Sac'a'rith (39 page)

The image on the tactical screens was replaced by a slide show of models of various kinds of elementals. Each image contained basic information about the creatures, but I suspected only Marcus could read fast enough to keep up with the ever-changing images. Surprisingly, he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the slide show; instead he was intently watching the interaction between the captain and his advisors. I wondered if he was able to read their lips, even at the poor camera angle. Perhaps he had a special lip-reading algorithm in that electronic mind of his.

In my musing I missed most of Ragnar’s speech about the creatures, and only caught his conclusion. “As you can see, there are a large variety of them, but they are all constructed from natural materials of varying kinds. Your physical weapons should be effective against the more physical ones, and your energy-based ones should work well against the others,” said Ragnar.

“Also,” said Raquel, “they are summoned beings, but they have to obey the same laws of nature as you do; so a fire elemental is vulnerable to water, and earth elementals can be blown to bits. Using your basic knowledge of how things work to tune your attacks and defenses, you should do well against them.”

“Okay. Ragnar said ‘hopefully nothing worse’,” said the captain. “Could you expand on that?”

“Do you know much about the Great War?” asked Raquel.

“I was too young when it was fought to remember the war, but I studied it in school,” he said. A look of fear passed over his face. “Oh, you mean they could call up creatures like that again?”

“Yes,” said Raquel. “But those creatures take a lot of skill and power to cast, so we’re much less likely to see them here. The Great War was a battle with the best the sorcerers had; this is just a random outpost. I’m counting on there being only a few sorcerers and those not being among their best. This is likely to be an expendable base in their eyes, but I can’t fathom their purpose.”

“I hope you’re right, but what about their fear weapon? I remember hearing stories about crews being frozen at their stations, unable to fight.” He visibly shuddered. “There was that destroyer, the Firebrand … ”

He didn’t finish that sentence and clearly didn’t want to. The Firebrand had been part of the lead forces of the attack, and its attack group took the brunt of the sorcerers’ fear weapon before the wizards made their move. It’s said that the whole crew went mad and tore each other to pieces with their bare hands. I had no idea if that was true but, going by his expression, the captain believed it was.

“That takes even more concentration, which is why we must press the attack hard and fast,” she said. “We can’t let them focus on any one target for long. Truthfully, I’m guessing here; I don’t know how many sorcerers are going to be down there or how powerful they are, so it’s probably wisest to assume the worst until we know,” answered Raquel.

“Raquel, what if there are too many of them for us?”
I asked privately, not wanting to undermine her influence.

“Then we’ll pull out and call for help. But despite my comments, I’m sure there are only three, maybe four, sorcerers, all fairly weak. We’ll be fine,”
she sent back.

One of the captain’s advisors said something to him privately, then turned back to the screen and asked, “Why are you going first, then? If we have to press them hard and fast, shouldn’t we hit them first and then you come in when the sorcerers show up?”

Raquel shook her head. “If you go first, you won’t survive the initial rush. We have to engage the sorcerers directly. You see, they aren’t like us; they don’t care if they lose every single person under their command or even the base, so long as they survive and you don’t. Simply put, we need to get the sorcerers worried about us before you can attack.”

“It’s also the expected attack,” said Marcus. “The Night Wisp often flies with fleets like yours and then attacks solo. If we land alone, they’ll probably assume you aren’t going to help.”

“This is true,” said Raquel. “That surprise should buy you some time in your initial attack run.”

“All right, so you rush in and distract the sorcerers and we follow behind and pound them. When you’ve killed the sorcerers, we are to make a crater of their base. Is that correct?”

“I want the biggest and deepest crater you can make. Leave no survivors,” said Raquel.

“That you can be certain of,” he said. “But why does this sound like the battle plan for the Great War?”

“Because it is similar,” said Raquel. “The sorcerers still have the upper hand with regard to deployment and numbers, and so long as that’s true our options for battle tactics are limited to divide, distract and conquer.”

“When do we attack?” he asked.

“It’s currently mid-afternoon at the target, so I suggest we wait. The Night Wisp will land as the sun comes up tomorrow morning, local time to the target. Daylight will reduce their options, since many of their pets fear the sun,” said Raquel.

“Agreed. Good hunting,” said the captain.

Under cover of the early morning twilight, Marcus piloted the Night Wisp to the clearing that Raquel had chosen for our landing. It was closer to the target than I preferred, but it was the best landing site in the area. Ordinarily I would have preferred to leave one person behind to keep the Night Wisp safe, but we were about to go up against what Raquel believed to be at least three sorcerers and that meant we’d need everyone.

We were all suited up in the mission room waiting for Raquel to return from her scouting run. I hadn’t liked the idea of her traveling alone, but she didn’t wait around to argue; she simply stated her intention, activated her camosuit and left.

Being the only mundane among us, Marcus loaded himself up with heavy weapons and ammo. No normal human could carry the weight of all that equipment, nor could they wield the two heavy thirty-millimeter launchers. I was a little anxious to see what he planned to do with all that weaponry.

Marcus was wearing the set of armor I’d made for him. He had the first of the new enhanced line that I was making for Master Dusty’s team. Since Marcus was the only mundane among our number, I figured he would need the most protection. I warned him that it hadn’t yet been tested in combat and we didn’t know its limitations but, as he pointed out, it was at worst far superior to his own armor.

Raquel insisted I should leave my normal weapons behind for this raid and rely on the new spells she’d taught me. After the fight on the Cyborg ship had shown me the ineffectiveness of my assault rifle compared to my staff, I had to agree with her. I took as many wands as I could carry, some grenades and my swords. My staff was always close at hand, thanks to the summoning trick Raquel had taught me. I didn’t understand how it worked, or where the staff was when not in my hands, but that really didn’t matter; what did matter was that I could pull the staff out of the air when necessary.

I was also wearing a new type of armor, chosen specifically for this environment. Those weeks spent waiting at the hospital station had given me time to experiment on some new designs. My armor wasn’t spaceworthy, but it was made from completely natural materials that shouldn’t hamper my ability to tap the forest around me. I was hoping that advantage would more than compensate for any loss of protection in the weaker armor. It was lighter and quieter to move in, which should also make casting easier.

Shira was in her own magical armor which she’d worn when she was a slave. It was far better than anything I could yet make, and also made completely from natural materials. Hers was sufficiently enchanted to protect her in the vacuum of space. She had somehow changed the color of it, too, and it was now as dark as her hair. She wore the pack Raquel had given her, but I didn’t know what was in that.

“Zah’rak, lead everyone out northwards. You’ll cross a wide game trail; follow that and it will take you around the rear side of the base,”
sent Raquel privately, interrupting my inspection of our team.

“Okay. Where will you be?”
I sent back.

“I’ll continue to scout ahead of you. We’ll regroup at the base,”
she sent.

After one final check of my equipment I said, “We’ll split into two groups. Ragnar, Shira, you’re with me. Marcus, you take Crivreen and Purwryn and, when we hit the trail that
Raquel found, take your team under cover on the far side and stay about thirty meters behind us. We’ll take the closer side. That way, one ambush can’
t catch all of us at once.”

We moved out into the woods, making our way carefully though the dense underbrush. I’d intentionally taken Shira and Ragnar in my group because they would both be very much at home in the forest. This would allow us to move with more stealth and speed and give us a chance to surprise any ambush, instead of the other way around.

“Here we go again,”
sent Ragnar, after we had been walking for a while. It was strange to hear his mental voice, but a relief also. Thanks to Master Mathorn’s work with Ragnar, he could now speak telepathically on his own. That meant we no longer had to rely on the communications system in our armor to talk, which was good since I hadn’t added
that to my new armor.

I chuckled.
“Getting bored with this life already?”

“No, I always enjoy a good blind rush into a sorcerer’s stronghold!”
he said.
“Having no idea what we’re up against and a damaged fleet to back us up just makes it more fun!”

I couldn’t help but smile at his sarcasm. He wasn’t a warrior at heart, but was invaluable on the battlefield despite that fact or even because of it. Either way, I wouldn’t have dreamt of leaving him behind.

“Zah’rak, a big change is coming,”
he sent, with real concern in his voice.

“What do you mean?”
I asked.

“I wish I knew. All I can say for sure is that the Fates have something in mind for us today, and I don’t think we’ll ever be the same afterwards.”

I almost tripped over my own feet when I received that message. Ragnar’s domain was knowledge: present, past and future. His divinations and rune casting gave him insight and understanding beyond what any mortal should know. If he said a big change was coming, then there was reason to be concerned.

“Is this change good or bad?”
I asked.

“I wish I knew,”
he said.
“I suspect a bit of both. All change seems to work out that way.”

Before I could respond to that thought, we came upon the trail Raquel had described. I reached out to a tree with my bare hand and used it to search the area. I found Raquel hiding farther up the trail but no one else. It was eerie being this close and still seeing no resistance.

“Why haven’t they moved against us yet?”
I sent.
“Surely they saw the landing.”

“Sorcerers tend to be cowards
,
”
sent Raquel.

I wondered if that were true or just a product of her feelings about them. “Marcus, cross here. It’s clear,” I said, remembering at the last moment that Marcus couldn’t hear our thoughts.

He nodded and took his team across, and they disappeared into the forest on the other side of the trail. I knew I’d taken a risk putting him in charge instead of Purwryn, but I wanted him to know he was one of us now, and showing him trust by giving him this responsibility was the best way to communicate that to him. We waited under cover until I estimated they would be in place. Marcus’ sensors should be able to follow us and stay within the planned spacing.

“Okay, they’ve had enough time. Let’s move out
,
”
I sent to Ragnar and Shira.

“Why did we have to land so far away?”
asked Shira.

I felt bad for her. Her short legs meant she had to take two, maybe three steps to every one of mine or Ragnar’s.
“Because we want the Night Wisp to survive the fight.”

“You could’ve dropped me off and I could have gated everyone and saved a lot of time,”
she sent.

“We discussed that already. Casting a gate would be likely to tip our hand to the sorcerers, and we can’t risk that at this early stage.”

I knew Shira didn’t agree with the plan, but Raquel had insisted that we use no magic until the fight started. She didn’t want the sorcerers to have any idea what we were capable of. I felt there was wisdom in Raquel’s plan, so I supported it. Shira felt that they probably already knew what to expect of us, and she might be right, but I’d rather leave them guessing than confirm their thoughts.

“We’re almost there,”
sent Ragnar.

Once the outer walls of the base came into view, I stopped my group and waited for Marcus and his team to catch up.

“We have at most fifteen minutes before the troops are scheduled to land,”
sent Raquel as she fell back to join us.

“About fifteen minutes,” I said out loud so that Marcus could hear. “Do we wait for them to drop in or do we charge now?”

“I suggest we move in as far as we can,” said Marcus. “If we could get on to one of those empty artillery platforms, we could rain fire down on the enemy with some degree of safety.”

I looked and we had clear line of sight to one of the platforms. “How about that one there?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Not the best one, but it would work.”

“We can get there easily and have Shira send a gate for you,” I said.

Raquel nodded. “We should wait here for the ground troops to land, then head up there. Once we’re there we can leap-frog to a better one if need be, but I suspect that once we join the fight, the sorcerers will come for us directly and we’ll have our hands full with them.”

“I thought the plan was for us to draw out the sorcerers ahead of the attack?” asked Marcus.

“It is, but our landing did that. By now they know that a group of magi have landed and are on the surface. It would be a simple matter for them to guess that we’re moving on the only base on the planet. Until they can judge our strength, they will hold back their power. That was the goal behind our landing and approach, and as far as I can tell it’s worked,” said Raquel.