Alien Arcana (Starship's Mage Book 4) (10 page)

A sharp salvo of fire rang through the underground complex, knocking the half-dozen low-flying robots to the ground. The enemy now knew where they’d find the Marines, but without the drones, they knew nothing of Denis’s positions.

Now it was a question of what they’d do. There were arguments, Denis knew, for both a sacrificial scout force and an all-out rush in this situation.

He had his answer thirty seconds later as a volley of grenades came bouncing down the corridor. Unlike his people, he assumed their attackers
did
have armor-piercing grenades—and so his people had taken cover behind several more of the portable blast shields they’d covered the entrance to the lower levels with.

The shields on their own might not have been enough, but combined with the collapsed stone the exosuits had more than enough strength to move, they short-stopped the grenade attack entirely, allowing Denis and his people to watch for the people who’d thrown them.

It started with a single fire team. Four exosuited soldiers swept forward, taking the most covered positions they could find and spraying suppressive fire in the direction of the Marines.

A second fire team leapfrogged them, adding their own fire to the suppression as a third team of four moved forward. The attackers were clearly using IFF linked targeting systems, allowing them to spray fire down the corridor while being
mostly
sure they wouldn’t shoot their own people in the back.

“Sir…” Chan said, quietly questioning as the
fourth
fire team started moving down the corridor. If they leapfrogged the first few teams by the same amount each previous team had, they’d be the first actually into the gallery.

“Hold fire,” Denis ordered, waiting and watching until that fourth fire team
did
enter the gallery, and for a moment of hesitation, the suppressing fire slacked. The possibility that his people had moved on was clearly sinking into the attackers’ minds and that made the moment…“Now!”

Rising over his cover, he opened fire himself. He’d taken one of the positions that could fire down the whole corridor, and he did just that, starting his fire at the farthest fire team and working his way forward.

Exosuited soldiers went down, penetrators punching through the heavy armor in sprays of sparks and blood. Over half of the attackers were down in the first moments, but the black-armored troopers were
very
professional. They opened fire immediately, and the Combat Mage could only shield
some
of his men and still fight.

In the middle of the firefight, the loss of his men barely registered. He knew he’d mourn them later, but for now, they had to
survive
.

And somehow, they did.

The smoke and fire cleared, and Denis realized he was still alive. So were over half of his people, seven Marines still standing and two, including Corporal Chan, wounded but alive.

Half of the rear two attacking fire teams had managed to retreat, but of the twenty men they’d sent at him, sixteen were now dead in the hallway. Little by little, the odds were shifting in his favor.

“Sir…look at the surface footage,” Chan told him. The Marine had lost his left arm at the elbow, but his suit appeared to have that under control—enough for him to still be watching the cameras, anyway.

Denis pulled the video footage up on his helmet and inhaled in sharp surprise. The shuttles had landed again, and the fire teams that had stayed on the surface were now pulling back aboard. As he watched, the reserve teams from the tunnels followed.

His last round of explosives had done more than he thought. He’d only confirmed twenty-four kills, but only twenty-nine of the strange black-armored soldiers retreated back onto their shuttles.

“They’re giving up?” Chan asked.

Denis shook his head.

“No,” he said quietly. “They’re pulling back so their ship can bombard us again. Move that blast shield,” he ordered. “We’re going to need the Hand.”

The runes in the ancient alien gallery might have been broken in the fight that killed Kurosawa, but their dying gasp of overcharged purifying was serving more purpose than their centuries of low-level function. It was bad enough that they’d crammed hundreds of people into the underground cavern, but the ability for everyone to take their breathers off stopped it from becoming completely unbearable.

Damien had even managed to clean most of the blood off his face, staying mostly separate from the crowd of scientists and researchers. They mostly seemed upset that their work had been interrupted, cursing out the utterly implacable Dragic and her two companions.

Santiago Corei, his last surviving Secret Service Agent, had been waiting for him when he’d joined the civilians. The agent, a dark-haired and -eyed young man from Argentina on Earth, was holding his carbine close to his chest while guarding the tiny tunnel leading back up to the surface.

Damien was probably the only person still in the gallery that realized that Corei’s “little gun” fired high-powered penetrators capable of punching through exosuit armor. If the strange soldiers broke in, Corei and Damien would be the last line of defense for these people.

His face finally clean, Damien linked back into the Marine tactical network. Codes hidden in the golden hand of his office allowed him to override much of the security the Marines were using. If he’d been able to link into the frequency of the attackers, he’d probably be able to override
their
security, too—but the landing team was using frequency hoppers with an algorithm his system didn’t have.

As it was, he linked into the tactical network, with its helmet and spy drone cameras, in time to watch Romanov’s people throw back the assault on the corridors outside Kurosawa’s tunnel. He was familiar enough with the network protocols to establish how many people the Marines had lost, and he felt sick to his stomach.

Looking at the images from the surface, however, that sickness intensified. He hadn’t known what Denis was planning, though he’d have approved it if he had, but to see the surface ruins wiped from existence hurt. Only the sheer scale of the main domes had protected them, and he wondered how many little things they would never learn about the aliens now.

He spotted the shuttles sweeping in for a landing and the troops retreating in good order. They were pulling back, which, unfortunately, probably meant a second round of bombardment.

With a sigh, he mentally poked at his internal reserves. It wasn’t something he’d had to worry about in years; the five Runes of Power amplified his strength enough that he hadn’t come this near to thaumic burnout in years.

He wasn’t sure if he could stop another attack. He just knew he had no choice.

“Corei, with me,” he ordered, replacing the breather on his face as he headed back to the hole leading up. “Romanov?”

“You saw,” the Mage-Lieutenant replied. “We’re moving the blast shield; we’ll need to hustle you to the surface.”

Damien paused, then sighed again.

“It’s honestly probably better if one of your people carries me,” he admitted. “I am still, well…shattered.”

#

The trip through the tunnels while being carried by Corporal Chan was not the most dignified experience of Damien’s life by any stretch of the imagination, but it got him to the surface in time to watch the final shuttles taking off.

“Do we have a link into the research station’s transmitters?” Damien asked. They’d gone from “incoming strange ship” to “we’re being bombarded” so fast, he hadn’t even
tried
to talk to these people. It was almost certainly a waste of time, but anything that distracted the enemy might be worth it.

“Yeah,” Chan replied. “What, think they’ll piss off if you ask nicely?”

“Asking nicely isn’t exactly what I have in mind,” Damien told him. “Put me down and link me in.”

A few commands later, he was linked in to the big traffic control transmitters, his voice going out omnidirectionally on every regular channel.

“Unidentified ship, this is Hand Damien Montgomery,” he told them. “You have launched an unprovoked attack on a research facility under the protection of Mars
and
an open attack on a Hand of the Mage-King.

“These are not actions that Mars will allow to go unpunished. You have already failed to overwhelm me and my Marines. Surrender now and Mars may show mercy. Continue on this course and the galaxy knows the fate of those who attack Hands.”

He cut the channel, waiting for a response he didn’t actually expect to come.

“They won’t surrender,” he noted aloud to Chan and Romanov. “But
knowing
they’re firing on a Hand may make them hesitate.”

Unmentioned was the
other
item he’d sent along with his voice. The codes and programs included in the files concealed in the golden symbolizing his office had many, many purposes and utilities. Some could be called “backdoor viruses” if you were being
rude
.

“Not so much,” Romanov agreed. “I’ve got another Talon Seven…wait, no, make that
three
.”

Damien swallowed. His bug was in the
ship
software now—and, as they spoke, should be preventing further weapons from being launched—but it might not have made it into the missiles themselves.

“One last chance, gentlemen,” he said quietly.

“What’s that?”

“I dropped a Hand override virus into their system,” he told them. “If it made it into the missiles, this will work.” He tapped a command on his screen.

Seconds passed. He’d thought some of the waiting before had lasted forever, but this was worse.

“Damn…two missiles down,” Romanov reported. He paused, swallowed. “Third has remained on course and deployed submunitions.”

Damien nodded sadly. It was time to see whether even a fully trained and upgraded Rune Wright could stop multiple mass bombardments in an afternoon.

“I’ll do what I can,” he told Romanov and Chan. “I…may fall. Please try not to let me hurt myself; I may well not be conscious when this is over.”

The exosuits containing his Marine companions were expressionless, but he didn’t need to
see
their faces. No Marine wanted to stand by while a Hand died, but no one else could do this.

With a gesture and a renewed surge of burning heat into his Runes, Damien once more wove a barrier of solidified air and power around the ancient base and its modern symbiont. A glance at the screen showed that this last weapon had been better programmed than the first one. All seven of its projectiles were going to hit, from seven different angles, at roughly the same time.

There was no way he could brace himself for this, but he steadied himself as best as he could, counted down the final seconds, and then threw every
erg
of power at his command into informing the universe that, no, the people under his protection were
not
going to die today.

Fire and thunder lit up the sky above Denis as the bombardment projectiles slammed into the Hand’s shield. The Mage-Lieutenant was trained in the theory of the type of shield the Hand had raised, and was even practiced at using it at a smaller level to protect himself and the troops around him from incoming small arms or even artillery fire.

To his knowledge, no Mage in the Royal Martian Marines could have stopped even the first round of bombardment, let alone all three. His surprise at being alive distracted him for several moments before he realized that Montgomery had collapsed.

“Check the skies,” he ordered Chan as he knelt next to the collapsed Hand. Still clad in his armor, he couldn’t directly check for a pulse, but the suit thankfully had its own sensors—which informed him that Montgomery was
alive
but unconscious, with an elevated body temperature and accelerated pulse.

The Marine didn’t even need to see the blood oozing out around the other man’s eyelids and breather to recognize a classic case of extreme thaumic burnout.

“Sir, our friend is running,” Chan told him. “Whatever Montgomery did to their systems spooked them—they’re burning away from the planet at what looks like twelve gravities, though with these sensors, that means anything from eight to sixteen.”

“Good,” Denis snapped. Another round of bombardment would have finished them, and it looked like the
last
round might have killed the Hand—
not
something he needed on his watch.

“Dragic.” He pinged the leader of the MIS team. “It looks like our mystery visitor is leaving. We still want to hold off on letting the civilians back in—but I need you to bring whatever doctor they’ve got to their clinic right now. Montgomery is hurt bad.”

“Shit. I’ll have Corei drag them if needed,” Dragic replied. “What about you?”

“My people will keep an eye on the sky, but I’m bringing Montgomery to the clinic. See you there.”

#

The mysterious ship kept running the entire time it took Denis to carry the Hand to the clinic and the entire time he spent stripping out of his armor while keeping an eye on Montgomery. He was trained in battlefield first aid, but with a doctor on site, there was no point in the battlefield expedient for thaumic burnout of “pack his head in ice.”

He was considering it anyway by the time Corei arrived, dragging the Expedition’s senior doctor with him by the arm.

“This is entirely unacceptable,” the woman snapped. “What the hell is going on?”

“What’s going on, Dr. Mandela,” Denis told the black woman softly, “is that Hand Montgomery nearly
died
saving every one of your lives. We need
you
to make sure it stays ‘nearly.’ Do you understand me?”

Dr. Hope Mandela paused for a moment, then produced an elastic hair-band and pulled her long black hair into a practical ponytail in a practiced motion. “Show me,” she ordered. “What happened?”

Surprised by her sudden about-face, Denis led her to where he’d put the Hand.

“Thaumic burnout,” he told her. “He stopped three rounds of orbital bombardment. It was like nothing I’d ever seen.”

“I have no experience with burnout,” Mandela warned. “I’ve been trained on it, but that’s it.”

“His life is in your hands,” Denis snapped. “Do what you can.”

“Of course,” she snapped back. “Let’s start by cooling down his head— You, in the suit!” she barked at Corei. “You dragged me up here without my nurses, so scrub down.” She pointed at a sink. “I need extra hands and you’re volunteered.”

Corei leapt to obey and Denis followed him without even asking.

“The main risk is brain damage from overheating,” he told the doctor, even as she was removing ice packs from a freezer he’d missed amidst the clinic’s many,
many
cabinets and pieces of equipment. “I don’t know how long it’ll take for his temperature to drop; I’ve never seen
anyone
use that much magic.”

Passing the cold-packs to Corei, Mandela hooked up the scanners on the hospital bed, positioning one directly above Montgomery’s head and another above his chest. Looking at a series of numbers that meant nothing to Denis, she shook her head slowly.

“I’m going to give him a hibernation agent,” she told them. “It’ll put him in an induced coma and slow his metabolism; it
should
get his body temperature down and protect his brain.”

She pulled out a hypodermic and filled it with a disturbingly purple fluid.

“Keep those cold-packs on him,” she ordered. “Everything we’re doing is just buying time, gentlemen. I have
no
idea how to handle this beyond keeping him alive until his body recovers.”

“We need to get him to Tau Ceti,” Denis said grimly. “But he sent the courier away.”

“Then we better hope they come back,” Mandela replied. “Because this is bad, and I doubt I
can
do more than buy him time. This is out of my league.”

#

“Chan, where are you?” Denis asked as he leaned against the door of the clinic. “I need an update on our mysterious friend.”

“I’m in the Expedition’s Space Traffic Control Center,” the Corporal replied. “I’ve got people guarding the door; we’re in complete control of comms and sensors, boss.”

“Good.” Denis was
reasonably
sure the only threat in the Expedition itself was dead, but the lanky Marine was utterly unwilling to take risks at this point. “And our trigger-happy friend?”

“A light-second away and accelerating fast,” the noncom replied. “I expect to see them jump in another hour or so.”

“Good,” Denis repeated. In the attacker’s place,
he’d
probably be running with his tail between his legs too. They had no evidence Montgomery couldn’t just swat aside every single attack they threw his way. Denis wasn’t sure exactly
how
the Hand had been able to do that, but he suspected it had something to do with the runes that had literally burned their way through the other Mage’s clothing.

“Keep an eye on them,” he ordered. “I’m coming to join you.”

If Chan already had the STC secured, that gave them at least one place they could plan in private.

“Afolayan,” he pinged his other surviving Corporal. “Once your team is out of the suits, I need you to proceed to the infirmary. Place yourself under Agent Corei’s command; he is in charge of Hand Montgomery’s security.

“
No one
except Dr. Mandela and her staff goes in that room unless they’re unconscious or
dying
; understand me, Corporal?”

“Yes. On our way,” the Corporal replied in his thick accent—his colony had actively preserved the tribal languages of western Africa, and English was Kweku Afolayan’s
seventh
language, if Denis understood the man’s history correctly.

The Mage-Lieutenant was also sure that the Corporal often exaggerated his accent to make people underestimate him—a dangerous mistake, as Afolayan was probably the smartest man in his squad.

“Thank you, Corporal,” he said quietly, then flipped to another channel. “Inspector Dragic.”

“How are we doing, Mage-Lieutenant?” she asked. “Is Montgomery…”

“The Hand is critical but still with us,” Denis told her honestly. “We need to talk next steps, Inspector. As I understand the Hand’s chain of command,
you’re
in charge now. Meet me at the Space Traffic Control Center? We have it secured.”

“I’ll be there in five,” she promised.

#

It was a somber group that gathered amidst the screens and blinking lights of the prefabricated space traffic control room. Dragic had brought both of her subordinates with her, and Denis had Chan, whose Marines stood guard outside the door.

“I have
no
idea what the next step is,” the senior Martian Investigation Service investigator admitted once the door closed, separating them from the rest of the compound. “I’m a cop, Mage-Lieutenant. I was brought here to investigate a murder, not… I don’t know what this is. A war?”

“A conspiracy,” Denis said bluntly. “An organization able to plant assassins both in the Expedition and in my Marine squad. An organization with access to a ship of a type I’ve never seen before, with tech and weapons that are restricted to the Martian Navy and Martian Marines.”

He shook his head.

“My understanding is that the Navy doesn’t even like
Hands
having access to specialized orbital impactors,” he told the cop. “
Duke of Magnificence
surrendered hers when she was tapped to act as Hand Montgomery’s personal transport. But someone fired
four
modern orbit-to-surface kinetic weapons at this base and then followed up with troops who may as well have
been
Marines.”

“This is…way over all of our heads,” Dragic replied. “What the hell do
we
do?”

Denis Romanov sighed and stepped over to look at the screen showing the mystery ship.

“How much data did these sensors actually
get
on that ship?” he asked Chan.

“Less than a proper planetary net would have grabbed,” the dark-skinned man with the slanted eyes said quietly. Unlike many in the Martian Navy, he was actually from China instead of being the ambiguous mixed brown with epicanthic folds of a Martian native. “We’ve got enough we can identify her if we see her again, but for any real analysis, we’ll want TK-421’s sensors.”

“Did Pokorni make it out?” Denis asked.

“She did. Our friends lobbed half a dozen missiles at the courier, and she ran like a flushed rabbit,” Chan told him bitterly.

“Armed or not, TK-421 wasn’t designed to get into fights with warships,” Denis said. “She’ll be back, and with that sensor data. Once she’s here, we’ll load Montgomery onto her and head straight for Tau Ceti. The big Navy Hospital there has the people and facilities to treat him; we certainly don’t.”

“Will he live?” Dragic asked.

“The doctor says he needs better care than she can give,” he admitted. “The sooner TK-421 is back, the happier I’ll be. Once we’re in Tau Ceti, we can send a squadron to make sure this place is safe. What we need—what
Montgomery
is going to need when he wakes up—is more data.”

He was looking at the MIS team, and Dragic met his gaze with calm confidence. She might not know how to handle someone trying to blow her apart from orbit, but she could do data gathering.

“There are a pile of dead guys in the tunnels,” he reminded them. “A bunch of crashed shuttles with more dead guys and gear. We need to go through them all, see if we can find serial numbers, identification plates,
wallets
—anything we can use to identify these assholes or who supplied them.

“It’s ugly work,” he concluded, “searching the dead. But we need to know what is going on here.”

“
That
, my dear Lieutenant,” the MIS Inspector said brightly, “we can do. We’ll learn what we can.”