Authors: Vincent Trigili
“Two more doors like this one with about the same level of security, then another fifteen or twenty minutes’ walk to the storage room door,” she said.
“Why so deep?” I asked.
“He was paranoid about all kinds of things, including someone finding this storage room. He took extreme measures in everything.”
“Ten skeletal nights is not very extreme,” said Raquel.
She nodded. “I’m hoping the storeroom guards are long gone, or we might be gating out empty-handed as fast as we possibly can.”
“Perhaps now would be a good time to tell us about them,” suggested Raquel dryly.
Shira inhaled deeply and slowly exhaled a few times before answering. “Soul-Witches.”
Raquel stopped in her tracks. “Are you sure?”
“Completely,” she said.
“What are they?” I asked.
“A much deadlier form of spirit than anything you’ve faced before,” said Raquel. “Shira is right; we’ll probably have to beat a retreat if they’re still here.”
That worried me, since I’d never heard Raquel consider retreat. I didn’t know what Soul-Witches were, but I was very sure I never wanted to meet anything that scared Raquel.
We continued down the corridor and through the next two doors, easily pushing through the skeletons as before.
“It’s just ahead,” said Shira.
As our destination came into view it was obvious something was wrong. Instead of a stone door as we’d seen at the previous locations, there was a large pile of rubble and a gaping hole. I moved ahead of Shira and slowly looked through the hole. On the other side was a vast open room with many large stone containers. “Looks empty,” I said. “Ragnar, can you verify that?”
“I can try,” he said and cast his divination. It seemed like ages before he finally said, “I think we’re alone. There are plenty of undead wandering the halls around us, but I don’t think there are any in the room ahead.”
“Okay, follow me and keep a look out for trouble,” I said.
We searched the room for several hours and found very little left of the large stockpile that Shira remembered. There was a small quantity of gems and precious metals scattered throughout in dark corners, which could easily have been missed when the room was full.
“Is there enough here?” asked Ragnar.
“Enough to upgrade all our armor, but not enough to complete the order,” I said.
“The sorcerers we killed must have been here cleaning out this room. There are traces of power everywhere. It must have been an incredible fight. Apparently the sorcerers came in a different way since the corridor we used was still guarded,” said Ragnar.
“We came in what I like to think of as the back door. The main passage was shorter, but better guarded the last time I was here,” said Shira.
Ragnar looked around at the vast empty room and exhaled slowly. “These materials are worth a lot back in Korshalemia. A stockpile of this size could fund a massive army for an entire war.”
“Just how tough are these Soul Witches?” I asked.
“It would have been too much for one sorcerer, but if a group of necromancers fought together they could have handled it,” said Raquel. “In time, with training and maturity, our little group could handle a few Soul-Witches; that time has not yet come.”
“Do we gather what we’ve found and gate back to the Night Wisp?” asked Ragnar.
“Yeah,” I said. “And come up with a new plan.”
“Welcome back,” said Marcus as I entered our robotics repair shop.
“It’s good to be back at work,” I said. It had been a week since my fight with the Resden agent, and the doctors had finally relented and let me return to light duties.
My section of the shop was exactly as I’d left it, which was comforting. I had been worried that someone might have ransacked it also. I pulled up my repair queue to start prioritizing my work for the day. Marcus asked, “Is this room clean?”
“What do you mean?” I replied.
“Can we talk?” he asked.
I sighed. If it wasn’t, he had just implicated himself. I had taken to carrying my old gear again, as it had become apparent that someone was watching me; presumably that meant that someone was still interested in making sure I stayed under control. I didn’t know whom I had upset to draw this attention, but for now I had to play their game. When I found a way off the Paradise, then I could disappear again.
“Clear. We can talk,” I said after scanning the room.
“My room was ransacked last night. I’m starting to become as paranoid as you are,” he said.
“I’m sorry, man,” I said. “Look, there’s no reason for you to take the fall with me. I’ll slip off the ship at the first opportunity.”
“No,” said Marcus.
“No?” I queried.
“Like it or not, I’m in this with you now. Even if you bail out, I’ll still be under scrutiny because of our friendship,” he said.
I stared at him for a moment, unsure what to say. I knew he was right. He was in too deep now; the fact that they’d ransacked his room made that clear. Yet there still had to be a means of escape without taking him down with me. I felt bad. He had only been trying to help me.
“Look, I’m here for you regardless of what happens,” he said. “Now, listen. I couldn’t sleep after seeing my room like that so I did some research and I think we need to get off the ship.”
“Why do you say that?” I asked.
“I found orders for a security team to be installed at the next port,” he said.
“But we already have one,” I replied.
“Exactly,” he said. “A whole new team will be installed. The current team, who happen to think very favorably of us, will be transferred to a new cruise liner.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I confirmed it this morning.”
“How long until we reach port?” I normally paid no attention to the docking and sailing because I never left the ship. My goal had been to make it to the Phineary region without being spotted en route, a goal that I’d obviously failed to achieve.
“In a week we’ll make our final jump. After that it’ll be a few days to port,” he said.
“These new forces - are they contractors?” I asked.
“No, Resden regulars,” he replied.
That was both unusual and troubling. “So my grand plan to restart life in Phineary seems unlikely to happen.”
“Yeah, it’s starting to look that way,” he said. “What are we going to do?”
“I’m not sure. If I bail out, they might come after you in order to get at me.” I had once again fallen into trouble without intending to and dragged another innocent down with me. I didn’t understand why things like this kept happening to me and to those around me. It was as if I were cursed, or brought bad fortune wherever I went.
“Then we both go,” he said.
“But if you do, you’ll be blacklisted for abandoning your post. You’ll never work again,” I said.
“No, I won’t. The captain won’t blacklist either of us.”
“How can you be sure of that?” I asked.
“Because I know my father pretty well,” he said with a grin.
“Your father is the captain?” I asked. “How come you never told me that before?”
“Because I’m not qualified for this position,” he said. “All my certificates are fake. I only got this job because of him.”
“You seem to know your way around the shop fairly well,” I said.
“Well, I’ve been at this post a year now and have been training myself. When you came on board, I made sure you were assigned all the hard jobs.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “I think you
’re understating your skill. If the captain is your father, can’t he help us?”
He shook his head. “Against Resden? It would be suicide for him to mix himself up in this. I would only let him help if there was no way to trace it back to him.”
“So we slip off and he covers our tracks,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Then we get jobs on a different cruise line, one not friendly to Resden. You can list me as your apprentice and we just slip away from this mess.”
“Until they come for me again,” I said quietly, not meaning to speak aloud.
“What?” he asked.
I realized then that what I’d preached to Crivreen was right: you can never go back. I made a decision. I’d return to the Night Wisp and take up Raquel’s offer. At least there I was with warriors who were looking for trouble, instead of dragging down random civilians along with me. I came to the conclusion that I wasn’t destined to live in peace.
“Okay, you have a choice to make. I’m going to have to bail off this ship, maybe even before the next port. You can stay on board, report me as AWOL and behave as if you’re completely loyal to Resden. If you do that, you might be able to escape blame and continue on with this cushy assignment you have.
“Your other option is to come with me, in which case Resden will no doubt mark you as a criminal, and you will probably spend the rest of your life on the run from them.”
“Where are you going to go?” he asked.
“I have some friends that I can take refuge with,” I said. “I’ll be fine, but I can’t promise that you will be. I can’t even offer you shelter with them without checking, but I’m willing to ask.”
“You’ll need my help to get off this ship, and I’m not about to turn traitor and start licking the heels of Resden agents.”
“What did you have in mind?” I asked.
“I have a small ship in the hangar,” he said. “After the next jump, we launch it to do a routine check of the exterior robotics and never return.”
“Okay.” I had to admit his spacecraft would make things much easier. My best plan had been to sneak out at the next station. I was sure I could get off the ship, but after that I’d be stranded on a station where security would be looking for me. Using his ship meant I’d have a chance of escaping the sector without being spotted. “If you’re sure you want to throw away all of this, for good.”
“Look, I’m in this with you now, wherever it leads,” he replied.
“Then we need to move our gear onto your ship as unobtrusively as possible before the jump,” I said.
“I’ll take care of that,” he said. “You’re on light duty, so it wouldn’t be good for you to be spotted carrying equipment around.”
“I really only need the things behind that panel in my quarters,” I said. “Everything that I purchased after coming on board can be abandoned.”
“Just that one big bag?” he said. “That’ll be easy. I can stash that in an empty toolbox and roll it down there in plain sight.”
“Great,” I said. “But remember, the fewer people that see you loading the ship, the better.”
“What about your therapy?” he asked.
“It’s only exercises at this point. I don’t really need medical care anymore. I’m not sure why they still have me on restricted duty.”
“No one on board really likes Resden. Perhaps the medics are trying to frustrate their investigation?” he suggested.
“Hopefully,” I said with a smile. “Then our plan is to lie low until the next jump and start moving supplies to your ship. I’ll look over the local jump routes and see what our options are.”
“Okay. Meanwhile, I have to get down to Section Thirteen again,” he said.
“Now what?” I asked.
“The unit there that cleans the oxygen ducts is stuck. Again.”
I merely shook my head. The path-finding algorithms on that model seemed to be especially bad, but it was the only model we had that could fit in the smaller ducts. Before this mess happened, I had planned to try and design a better robot. I was pretty sure I could modify the control unit from a more advanced model to work in that small frame, but now I would never know.
The rest of the week passed quietly and Marcus managed to get everything on board his craft, seemingly without raising any suspicion. When the morning came for our departure, I made one last sweep through my quarters to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Before stepping out of my room, I made sure to hide myself from the surveillance systems; anyone watching them wouldn’t know I had left my room until it was too late.
Doing my best not to draw attention to myself, I made my way down to the docking arm where Marcus kept his ship and slipped on board. Marcus followed soon after.
“Ready?” he asked.
“Are you sure you want to do this? There’s no going back,” I said.
“Trust me, it’s already much too late for that,” he said and dropped into the pilot’s station.
The way he said that made me suspicious; I was sure he’d done something, but being anxious to get underway I didn’t question him. Taking my place in the copilot’s chair, I said, “Launch when ready.”
Shira was in hydroponics and the rest of us were on the bridge when the comm. beeped, indicating an incoming secure recorded message from the Phareon government. Before accepting the call, I checked my accounts and saw that our Phareon controller had finally paid for the last two contracts. “This could be serious,” I said.
“You want me to play it on the big screen?” asked Crivreen.
“Yeah,” I said.
A moment later the commander’s face appeared on the screen. “Zah’rak, for your next assignment, proceed to MA-71. It’s a secret testing facility, quite some distance from your last reported location. We’ve lost all contact with them and also with the team we sent to investigate. We urgently need your team to find out what’s going on.” Following that was a data stream with the coordinates and other information.
“This sounds familiar,” I said, after the message had ended. “Send a reply. Tell him we’re quite far away from that station and need to resupply first,” I said. “There appears to be a military outpost not too far from us. We’ll stop there and get what we need, and then head to MA-71. If this is time-critical, we can join up with a larger fleet there to cut the travel time.”
I knew he wouldn’t like the idea of arming us, and I could obtain weapons from some of Narcion’s former contacts, but that would take time and money; I preferred to make him pay for it all.
“Have we heard back from the Wizard Kingdom about Ragnar?” I asked. Raquel had sent a message a week ago when we left Siden.
“Let me check,” she said and turned to her comm. station. “Yes; they want to send Mathorn out to talk with us.”