rolled over and saw another agent climbing out from his cover.

“Surprise!” he said with a smirk clearly visible through his visor. He had been hiding a little distance away from the group I had finished off behind a small hill. In his hands was a high-powered rifle and I was sure a direct hit from it would overwhelm what was left of my armor.

At this range I knew I didn’t have time to draw my guns so I teleported again, this time off to the left. Predictably he turned and looked behind him as I leaned against a tree and drew my blasters, only to find out they had finally overheated and had shut themselves down.

Forcing myself to focus through the pain in my leg, I cast a mage bolt which slammed into his body, throwing him to the ground. Before he could recover, I unslung my rifle and finished him.

I couldn’t see any other threats in the area, so I took a moment to check my leg. The armor had absorbed most of the blast, but it didn’t look like it could sustain another hit. My leg was badly bruised, but nothing was broken. The armor Zah’rak had made for me would repair itself with time, as would my leg, albeit a lot slower.

“Focus. You have to get to the ship,” I said to myself through gritted teeth. I broke a branch off of a tree to form a makeshift crutch and started hobbling back towards the ship. I didn’t know if there were any others around, but I suspected … no, hoped that the rest were back at the ship.

As I approached the location, Marcus signaled me from a small shelter he’d found. “Are you all right?”

“I will be,” I said. “What’s our status?”

“Six guards are all I can see, well entrenched. I haven’t been able to get any closer unseen.”

I risked a fast peek over and saw them behind portable blast shields with what looked like rapid-fire rifles pointed in our general direction. “Did they see you?”

“Yeah, they know I’m out here, but not where,” he said.

I looked over at him. The situation was still dire. Two mundanes couldn’t survive this encounter, so it was either die or trust Marcus with my secret. “Do you trust me?”

“Fine time to ask,” he said. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to create a distraction while you run for the ship. Get airborne; just leave the airlock open and give me clear line of sight to it.”

“Okay, but if there are others in the area they might start shooting,” he objected.

“Then go and leave me behind,” I said. “You can come back for me later when things cool down.”

He hesitated and looked like he was going to argue.

“Look, we don’t have time for this; just get ready,” I said and rolled out from the shelter behind a nearby fallen tree. It wouldn’t stand up to any fire, but it shielded me from view.

I took a deep breath and prepared myself as best I could for the pain, then got to my feet. The guards called out, and I chanted a spell to bring fire down upon them. It was the only spell I’d had the chance to learn from the spell book before I left Zah’rak. I had practiced when I could, but hadn’t actually used it in combat yet.

My pain and fatigue threatened my concentration on the spell, but I pushed through it. Over their heads a thin plane of fire appeared and hung for a moment. They looked up and, before they could react, I released the spell and fire rained down on them. Their armor protected them from my relatively weak spell, but the dry leaves they were kneeling in were not protected and soon flames erupted around their entire position.

Over to my left, I saw Marcus make a dash for the ship as the guards ran in a panic. Fire quickly spread through the area and I realized then that a fire spell in a dry forest hadn’t been the wisest choice. Thick black smoke billowed out as the guards’ equipment started to burn. My armor warned me that poisonous gases were being released, but filters in my helmet were sufficient to clean the air.

“Come on, Marcus,” I said as I watched him disappear into the flames. “Just get her in the air!”

Heat from the fire was washing over me as the flames devoured the Resden position. I could no longer tell where they were, and the fire blazed between me and the Resden cruiser, completely blocking my view of it.

I was forced by the heat to hobble away from the flames. My armor was still holding up, but sooner or later it would be overwhelmed. If Marcus didn’t get airborne soon, we would both be toast.

I did my best to circle around the flames, but they were spreading faster than I could move. The smoke thickened, completely blocking my line of sight and preventing teleportation. I gave up trying to reach the cruiser and headed away from the flames. I needed to get clear of the smoke so that I could teleport ahead of the fire, which was now a raging beast with a life of its own. The flames were devouring the forest around me and my wounded leg was screaming at me to stop. It wasn’t the best situation I’d ever been in, and one I hoped to avoid in the future
.

A sudden whoosh of wind came from behind me and stole my balance. “Arrgh!” I screamed as I fell on my wounded leg. Above me hovered the Resden cruiser with its airlock facing me.

“I sure hope that’s you,” I said and teleported into the airlock. As soon as I was inside, the outer door shut and I felt the cruiser accelerate away.

After taking a moment to catch my breath, I hobbled over to the inner door and onto the craft. Bodies of Resden agents were strewn about and there were blaster burns across most of the walls. I tried to wipe the grime out of my eyes, but just made things worse. Fighting fatigue and pain, I made my way to the bridge.

I found Marcus at the controls. He looked bad, really bad. His face was severely burned, he was bleeding from numerous wounds, and one arm was dangling lifelessly at his side while the other appeared to be wired to the controls to keep him from losing his grip. I had to admire his strength; most humans would have been dead, and he was still flying a shuttle.

“Hey, take over, will you?” he asked as he fell out of the chair, ripping his arm free of its makeshift harness.

The cruiser went into a dive as he slid across the controls. As quickly as I could, I pulled him out of the way and activated the autopilot. The computer quickly righted the ship, and I set it to take us into orbit. Thankful that I didn’t actually have to try and steer in my condition, I turned my attention back to Marcus.

“Stay with me,” I said. “Come on, Marcus.” I stopped all of the bleeding I could find, but he had already lost a lot of blood. His wounds seemed to have a large amount of metal, wires and other foreign debris embedded in them. I didn’t want to risk removing them and making things worse. He would need a real doctor as soon as I could get one.