Wind-Scarred (The Will of the Elements, Book 1) (40 page)

Ezra blinked at him, then shook his head.
“No, I'm not trying to... ugh, okay, listen: wormhole creation 101.
When a portal is formed, it's created using the path where the most
quantum tunneling has occurred, right?” He looked expectantly at
his teammates. Mat shrugged. The controls of the skiff creaked
under Sarah's hands. “Right,” he continued, “and repeated wormholes
make those connections stronger, because we're artificially
creating more pathways between the two points. So what I'm going to
do is...” Ezra's hands flew as he adjusted the settings on the
controller, then linked it into the skiffs network and sat back,
looking smug. A wavy line displayed, meandering in a definite
direction off to the northwest. “Map out a path of increasing
quantum uncertainty density, which should lead us back to the
wormhole.” He frowned a little. “In theory, at least. This is kind
of like using a mass spectrometer to approximate a dog's nose.”

Mat and Sarah exchanged looks. “Well, better
than what we had five minutes ago. Way to step up, Ezra.” Mat
clapped him on the shoulder, then went back to scanning the
landscape.

The skiff slowly followed the path Ezra had
indicated, until Sarah barked out a laugh. “There! I recognize
those blighted rocks. They look just like Blair's forehead when he
frowns.” She elbowed Mat in the side. “Remember that time that we
were walking back to the port and playing that drinking game? I got
you and Rob so good with that one.” Sarah froze for a moment, then
blinked slowly. “So good,” she whispered, looking back toward the
cusp of rocks. An uneasy silence settled over the skiff.

“
I
hope the townspeople are all right,” Ezra said softly. “Stephen
too.”

Mat looked at him miserably, then rolled a
shoulder in a halfhearted shrug. “Well... the villagers probably
made it through okay. The ones that were...” He coughed and cleared
his throat. “She really only seemed interested in finding the other
fire-kissed, you know? She didn't give a blighted damn about the
rest of them. As for Stephen... well...” Mat sighed and ran a hand
through his hair. “Bad things happen. You just gotta roll with the
punches. I mean, at least he got carried off by a really, really
sexy lady, right? And he's a fire-kissed, so they won't do anything
too bad to him...”

Ezra was about to say something when Sarah
cried out, “It's here! Just over that ridge!” The skiff picked up
speed as she hurried them toward the wormhole home. They crested
the hill, headlights turned on to get a view of the area, and Ezra
looked around expectantly, trying to spot the portal rods.

He found them fairly easily, all things
considered. Of course, they were in about ten pieces, and scattered
around several blackened patches of stone. Oh, and still sparking,
as it they had been recently overloaded.

Or struck by lightning.

Mat stared at the ruined wormhole devices,
then mechanically called up the communication interface.
“Sanctuary,” he whispered. “Sanctuary, this is research team
eleven. The portal rods at our location are not functional, and our
skiff will die before we can make it to an alternate spot.
Sanctuary, please respond.” The trailing end of his communication
was met with ominous static.

He glanced back at Ezra as Sarah rested her
head lightly against the skiff's forward paneling.

“
Hello?” the communicator crackled to life. “Is there some...
stening?”

Mat grabbed the open terminal, smiling
broadly. “Sanctuary? Come again, you're breaking up. We have some
interference out here from-”

“
-under-struck. Need immedia...” static cut through the
transmission for a several seconds. “...mhole was destroyed.
Repeat, we were ambush...” Ezra abruptly sat bolt upright, eyes
glued to the communicator.

“
Mat, that's not Sanctuary,” he said, voice remote. “That's
Gal.”

“
Bighted thundering hell,” Mat swore loudly. “This is not what
we need right now!”

Ezra sat staring forward, thinking
furiously. “We should... we have to go out there after them.”

“
Hawkins, believe me, I want to help Gal and her team just as
much as you do,” Sarah said calmly. “But you can't let emotion
cloud your judgment. We are in no position to fight a
thunder-struck. We should find a place to hide and try to make
contact with Gal's team, but right now we have information that the
Guild, maybe even all of Sanctuary
needs
to survive. We need to play it
safe.”

“
No, listen,” Ezra said quickly. “You're right, we aren't
prepared to fight a thunder-struck right now. But they are.” He
pointed emphatically at the silent console. “Also, any
thunder-struck in the area clearly knows where the wormhole was.
They'll be blocking us in, killing transmissions. It's their
standard modus operandi once they know the Guild is involved. I've
also read mission reports that suggested they can track any
transmissions we try to send, blocked or not. Which means that
they're probably heading here right now, so we need to leave.” He
raised a finger into the air. “And, the only skiff that could
possibly get us out of this mess is currently in the possession of
Gal and the rest of combat team thirty two.”

Sarah blinked at him a few times, then
looked helplessly at Mat. “I'm with Ezra on this one,” he said,
wearing a feral grin. “Plus we owe those strucking bastards for
Rob.”

Sarah's mouth hardened into a thin line, but
she nodded and began running diagnostics on the origination point
for Gal's transmission. “They must be out in the hills, holed up
somewhere... probably underground.” She shook her head. “I can get
us close, but it's still going to be tough to pinpoint them.”

“
Let's get started then,” Mat said with a grim eagerness. He
began rooting around in their gear. “I'm pretty sure I grabbed a
bandolier of non-conductive bolts for the manual bolt throwers. Ah
ha!” He pulled out his prize and began removing the metal darts
from two hand-sized weapons. Sarah held out her hand and he slapped
one of them into it, fully loaded. She checked it, grunting in
approval, then began pulling out various dart guns and crossbows
which had been secreted on her person, tossing them to the floor.
Ezra looked over to find Mat doing the same and started to unbuckle
his sword. “No,” Mat stopped him with a word. “The hilts are
non-conductive, and the blades are only semi-conductors. Plus, if
you're close enough to have a chance to use it, you're gonna want
it.”

Ezra nodded slowly. “Anything else I should
know about what they can do? I mean, I've read the mission reports,
and a couple of squads noted that some thunder-struck can even
discern electrical impulses from the human body at a short range,
do I need to cover up, or... I don't know, hide near conductive
metals?”

“
Those are definitely the exceptions, Hawkins,” Sarah snorted.
“One thing you should be aware of is the way that they think. A
thunder-struck is a lunatic. They are absolutely convinced that
they are in the right, that there's some god watching over them.
That said, they know what can shut them down. Most have very little
control over what they do. They're always on, all the time, and you
can get them to shock themselves without too much trouble. A
thunder-struck will usually run if it's raining, or if there's too
much metal in the ground, but...”

“
Hoover,” Mat said, checking over a little
bolt-thrower.

Sarah nodded. “The more powerful ones can
turn off their ambient electricity, the halo that marks them. Those
ones are bad, but they still can't fight effectively if you give
their currents somewhere better to go. Once, in a little town named
Hoover, we ran into this Daughter of Lightning.” Sarah paused as
she guided the skiff through a small ravine. “She didn't look like
anything special, but we managed to take out a bridge and drop her
into this lake. I don't think...” She shook her head.

“
She performed electrolysis on the spot,” Mat said softly. “We
had to shut down all our communications and run, weapons and skiff
dark. She had been playing us the whole time, was listening in on
our chatter... we high-tailed it back home and got three other
teams involved, and she still went down hard.” He gave Ezra a
sickly smile. “So keep your guard up, no matter what.”

Ezra met Mat's eyes and nodded seriously,
going over everything he'd read about thunder-struck as the
landscape drifted past.

As they skimmed toward their destination,
Mat pulled the railgun's scope off and began scanning the area,
switching between night and thermal vision. Ezra glanced around
nervously. A few moments later Mat hooted in triumph. “I see her!
Over there, half a kilometer, at the ridge of the crater!” Ezra
squinted in the direction Mat had indicated and saw a dark shape
rise to its feet. A cloud passed from in front of the moon,
illuminating Gal, adorably spunky haircut bobbing as she ran toward
them, arms waving. Ezra frowned, it almost looked like she was
waving them away...

“
-away!” her voice came through their communicators as Mat
activated the audio beam. “You have to get away from here! They can
track your communicators!”

The hair on the back of Ezra's arm started
to raise, and it took him a confused moment to realize that it
wasn't in fear. Sarah slapped at the back of her neck. “Mat,” she
snapped, jumping to her feet, then spinning and kicking Ezra hard
in the chest. And straight over the side of the skiff. She and Mat
were diving after him before he hit the ground.

It was not a moment too soon. Lightning
arced from the clear sky, transfixing the skiff as thunder crashed
through the quiet night. The little ship began veering wildly as it
was struck again and again. The air crackled and buzzed as the
skiff clipped the edge of the crater, tumbling out of sight.
Several heartbeats later, it exploded with a brilliant flash of
light and heat. Gal reached them and groaned. “No no no. No!” she
screamed. “That was our chance! Why didn't you come like we told-”
Her eyes widened as she recognized Ezra. “Ezzy?” she squeaked.
“But... why would they send out a research...” She trailed off as
she took in their travel stained appearance and lack of any
significant weaponry. “Oh... oh no. They didn't send you. But that
means that you were out here...”

“
We had a bad encounter with some fire-kissed and wind-scarred
back in Helena,” Mat said gravely. “Couldn't get back to our
wormhole home, so we headed this way. Any port in a
storm.”

Gal grabbed Ezra in a fierce hug, then
quickly pulled his communicator from behind his ear and crushed it.
“Oh, but this is perfect!” she said suddenly. “You'll have a set of
rods! You can set them up and we can get the hell out of here!”
Gal's laugh was sudden and nearly infectious as she threw her arms
around Ezra's neck and kissed him hard.

Ezra placed his hands on her hips and slowly
pulled her away. She gave him a questioning look. “Gal, we... we
don't have any. I'm sorry.”

The spunky girl looked briefly crestfallen,
then her face resolved into a tight little smile. “Well, at least
you're here. We'll figure something out, even if it means walking
to the nearest port.” She smiled brightly at Sarah, hand tapping
Ezra's shoulder. “The beasts of burden here can carry us lovely
ladies.”

Sarah smiled a little at that, and Mat
chuckled under his breath. Gal nodded her head back toward where
she had been waiting. “Come on, you two can lug my stuff for me.
Seb's waiting back at our lair.”

“
Lair, huh?” Sarah looked around the little cave skeptically.
“I bet Seb made you call it that, didn't he, Gal?”

Sebastian had been drinking from a shallow
pool in the floor when he heard them enter the room, letting out a
laugh of joy and sweeping Sarah into a hug before energetically
pumping Mat and Ezra's hands. “I thought we were lost out here, and
now here you guys are, sneaking in at the dead of night. You have
no idea how happy I am to see you all.”

“
Seb,” Gal said gently, “they're not the rescue
team.”

“
Oh... well, if you can't be with the ones you want, want the
ones you're with, right?” He chuckled then shot Ezra and Gal a
mock-serious glare. “Except you two. What are the blighted odds of
that.”

“
Oh man,” Mat exclaimed excitedly. “You guys still have a power
generator!”

“
Yeah,” Seb glanced over his shoulder to where the battered
generator was humming away over by the cave's wall. “What about
it?”

“
Ezra, the wormhole controller! Get us out of here, man!” Mat
was grinning from ear to ear.

Seb gave Ezra a dumbfounded look as Gal
nearly tackled him in another hug. He smiled broadly and reached
into his jacket... and found nothing.

He frantically patted at his jacket, then
groaned in disbelief. “We used it to find the portal back to
Sanctuary. It was on the skiff when...” There was no way the
delicate piece of machinery had survived the crash.

“
Can you build another one?” Sebastian asked
eagerly.

Ezra gave him an incredulous look. “You
don't have to answer that, Hawkins,” Sarah drawled. “We all know
Seb's an idiot.”

“
But we could try to go back for it,” Mat said quietly. Ezra
looked Mat in the eyes and saw a reflection of his own thoughts,
but nodded anyways. What they needed right now was hope, and it was
shaped like the wormhole controller.