Authors: Vincent Trigili
“Special Agent Zah’rak, hold there,” came the crackling reply from Command.
Crivreen, Ragnar and myself were just outside a maximum-security prison. Our assignment was to rescue a political figure who had been taken hostage by one of the tribes attempting to take control of this system. They were using the hostage to try to force withdrawal of the Phareon military, but it was about to backfire on them in a big way.
Felix and Shira were back on the Night Wisp in the sensor shadow of the moon, awaiting the signal to sweep in.
“Are we sure about this?”
sent Crivreen. Even after all this time serving with me, I could still sense the nervousness in his mental voice. That was good, I supposed; it was certainly better than him being cocky.
“A little late to ask that,”
I sent back.
“Besides, this is our fourth mission with them. It’s not as if we don’t know what to expect.”
“Yeah, but we don’t even know who we’re rescuing; we know very little about the situation,”
he sent.
“We know enough,”
I sent back, but I understood his uneasiness. After Narcion died, we had drifted for a bit until Special Agent Byron’s handler contacted us and informed us of Byron’s death. Apparently, before Byron died he had turned in a report praising our service, and the handler needed someone to replace him and, more importantly, to replace Narcion. Phareon had many magi working for them; what they didn’t have was a skilled and experienced team of magi, and that was the niche we could fill.
“Special Agent Zah’rak, move out and good luck,” came the order over the comm. It was hard to make out the command over the crackling. Being so close to the prison meant we were getting interference from the scramble field around the base. Once inside communicators would be useless, at least until the attack was underway in earnest and the scramble generators were taken out.
“We’re on,”
I sent. We silently approached the outer wall of one of the prison blocks. It was a massive metal structure, scarred from what I judged to be many failed attacks. In the gloom of the early morning the walls stretched up left and right out of sight. I couldn’t see them but I knew from early reconnaissance missions that there were sentry guns spaced out evenly along the entire wall. The area from where we were approaching had lots of natural cover and a narrow pass to a single door, guarded only by two humans and a pair of sentry guns. This appeared to be a weak point in their defenses, one that we planned to exploit.
Somewhere in the distance there was a loud series of explosions that shook the very ground under our feet.
“They’ve begun their attack! Blast the doors!”
Ragnar called out a command word and threw a rune at the fortified door. The two guards turned towards him as the rune exploded behind them. The soil on either side of the walkway was thrown into the air by the blast, momentarily obscuring the view. When it cleared, both humans were dead and the doors were destroyed, but the sentry guns were far enough from the blast to have remained intact. They hunted for targets, but we were still under cover just beyond their vision.
“Crivreen, blast them!” I called out.
Crivreen drew his wands and unleashed a wave of lightning. The electrical energy arced back and forth across the open doorway between the guns. The power cells that drove the guns overheated under the barrage and exploded, destroying both guns and a large section of the walls. Overhead, fighter craft raced back and forth defending bombers which were pummeling the colony in seemingly random places. The ground shook and the sky lit up brighter than midday as more and more bombs were dropped. The prison’s anti-aircraft defenses were failing to do more than annoy the naval fighters.
Our target was several levels underground, which should be safe for a little while, but we had been warned: Phareon planned to leave no survivors. We had to get out before they broke through the upper level defenses or we’d be destroyed with the base. Phareon intended to show everyone the foolishness of taking hostages, even if they had to kill the hostage themselves which created an unforgiving deadline for us.
I waved my team forward and ran into the fortress with my rifle in hand. I couldn’t throw lightning around like Crivreen nor make rocks explode like Ragnar, but my trusty assault rifle was more than capable of dealing death and destruction at the speed of light.
“Which way, Ragnar?”
I sent. Ragnar’s uncanny sense of direction and unerring memory of maps made him immensely valuable on these missions. In some ways he was the most valuable man on the team, but his lack of understanding of modern technology proved a big hindrance.
“Left at the next junction, and then take the second shaft down,”
he replied without the slightest hesitation.
Most of the prison guards were heading towards the firefight at the other end of the colony, but alarms were undoubtedly sounding at this end and I knew it was only a matter of time before troops were sent to deal with us. There would be constant confusion throughout the battlefield, and I was counting on that to create enough delay for us to get in, make the rescue and get out.
We had almost made it to the shaft before coming under fire from some soldiers in heavy armor.
“Don’t stop! Make a break for the shaft! I’ll cover you,”
I sent. I was pretty sure my rifle couldn’t penetrate their armor, but that same armor was heavy and would dramatically reduce their speed of movement. That should give us enough time to make the run, but I was too experienced to count on it.
Crivreen and Ragnar made a mad sprint along the last few meters towards the shaft as I tossed two concussion grenades over their heads at the enemy troops. The force from the blast threw the soldiers back and bought us the time we needed to jump down the shaft. Their armor might have protected some of them from the blast, but those closest would have been killed. More importantly, the rest would move more cautiously now and that would give us more time to gain a good lead on them.
The thrusters on our armor were intended for zero-g maneuvers but were sufficient to slow our twenty-meter descent just enough so that we could hit the ground running.
“Getting back out should be fun,” called out Ragnar as we sprinted down the corridor.
I hadn’t attempted to make an escape plan as there was no way to guess in advance what options would be open to us, but Ragnar had been insistent that we should have one; he felt strongly enough about it to have probably worked one out himself.
We came to another junction and stopped a moment to catch our breath. I looked around and realized I had no idea where we were. “Which way?”
Ragnar chanted a divination as he wrote something on the floor with his finger. “We’re close; this way!” He took off at a jog down one of the corridors and I sent Crivreen after him. I wanted to take the rear, as I was sure those soldiers would figure out which way we’d gone soon enough, unless they had more than one Phareon hostage. It must be obvious why we were here. I was sure that if we allowed them breathing room they would have guards around our target, locking him down tight.
Weapon fire erupted from somewhere ahead of us as we ran, and Ragnar returned fire with one of the wands Crivreen had made for him, but we didn’t slow down. Time was completely against us and it was a merciless and tireless enemy.
We managed to stay ahead of the troops sent to stop us and made it to the cell where the target was being held. A few quick blasts from my rifle took care of the locked door, and we found him chained and unconscious in the back of the room. He looked badly beaten and starved. He was probably some ranking politician or, more likely, the son of a politician.
“No time to rouse him,” said Crivreen.
“No need,” I said as I lifted him onto my shoulder, preferring that he stay asleep. As a Zalionian I was probably at least fifty per cent more massive than the puny human, so his weight was not a hindrance. “Fastest way out?”
“Up,” said Ragnar. “Crivreen, barricade the door and then find cover.”
Crivreen dragged what little furniture there was in the room over to the door, in an attempt to jam shut what was left of it, and then hunkered down behind the pile. I covered the human we were rescuing with my body as Ragnar tossed one of his runes up to the ceiling. There was a large blast and then I felt hot debris bouncing off my armor.
As soon as the dust had cleared enough I saw that Ragnar had fired up a grappling cable and quickly ascended. “Crivreen, take the rear.” I climbed up the rope as quickly as I could without dropping the human. Below, Crivreen cast another wave of lightning to slow down the approaching troops. Once I was out of the hole, I signaled to Crivreen to follow.
Crivreen didn’t bother with the cable. Instead, he teleported up into the air in a direct line of sight from where he was and used his jump jets to push him the rest of the way onto the ledge. Below us the prison guards were rushing towards the opening. “Crivreen, grenades - now!” I called out.
You must remember you can do things like that!
I chided myself. Teleportation would have been faster and safer than lugging this fellow up the rope.
Crivreen pulled out two of his explosive grenades and tossed them down after the guards. Ragnar had already started to leave, so Crivreen and I ran to catch up with him without waiting to see if the grenades were effective. Somewhere behind us I heard them explode, and hoped they had at least slowed down our pursuers.
“Felix, we’re on our way out,” I said over the comm., hoping that the scramblers had been taken out according to plan.
“On our way,” he said. His message was crystal clear, which was good since it meant that the scramblers had been taken out, but also bad in the sense that it meant time was running out.
We fought through several more corridors, staying just ahead of the troops, who were scattered and uncoordinated. It seemed Phareon’s forces had successfully disrupted their communication network, making our escape much easier. Still, we must be running low on time, and either the guards would rally and overpower us or Phareon would destroy the place around us very soon. Neither outcome was acceptable.
“There’s a clearing up ahead; it should be big enough,” said Ragnar.
“Okay, make haste!” I said. I activated the homing signal on my armor so that Felix could quickly locate us. All we had to do was reach somewhere with clear line of sight to the sky.
“He’s going to have a hard time getting close under all that fire,” said Crivreen.
“He doesn’t have to get too close, just enough to see us,” I said.
As we approached the clearing, the Night Wisp flew by and Shira jumped into the air from the airlock. She spread out her arms as if she thought she could fly and glided away from the Night Wisp. Once she was clear she teleported to the ground. “Hurry!” she called out as she cast her gate spell. “He can’t keep the ship in range of my gate for long!”
Overhead the Night Wisp was making a second pass as a two-dimensional blue oval opened in the air in front of us. Ragnar charged through first, followed by Crivreen and myself. Shira came last and closed the gate behind us.
“We’re on board, Felix! Get us out of here!”
I sent. Safely on board the Night Wisp, exhaustion set in and I had to lean against the wall for support as the powerful engines of the Night Wisp pushed hard against the planet’s atmosphere and gravity.
Once I had caught my breath, Ragnar helped me secure the still-unconscious human as the Night Wisp completed its banking maneuver and accelerated out of the atmosphere. When we were clear of danger, Crivreen and Ragnar moved the human into sickbay and placed him in a hyberpod where he would stay in medical stasis until we could deliver him to the nearest Phareon base. He would need medical expertise I did not have to recover, but the pod would keep him safe until we got there.
“Anyone get hurt this time?” asked Felix over the ship’s comm.
“No, we seem to be getting better at this,” I said. My instincts told me the training and practice we were getting by running these missions would be critical for our future survival, but I didn’t understand why. I could not see into the future, and that was a problem for another day. “Call our contact and arrange for the drop-off.”
“Zah’rak! There’s a call coming in on our private channel,” called out Crivreen.
“Odd,” I said. “Put it through to my station.” We’d just dropped off the hostage we’d rescued and I wasn’t expecting a call for a new mission just yet, so I was a little concerned about getting a call on that channel.
A man appeared on the screen whom I didn’t recognize; he appeared to be the same species as Ragnar, and there was something familiar about his features that I couldn’t place. Something nagged at the back of my mind. I should know this person. Was it his eyes? No, they seemed unfamiliar too. My instincts told me I knew him, yet I couldn’t figure out who he might be.
“Hello, old friend,” he said.
The way he said that confirmed our previous acquaintance, but his voice was no more familiar than his face. Still there was that nagging feeling that I should know him. “Who are you?”
“Zah’rak, it’s Byron. I know I look different. Is Ragnar there? I am sure he can verify my identity for you with his magic,” I said.
That was surely impossible. “I was told Byron was dead.”
“My race was discovered, and I had to fake my death to protect some people,” he said.
I turned away from the screen and called for Ragnar. Whoever this was had private command channel codes that only Byron should have had and he knew Byron’s secret. That could mean he was involved in Byron’s death.
When Ragnar came up, I sat him in front of the screen and turned back towards it. “Who is that?”
“I am not sure. I cannot see his aura through this device,” said Ragnar.
“Zah’rak, you picked up Ragnar in Korshalemia after using the gate in Narcion’s room.” The stranger then went on to tell us the details of the fight in which Narcion died. “What more proof do you need?”
“Who are you?” asked Ragnar.