Eric Flint's Blog, page 160

Chain of Command – Snippet 31

Chain of Command – Snippet 31

Chapter Sixteen

24 December 2133 (thirty minutes later) (third day in K’tok orbit)

The wardroom was crowded, holding all the off-duty officers in white as well as the khaki-clad senior chiefs, almost a dozen total. Sam paused at the open hatch. He’d had the mess attendants set the wardroom’s smart walls to mimic the HRVS optics pointed laterally, so K’tok–enormous, blue, and cloud-wrapped–dominated the view to port. They were just coming up on the needle, a shining golden thread impossibly long, stretching all the way down into K’Tok’s atmosphere and over forty thousand kilometers up to its orbiting counterweight. Somewhere down at the bottom of it, Human troops held a small bridgehead on the planet surface, and were counting on support from a task force that had just been shot to pieces.

But that wasn’t his immediate problem.

Realistically, he figured he had one chance to win Puebla’s officers and chiefs over. He knew he’d have plenty of chances to lose them later, but that wouldn’t make any difference if he couldn’t even make this first meeting click.

No pressure.

“Atten-shun!” one of the chiefs barked and the officers and chiefs snapped to smartly enough, although several of them weren’t tethered and so started drifting slowly across the compartment.

Sam took in a slow breath.

Okay. It’s a staff meeting. You’ve run these before. Maybe not in space, not in the middle of a war, but the principle’s the same: don’t let them see you sweat.

“As you were,” Sam said. “I’m having this meeting piped to the crew so we’re all on the same page. I just talked to Admiral Kayumati half an hour ago. We’ll get a complete report later, but what it boils down to is we got our asses kicked. We were very lucky on Puebla to come away with just a few bruises. Eight vessels are total write-offs, including three cruisers and two destroyers, and most of their crews are dead.”

They had suspected bad news but he could see from their faces this was worse than expected.

“We probably all lost friends today. I had friends on Bully Big Dick. Captain Chelanga … well, she was a hell of a lady. When you’re back in your cabins, take a moment, remember them, but right now we’ve got too much work to do.

“I wish like hell I could tell you Puebla got a piece of those bastards, but we didn’t. It wasn’t your fault. You got our missiles out the tube faster than any other unit in the task force, except Bully, and near as I can tell we had the best target solutions. The problem is our damned missiles are broken. None of the destroyers got any hits, so it looks like the problem is in the Block Four missile design.”

Sam scanned the group and was pleased–and a little surprised–to see Marina Filipenko and Joe Burns, his Tac Boss and Bull Tac, floating side-by-side.

“Lieutenant Filipenko, Chief Burns, that’s the tactical department’s big job. Figure out what’s wrong with the missiles and fix it. Get Chief Menzies in on this, too. Nobody knows those Block Fours better than she does. Contact the other destroyers and get together with their tac-heads. Tight beam Hornet and see what their squints have to say. We’ve got a machine shop and fabricators, so you should be able to jury-rig something. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned to the operations staff next but found Gordy Cunningham, the Bull Ops, floating next to Constancia Navarro and Chief Pete Montoya from engineering, with Ensign Barb Lee on the other side of the wardroom.

“Ensign Lee, Chief Cunningham, I’ve got two jobs for the operations department. First, figure out a way to get a quick and dirty map of the asteroid belt so we can detect ships by stellar occlusion, even with asteroids behind them. This time they hit us from above, but those uBakai shitheads like to play hide-and-seek with the asteroids, and I’m sick of it.”

“Sir, I don’t know how we can manage that,” Lee said.

Lee had been calm and confident under fire only two hours earlier. She had been the same, he remembered, during the first attack three weeks ago. It was odd seeing her hesitant and unsure of herself in a meeting. Maybe her brain needed a good shot of adrenaline to get going, or maybe she’d settle down once she got away from the crowd and back to a workstation.

“Genius, Ensign Lee. Give me an act of genius.

“Now here’s operations department’s number two job. Lieutenant Goldjune will take this one when he’s done with the software patch he’s working on, but you pass it on to him. We lost six ships today that the uBakai never touched with a fire lance missile. They made their jump drives cycle and it killed the ships and everyone in them. Nobody knows how they did it.

“Get with Task Force intel, pour over their data, our data, ship specs, whatever we have. How come those six ships blew up and the other eight jump-equipped ships in the task force didn’t? Start there. If we don’t figure out a way to keep our cruisers from blowing up, there’s going to be nobody left to hold the fort but us and two other destroyers. Anybody here think that sounds like a good plan?”

He looked around and got a lot of shaking heads and a smattering of no‘s.

“Okay.

“Lieutenant Hennessey, Chief Montoya, engineering’s only job is to get us operational, and as quickly as possible. Any off-watch personnel from any other department with usable skills, you take ’em. Lieutenant Goldjune’s finishing the software patch to bias the thrust nozzles, and I just told Admiral Kayumati we’d be ready to maneuver in three hours.”

“Three hours?” Hennessey repeated. “How long before Goldjune’s done with the software patch?”

“No idea, but it was advertised as ‘soon.’ Don’t look at me like that, Lieutenant. I’d give you an easy job if I had one, but there just aren’t any today.

“And Lieutenant Rice, our supply officer. The task force lost one transport and two fleet auxiliaries today, almost half our support vessels. That’s going to mean trouble supplying the troops on the ground. Find out how bad the situation is and what they may need. It’s not our job yet, but it might end up that way, so if it does, let’s get out ahead of it mentally.”

“I’m on it,” Moe answered.

Sam scanned the faces. The men and women in front of him didn’t look happy or cheerful, but they didn’t look in shock either. Their minds were engaged, every department had a job to do, and for now that was as good as he could manage.

“Questions?”

“Yes, sir, I got one,” Gordy Cunningham, the Bull Ops said. “What the hell collided with us during the battle? Was that Pensacola’s shuttle?”

“We took a hit from an uBakai fire lance missile, Chief,” Sam answered.

“You mean it ran right into us? I thought they just shot a laser.”

“That’s right, it shot a laser and the laser hit us.”

Cunningham shook his head. “No, a laser would’ve cut through, right? This felt like something big slammed right into us.”

Sam heard a mutter of agreement from the others, all except Chief Burns who looked at the others as if they were crazy. Joe Burns had been the chief of the weapons division before he moved up to Bull Tac, so he knew fire lance missiles and what they did. Didn’t everyone? No, apparently not.

“Okay. Um … you’re right about lasers cutting the target, but only if the laser is at lower power and has a long burn time, say a second or more. A fire lance, when its warhead blows, pumps its laser rods once, and then they’re vaporized by the detonation within a nanosecond or two. That’s one or two billionths of a second. So the actual pulse of the rod is less than that, but in that instant it delivers about a gigajoule of energy to the target. That’s the equivalent of, what, Chief Burns? Isn’t that about two hundred kilos of explosives?”

 

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 30

This book should be available now so this is the last snippet.

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 30

In the north, in the Kalte kingdoms, the gentry learned how to fight in small groups, and battles were usually hardly anything more than a bunch of small bands of men loyal to a certain leader coming together without a lot of coordination between them. It wasn’t a perfect system. They could make a savage attack, but they could also get distracted. Each band of warriors had its own separate goals which might or might not be the same as the others.

Wulf had learned how to fight a different way while taking back his own city of Raukenrose from invading Sandhaveners. It was the way his father and his right-hand man, Earl Keiler, had discovered worked best when they fought Vall l’Obac during the Little War. The great thing that the Mark of Shenandoah had going for it was that its troops were a mixture of humans, Tier, and other-folk. In the case of Jager’s company, they were a mixture of every warrior type from buffalo men with their war pikes to bear men with longbows. These were longbows that most human archers, no matter how muscled, couldn’t draw. And there were centaurs and quick human soldiers who were deadly at swordplay.

Jager was an instinctive tactician. He knew how to use them together. He’d proved that during the bloody Battle of Raukenrose Meadow.

Wulf had killed his first man in battle there. He had almost been gutted himself. Sometimes he saw the dying man’s surprised eyes in his dreams–always just the eyes–and woke up tense and shaking.

Wulf and Jager arranged their one hundred men not to win against the Romans, but to slow them down long enough for the villagers, the supply wagons, and, most of all, for Saeunn and Ravenelle, to get away.

Ravenelle carried the crown. She’d wrapped it in linen and put it carefully into one of the saddlebags of her horse.

Then the company would fall back and try to slip away itself. They hoped to sting the Romans badly enough to throw off pursuit. The Romans might then burn the town down in frustration. But the people would live and could rebuild.

Wulf didn’t like that the plan included retreat.

It helped that Rainer, who was always practical when it came to fighting, completely approved. “Every other way of doing this will get us all killed,” Rainer said. Wulf hadn’t had to say anything for Rainer to read his mood and his doubt.

“You’re not going to like this decision I’ve made,” Wulf said. He paused for a moment, took a breath, then blurted out, “I want you to go with the girls.”

Rainer shook his head strong enough to rattle his chainmail hood. “Blood and bones! Don’t ask me to do that. I want to fight Romans!”

“You know I’m asking you because you’re the best.”

Rainer didn’t bother denying it. “Curse it to cold hell,” he grumbled.

“Will you?”

“Yes, all right,” Rainer finally said. “Makes sense.”

The Imperials came.

The cavalry attacked first, trying to sweep into the town from the southeast. Scouts reported they were arriving from down a road that led to the central valley. Jager sent his best archers to meet them. The Romans on horses met a line of bear men longbows in the woods. They also encountered trees felled on the one-cart roadway to block their way. Two bear men with axes could take down a good-sized tree in moments.

When the cavalry showed up, the archers knew to aim for the horses and then fight the cavaliers on the ground. The horses were armored in front, but less so behind. So the archers let them pass by and then shot the horses in their sides.

There were over a hundred Roman cavalry troops versus twenty bear men, though. The Romans on horses had almost broken through.

It had taken killing ten horses and twenty or thirty Roman soldiers to stop the cavalry raid. Finally the cavalry rode away, bloody and full of arrows. A bear longbowman’s pull could penetrate an oak plank at twenty paces. Most of the dead and wounded Romans had gone down thinking to the last moment that they were safe behind their shields–only to get a rude and deadly surprise when an iron-tipped arrow burst through and sunk into an eye or throat.

But the eastern cavalry attack was just an opening stunt. The Romans marched in along the main road from the south to Tjark.

The real fight was about to begin.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Invasion

“Those blood-eaters have to come soon,” said Captain Jager. He stared down the road and waited for the approach of the Romans.

But it took a while for the blood-eaters to show up. Wulf could hear them long before he could see them. Their scale armor clanked. Their coronets, the battle horns used by the legions, blared. Then the eagle standard appeared down the road. The first one hundred square was marching toward them.

The Imperials carried a bronze eagle on a pole with the legion’s name and number. Wulf couldn’t make it out from this far away. When they grew closer though, he saw it was the IX Legion. A big one.

Which meant there could be up to five thousand soldiers descending upon them.

The town people were streaming out to the north as quickly as they could. Many of the human elderly and children rode on the backs of centaurs. Normally this was absolutely forbidden, but the centaurs made a sensible decision to let themselves be used as transport in this instance. So the Romans were descending on a mostly vacated town.

The Roman army at a quick march could soon overtake anyone on foot. And their cavalry could range far ahead and attack whoever they came across. They had to be held here if the town people were going to make an escape.

“Would you look at that!” Jaeger said. “See that flag hung from the crossbar on that pole, m’lord?” He climbed nimbly on to the back of one of his master sergeants who was a buffalo man. Jager pointed. “There, about two ranks back?”

“No. . . . Oh yes, I see it now,” Wulf replied. It was a blood-red streamer hanging from a short stick nailed to a poll held upright. The bottom of the banner had jagged edges cut into it. “It’s a flame gonfalon.”

“Does it mean what I think it means?” Jager asked.

Wulf continued to watch a bit longer, then his mouth felt dry and he swallowed. He looked at Jager. “It means ‘give no quarter,'” he said. “They plan to either kill us or make us slaves. No prisoners of war.”

“That makes things pretty clear,” Jager growled. He turned to face Ahorn, who was nearby. “Are they ready with the water ram?”

Ahorn nodded. “Yes, Captain.”

“All right, Lord Ahorn, bring on the flood,” Jager said. There was something wild and menacing in his catlike smile.

Ahorn saluted with a bump to his chest. He charged off, carrying Jager’s orders.

Wulf waited. The Roman boots pounded like distant thunder. The dust cloud they kicked up grew closer and closer.

In front of the dust cloud raised by the approaching Romans, water came pouring out. It poured from either side of the forest. Two big torrents of water. It covered the Montserrat Road. It ran in streams down the wagon tracks. It flowed from the road and filled the ditches and grassy shoulders lining the road.

It turned the ground to muck.

 

Princess Holy Aura – Chapter 08

Princess Holy Aura – Chapter 08

Chapter 8.

“You’re leaving?”

A sharp stab of guilt made Steve wince. “Yeah. I’m sorry, guys. I’ll really miss our games, getting together to hang out, all of that.”

Dex looked particularly shellshocked by the sudden announcement, which only made it worse. His parents aren’t bad, but they just aren’t on his wavelength, and I’m one of the few people that really gets along with him.

Anne, on the other hand, looked excited. “You’ve gotten another job?”

Have I ever. “Yeah, from a friend of mine from my Air Force days. He’s started his own company and he wanted someone willing to run his security.”

It really rubbed him raw to lie to his friends this way. But there was no reason to drag them into it; none of them were the right age, nor had any daughters or sisters the right age, to be the Apocalypse Maidens. So he and Silvertail had figured out this story as a decent cover. After all, it only has to last a year at most . . . and after that, either I’ll be dead, or things will go back to the way they were, but start getting better. Who knows; maybe this story will turn out to be the truth afterward!

“How much is he paying you?” asked Eli, the ever-cynical.

“A lot more than I’ve made anywhere else. I guess he’s got a bunch of investors, and he’s paying for the fact he trusts me as much as anything.”

Chad grinned ruefully. “Well, I’m happy for you, Steve — I’m sure we all are — but damn I’ll really miss not knowing what happens in the end of the campaign!”

“Who knows; maybe I’ll be able to come back and run it once in a while, once things get settled down out there. Maybe a few games a year?”

“That would be awesome,” Mike said. “But, hey, you do what you have to. Working at Barron’s Bagels, that really wasn’t much of a career, right?”

Ain’t that the truth. Except I never really had the drive to go elsewhere. I . . . always felt I was waiting for something.

Now I wonder if I really was.

The others filtered out of the apartment. Dex, as usual, hung back. “So . . . you’re really leaving soon?”

“Moving out tomorrow, actually,” he answered, and saw his friend’s expression drop even more.

“Um . . . you need help?”

“No,” he said. Don’t think I could stand to keep lying the whole time. “I’ve got everything pretty much set; not taking the bed, I’ve packed up most of the other stuff.”

“Yeah, I should’ve noticed. Thought things looked more empty. But you didn’t pack — ”

“I’ll finish that tonight,” he said, following the high schooler’s gaze to the wall of weapons. “Won’t take all that long. Thought the room would really have felt bare without it and the posters.”

Dex’s expression was so forlorn that it hurt to look at him. I used to be like that. What would I have felt like if old Lee had left on me when I was that age?

Steve stepped forward, opened the case and pulled out a futuristic handgun. “Here, Dex; you take it.”

Dex’s eyes widened. “The blaster from Lucky Starr? No, Steve, I can’t! That’s an original. The most valuable thing you — ”

“What makes it valuable is people who want to own it. I know that’s been the one thing in my collection you’ve wanted, and . . . well, I want you to take care of it for me. If I come back, you can give it back to me. Because you’re more valuable than any old model.”

Dex suddenly threw his arms around Steve, a startling display of emotion from the usually controlled, unconsciously sarcastic boy. “I’ll take care of it,” he said, then let go as suddenly as he’d started the hug. Dex’s eyes were wet. “Steve . . . look, I’m glad for you. I really am. I hated seeing you living like this, day-to-day worries. I couldn’t do anything about it, but I hated it. If you’re going somewhere where you can live better, I’m happy. Really.” He scrubbed at his eyes furiously, wiping away the tears.

“Dex . . .” For an instant he really wanted to tell Dex the truth. Almost did. But Steve had no intention of putting a friend that good in danger. “Thanks.”

“Welcome,” the boy said, voice a little thick. He took the blaster model, looked at it reverently, then tucked it carefully into his backpack. “Well . . . email me, anyway, please?”

Steve grinned. “You bet.”

The smile faded as he heard the footsteps diminish away and the lower door shut. “Dammit.”

“I know, Stephen,” Silvertail said. “There are few mundane tasks more difficult than saying goodbyes to friends.”

“Especially when I’m lying to them.”

“We did — ”

“Yeah, yeah, we agreed, you’re right.” Steve looked out the dark window, made out the slender figure walking away; he saw Dexter turn, look back; his shoulders sagged, then he turned away, shrugged, and walked out of sight. “Still felt like I was a total dick, though.”

“Perhaps. Anyone might. But if I understand correctly, the item you just gave Dex in the name of your friendship was worth enough that you could have paid a year’s rent with it.”

“More than that. Even given that I’d never actually get what it’s worth. Yeah, it was, but if I ever sold it, I’d never get one again. A friend of mine gave it to me years ago; I guess it’s just right that I give it to one of mine.”

“Odd that a boy so young seems your closest friend.”

“Closest one here, maybe; almost all of my old buddies are scattered around the country, a couple of them are dead. Why Dex? Because he’s so damned smart he sometimes seems older. And sometimes I guess he just appealed to my older brother side. Dunno, we just always seemed to mesh well, especially for gaming.

“Anyway, we are set for the real move, right?”

“Everything has been arranged. You did very well in your trips to the library and various government agencies. I was able to understand all of the various requirements to make us ‘real people’ in the eyes of the law.”

“You really got us into the system? For real?”

“I did.” The white rat produced — from the same nowhere that it hid the golden crown in whenever there were visitors — a large manila envelope, which almost tipped the creature over. “Mphhh . . . Take a look.”

Stephen carefully opened the envelope. There were two slightly smaller envelopes inside. One was labeled “Holly Owen,” the other “Trayne Owen.”

“Holly Owen. Holly Owen? Seriously, Silvertail? You couldn’t think of a better alias for Holy Aura than that?”

He swore there was a smug smile on the rat’s face. “It fits with your world’s memes, and if I cannot have some amusement in this job, what in the world is the point?”

“Great. I join the ranks of second-rank heroes and villains everywhere.” Still, he had to admit it was a perfectly reasonable name, and would be pretty easy to remember. Opening the envelope, he found a social security card — of the right design — a birth certificate showing Holly had been born in Los Angeles (conveniently all the way on the other side of the country), medical records showing all her immunizations were up to date, educational records showing she had done well in school up through junior high, and more. “Holy . . . I know you said you could do this, but seeing it is something else. Even a valid passport?”

“While unlikely, it is possible we may have to travel some considerable distance, so having a passport seemed prudent.”

Mr. Trayne Owen’s envelope was fatter because it contained records of his work career and showed that Mr. Owen was a well-paid independent consultant for multiple high-profile technology firms. “This will explain both the fact that I have considerable wealth, and that I do not have to go to an office regularly,” Silvertail said. “It will be important for me to be available for you in our search for the other Maidens, and to advise you in the event of new conflicts.”

“I see you’ve got a driver’s license. Can you actually drive?”

Another ridiculously smug look. “Indeed I can, Stephen.”

“How the hell did you manage that?”

“I have observed drivers at length, and learned all of the requirements. The arcana of proper clutch use and shifting might remain beyond me, but I will be using an automatic.”

“Just watching does not teach you how to drive, Silvertail.”

“When you augment it with magic so that the reflexes and motions are transferred to yourself with repetition, along with perceptual reaction . . . yes, it does.”

“Well . . . damn. That’s sort of cheating.”

“It is cheating in that sense, yes. And we may be doing a lot more ‘cheating’ in addition to my inventing us identities that are no more real than a mirage.”

“I guess. Okay, you do need to be able to drive around here, so that’s good.”

He began packing the remaining weapons into a box. It only took a couple of hours to finish packing all the other stuff he wanted to take. “I’m ready.”

“Make sure, Stephen. Once you’ve left, we will not return.”

“I’m sure. Not like I had all that much stuff to bring with me.”

He looked once more around the little apartment, looking forlorn and dingy now that it was emptied, posters removed, weapons gone, just some battered furniture and appliances. Still . . . it had been home for years. “Goodbye,” he said.

Carrying the last box, he walked down the stairs; the door swung shut behind him.

 

Chain of Command – Snippet 30

Chain of Command – Snippet 30

Chapter Fifteen

24 December 2133 (four hours later) (third day in K’tok orbit)

Sixth Principle of Naval Leadership: Insure the task is understood, supervised, and accomplished.

“Hand me that pinhole nitrogen blower, would you, Chief?” Sam said.

Chief Pete Montoya’s beefy hand holding the nitrogen blower appeared below the fabricator’s support frame. Sparks from a flux welder cascaded behind him and Sam heard the babble of shouted orders and clanging of heavy equipment maneuvered into place on the forward engineering maintenance deck. Sam took the blower and started to clean the injection nozzles on the fabricator’s “underside,” which is to say the side secured to the bulkhead which would have been “down” had there been gravity. The first high-pressure squirt pushed him away from the nozzles, first against the deck and then bouncing back against the frame.

“Damnit!”

Montoya’s face appeared. “You okay, sir?”

Sam laughed. “Yeah, I’m fine, Chief. Last time I did this was in one gee, that’s all.”

He braced himself, one foot against the deck, one on a support arm, and went back to work.

“Try it now.” Sam heard the fabricator, centimeters from his face, hum with power, followed by Montoya’s bark of satisfaction.

“That’s got it, sir! Green lights on the board.”

Sam pushed himself out from under the fabricator and turned to the machinist mate standing by.

“DeWilde, isn’t it?” Sam asked. “I’m sure you guys follow all the preventive maintenance schedules, but the bottom injectors on these large-cap DP fabricators are always getting clogged up, especially if you get an in-job stoppage. If you trip a breaker or something, you get blow-back in those bottom nozzles. So after you correct the main problem, always take a look underneath for trouble.

“Okay, sir,” DeWild answered, looking surprised.

“Thought you were a Tac officer, sir,” Pete Montoya said, the same questioning look on his face. “You do a hitch as a snipe?”

“Nope. Back in The World I used to install and maintain these pigs,” Sam said, gesturing to the large fabricator. “So tell your boss, Lieutenant Hennessey, she’s got her number three fabricator turning out high-temp pipe again. I need that dorsal radiator back on line by 2400 hours.”

The fusion reactor generated enormous energy–over two gigawatts at full power–but also enormous waste heat. Some of that was released with the thruster’s reaction mass, some was converted to electricity by the Seebeck generator, but the excess waste heat was bled off by the boat’s four large radiators, extending radially from the stern of the boat. Each radiator not in service cut the maximum safe power output of their reactor by a quarter.

“Aye, aye, sir. And thanks for the help.” Montoya gave him a crooked grin as he took the nitrogen blower.

The tone for his embedded commlink sounded and he saw the tag for the duty commtech. He dismissed Montoya with a wave.

“Captain here.”

Chief Gambara, sir. I’ve got a request from the flagship for a holocon with you.

“How soon, Chief?”

Right now, sir. I think it’s the chief of staff.

“Okay, I’ve got my helmet. I’ll plug in and take it down here.”

Sam lifted his helmet and felt a surge of apprehension. This was where he got chewed out for ignoring Captain Kleindienst’s direct order to cease fire during the battle, and maybe for his refusal to take Barger on board during the battle, and who knew what else? But the apprehension faded immediately, replaced by irritation at being pulled away from repairing his boat, and impatience to get back to it. He clicked the helmet in place and activated the holocon link.

Instead of Marietta Kliendienst, he faced Admiral Kayumati himself, and his irritation vanished. The admiral looked more haggard than when he’d given his long rambling speech two days ago. He looked older. Had it really been just two days?

“Bitka, you disobeyed a direct order,” the admiral’s holo-image said.

“Yes, sir, I did.” Sam let out a short huff of breath and shrugged. “Truth is, Admiral, I imagine I’d do it again. I’ll turn over Puebla to Lieutenant Commander Barger as soon as he docks. Am I under arrest?”

For a moment the admiral looked even more tired. “No, you’re not under arrest. We don’t usually throw captains in the brig for disobeying orders when it turns out they were right. Sometimes we do, but not usually. Besides, Lem Barger didn’t make it. He got it from an uBakai fire lance when his shuttle maneuvered between the missiles and Pensacola. Not sure whose idea it was, but I’m putting both him and the shuttle pilot in for Navy Crosses. Posthumously. Lots of posthumous medals today.

“Where are you? Looks like engineering. How badly did you get hit?”

“We were lucky, sir. Glancing hit, probably because we were realigning the boat for our shot. We have seven crew injured but none seriously. The hit took out about two hundred tons worth of hydrogen honeycomb tankage, but the internal bulkheads held and we didn’t get any O2 contamination. Our dorsal radiator’s almost a total loss, so our fusion power plant’s capped at about seventy percent if we need to go hot. But we’re fabricating high-temperature composite-alloy pipe to replace it and we should be back up to about ninety per cent by tomorrow. We lost another point defense laser, some sensor redundancy, and the boat’s axis is slightly bent.”

“Bent?” Kayumati said. “Can you maneuver with your drives out of alignment?”

“Not at the moment, sir, but we can magnetically bias the thrust angle a little and that’s all we’ll need. My Ops Boss is working on a software fix. We’re going to need some serious orbital spacedock time when we get home, but we’ve got atmosphere, power, and weapons, and we’ll be able to maneuver as soon as we get that software patch in place. Maybe three hours on that.”

Larry Goldjune had been surprisingly pliant and cooperative when Sam gave him the task of getting the drives realigned. Perhaps the pounding the uBakai had delivered to the task force had sobered him, or frightened him, or made him less anxious to take command responsibility for what was shaping up as a disaster.

As Sam spoke he saw the ghostly shadows of officers and crew moving behind Admiral Kayumati, a constant clutter of movement. One officer briefly came into sharper focus to hand Kayumati a data pad. The admiral nodded and handed it back, then looked at Sam again.

“Three hours is better than I expected. How many missiles you get off?”

“Nine, sir,” Sam answered. “Six over the north horizon of K’tok, the others south as they were departing. After that we didn’t have an intercept solution any more. They were just moving too fast.”

“Any hits?” the admiral asked.

Sam’s mind returned to the final frantic minutes of the engagement, when all their missiles were away and the bridge crew waited for some indication of success–Filipenko hugging herself, arms crossing, as if keep herself from flying apart with nervous energy, Ron Ramirez’s face tear-stained although he seemed unaware of it, Elise Delacroix calling off range to target in her nasal Quebecois accent.

“Their point defense took out at least half our missiles,” he told the admiral, “and once the rest started detonating we couldn’t see much past the plasma cloud, so I can’t be sure, but …I don’t think so. No sign of heat spikes from any of the bandits, no visible debris.”

Admiral Kayumati nodded. “Good honest answer, son. No, I don’t think you touched them–same as the other destroyers. The cruisers got a hit or two, and we took out at least one enemy ship. I say at least one because we blew it into so many pieces we couldn’t tell if all that junk was parts from one ship or two. But I think something’s seriously wrong with those fancy new Block Four missiles you destroyer folks are carrying. You may as well have been shooting blanks.”

Sam tasted something bad in his mouth, felt different feelings tugging at him. At least it wasn’t just our shooting that was bad. It wasn’t something we’d screwed up. But the price for that absolution had been universal failure, and a problem that might be much harder to solve. He’d far rather have had two or three more dead uBakai warships, and let someone else get the credit.

“How bad were the casualties on the cruisers, sir? Some of the crew … they have friends over there, former shipmates.”

Kayumati looked at him for a moment, eyes empty. “We’re still searching, but as near as we can tell casualties on the three cruisers, the two fleet auxiliaries, and the one transport which were lost were one hundred percent.  We lost two destroyers as well, but we got an emergency signal from survivors in Vicksburg and we have a shuttle on the way to check Shiloh for survivors.”

“One hundred per cent? But …how is that possible? Somebody usually survives, in an airtight compartment or in escape capsules …don’t they?”

The admiral looked away for a moment and then back. Just moving his head looked as if it took most of his remaining energy.

“From a fire lance hit, yes. But they used some sort of electronic warfare on us, a version we’ve never encountered before, never even dreamed of. Atwater-Jones is still going over the signal intercept data. We’ll put together a briefing as soon as she and her staff figure out more pieces of the puzzle, but the bottom line is this: somehow they caused six of our ships to engage their interstellar jump drives. The electronic jump signature is clear as a bell, but mostly they didn’t go anywhere.” He paused and sighed, then shook his head.

“This deep in a gravity well, the jump impulse was what the engineering people call ‘non-coherent’. Pieces of the ship and crew–very small pieces–jumped, but apparently only a few millimeters, and caused a whole bunch of annihilation events. Not much left but wreckage and …well, human remains. I don’t know how they did it, but somehow the leatherheads can turn our own star drives into weapons against us.”

For a moment Sam’s mind was occupied trying to stave off the imagined picture of Captain Aretha Chelanga and others on the bridge of Bully with pieces of them missing. No, he realized, they would mostly have exploded. He pushed the vision out of his mind, made himself think about the problem at hand.

“But weren’t the jump drives powered down, sir?”

“Yup. Didn’t matter. Like I said, we can’t figure out how it’s even possible to do what they did, and until we do, we don’t know how to protect our remaining ships from it.”

A shiver of fear made Sam lift his shoulders, and then he realized something important, something that affected him and the Puebla directly.

“Admiral, then that means–”

“That’s right, Bitka,” the admiral said, cutting him off. “The only combatant vessels we have that we can count on to stand up against this weapon are ones without jump drives, which means your destroyers–and for the moment we only have three left in K’tok orbit. And there’s something wrong with your blasted missiles. I hope we can figure that out and fix it quick.” He shook his head again, looking down, but then looked up at Sam and straightened.

“Captain Bitka, you are chopped to DesDiv Four effective immediately. I just field bumped Juanita Rivera on Champion Hill up to O-5 to take over what’s left of the division. She’s your new boss and she’ll brief you–as soon as we figure out what the heck our next move is and tell her. You got any questions, son?”

“Just one, sir. Any idea when you’ll have another replacement captain to us?”

Kayumati squinted at him, a flicker of irritation flashing across his face.

“I’m a little short of officers myself at the moment, Bitka. You didn’t completely foul things up this morning so you’re going to have to run Puebla until we get some reinforcements or …well, something turns up. I’ll see about taking Commander Huhn off your hands, but no promises. For the next thirty or so hours all our orbital transfer assets are going to be busier than a long-tailed cat at a rocking chair convention.”

 

The Spark – Snippet 17

The Spark – Snippet 17

CHAPTER 7: Home, Sweet Home

I was deep into the artifact I’d decided to fix. I’d added in silica to extend the existing structure; now I was trying to form the other bits.

I was assuming that the portion beyond the break was identical to the piece that I had. There wasn’t any evidence supporting that; but if it wasn’t, I had nothing at all to go on.

I’d been working on the piece all morning, coming out of my trance only to change to a different selection of raw materials and to take a swig of water from the bucket by the door. When mom was alive she’d have had a piece of bread and some fruit set out beside me, whatever was in season. I could have done that for myself, but I never seemed to get around to it.

Buck was mostly curled up in the sunshine of the barn’s open doorway, but occasionally he’d wander over and take a look at what I was doing. He didn’t exactly get in my way inside the work piece, but it always confused him and that was likely to put me off my stride.

I hadn’t gotten my stride yet on this and I wasn’t sure I was going to, so his nosing me mattered even less than usual. Still, when Buck began to tug my trousers with his teeth, I decided I’d been come out.

I came back into the present, lying on the floor of the barn with a straw-filled bolster under my head and the pewter tray holding the workpiece and my raw materials beside me. I said, “What’s the matter, boy? Hungry?”

From the short shadow outside the door it was just past noon. Buck shouldn’t need to be fed….

Somebody–my eyes focused: Guntram–sat on the upturned wheelbarrow just outside the door. He nodded and said, “Good morning, Pal. I wasn’t going to disturb you, but I’m afraid I disturbed your dog.”

“I’m glad he woke me up, sir,” I said. I wasn’t completely back in the present yet; I’d been real deep in a structure I didn’t even half understand. “And I’m very glad to see you. Will you stay with me? It’s not fancy, but you’ll have a bed and food.”

There wasn’t any place on Beune that was fancy, which I guess Guntram knew already. From the night I’d spent with him, he wasn’t a man who cared any more about fine fabrics and rich food than I did–or a shepherd.

“If it wouldn’t put you out,” Guntram said, rising when I did. “Your neighbors found me a basket for my hedgehog, and the little boy and girl brought him a handful of worms for him. Also some bread and ale for me, though I didn’t really need it.”

“Gervaise has been a good friend,” I said. “He’s my landlord, I suppose, though it isn’t anything so formal. He’s letting me use the buildings that used to by my mom’s, and he gives me food for helping around the farm. We’ll have to figure out something more formal soon, I guess, but I’m still finding my feet since I came back.”

I felt my mouth twist when I said that. Me using the house and barn was nothing to Gervaise, but I really hadn’t done enough to justify my keep. Food wasn’t short this year, and I’d make up for it when it was time to bring the crops in.

I cocked my head. “Your hedgehog, you said, sir?” I said.

“I use a hedgehog to guide me along the Road,” Guntram said, smiling. “They’re not fast, but neither am I. Nor do I intend to fight.”

I walked out into the sunlight. “Ah, sir?” I said. “Did you have guards, then? Because there can be trouble on the Road out here.”

If Guntram had come with an escort, I was going to have to make some arrangements. There aren’t any inns on Beune. I suppose a squad of troops could sleep in my barn, but feeding them was going to be a problem; we’re not set up for that on Beune, either.

“There’s just me,” said Guntram. “I don’t care for company at most times. And I seem to make other people nervous.”

He nodded to the house across the barnyard and said, “Do you have a table inside, Pal? I can show you things more easily on a table.”

“Sure,” I said and led him in. Buck came with us for curiosity, but he padded back onto the stoop when he saw we were just standing by the table.

That was a makeshift I’d knocked together by fitting stake legs onto a length of pine log I’d adzed flat. It was narrow but there was only one of me. Though I hadn’t bothered planing or sanding the surface, I’d done a pretty good job with the adze.

Mom’s table was a wonder that could pull out to take eight people along the sides. It had come from her family and it was way too big for our house–she never stretched it out. I think she’d have sold her right leg before she did that table.

Gervaise bought the table along with the rest of what I had, and he’d rightly taken it to his own big house. His wife Phoebe was as proud of it as mom had been. I didn’t think of asking for it back, and Gervaise would’ve turned me down if I had. At least he’d have turned me down if he had good sense.

Guntram set down his leather scrip and opened it. The first thing I noticed is that it was full. It wasn’t huge, but even with its broad strap it would’ve been a good load for an old man to haul all the way from Dun Add.

There wasn’t room for food, either. Guntram had money or I suppose he did, but having a full purse wasn’t safe for an old man at most inns or on the Road generally.

“This,” said Guntram, touching a silvery half-dome with a strap attached, “is why I didn’t need guards. On the Road, I can’t be seen while I wear it on my head. It doesn’t work Here, and it doesn’t work in the Waste–but it doesn’t have to because I didn’t go into the Waste.”

“I wonder if it would work in Not-Here?” I said, just because I was curious. There’d be no way any human could test that, but if Guntram understood the mechanism he might know the answer.

“The device came to me almost complete,” said Guntram. “Which is good, because I don’t think I could have repaired any major damage.”

He shook his head, smiling ruefully. “As it was,” he said, “I was lucky that there was cadmium in the sample of zinc that I added as my last try, and the cadmium atoms filled the gap where lead had not. I wasn’t deep enough into the piece to get any idea of the mechanism, but it seems to interact with the structure of the Road itself.”

I felt my lips purse. “I’ve never been able to find a structure in the Road,” I said.

“Nor have I,” said Guntram. He smiled wider and handed the cap to me. I probed it lightly, marveling at the delicacy of its structure, but I didn’t spend any real time in it.

Even a peek showed me that Guntram had downplayed his accomplishment by a lot. His repairs were lacework, almost indistinguishable from the original, and I was pretty sure he’d suspected that cadmium or another of the traces in powdered galena might be the needed extra in a chain of lead with occasional zinc crystals.

“Sir,” I said. I set the cap on the table. There was nothing I could say to do justice to the work. “It’s an honor to know you.”

“I’ve had a long time to practice,” Guntram said. His smile was slight, but I’m pretty sure he understood the praise and liked it. “I wonder, Pal…? Would you take me to some of the places you find objects? I’m particularly interested in pieces from Not-Here, a whim–but I understand completely if you want to keep your sites private.”

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t understand hiding them from you, sir,” I said. “I think giving a Maker like you all the help I can is the best thing I can do for Mankind.”

It still hurt, what’d happened to me in Dun Add, but I don’t argue with the way things are. I said, “About all I can do for Mankind, I guess, but I’ll sure do it. You want to go out right now?”

“Not right at the moment,” Guntram said. “I’d sooner not walk anywhere for a while. I wonder–in Dun Add you said you had a variety of pieces that you hadn’t been able figure out the use of. Could I see some of them? A fresh pair of eyes, you know. And in the morning, we can go prospecting.”

 

Iron Angels – Snippet 38

The book should be out now so this is the last snippet.

Iron Angels – Snippet 38

Chapter 21

“Where have you been?” Rao flipped up his sleeve and twisted his wrist over, examining a gleaming band. He was one of those people who wore the face of his watch on the underside of his wrist.

Lali’s fascination with the man had begun a few months ago, but everything happened so quickly afterward. An odd man had sought her out at the diner. He lacked distinguishing features, but the man’s oddness remained with her — shaved head, bleached eyebrows, and face dull and smooth. At first, she’d thought the man plastered his face with an off-white powder.

The mushy-faced man was curious over her relationship with the young Hispanic man, Carlos.

She’d dated Carlos, but they’d broken up after he decided he wanted to work things out with his wife. He still insisted on coming around the diner afterward, and to what end? Taunting her? Tormenting her? Carlos was lucky she’d never dumped hot coffee in his lap. But the bastard only ordered water, and began meeting cops at the diner.

“I summoned you well over an hour ago,” said Rao harshly. “If this is how you respond to Rao’s commands, perhaps you need another lesson.”

Lali’s hand twitched, but she resisted the urge to touch her cheek where he’d slapped her earlier. He’d roughed her up a bit, but she didn’t hate it when Rao did so — she was biding her time.

“Are you listening to me?” Rao stood a few inches from her, invading her personal space, which he’d taken from her over and over the past few weeks and in so many ways. The man had an insatiable appetite.

“I am listening, Rao.”

He raised an open hand, but she grabbed his wrist. “Wait, please. I have information.”

His hand remained open and raised, but she squeezed harder. What would he do with this defiant display?

“You know the consequences of such insolence.” He ripped his arm from her grip. “Rao does not tolerate such.”

The odd man who found her at the diner had then invited her to a party, telling her the experience would be unlike anything she ever witnessed. She agreed and he picked her up at the diner after her shift ended. He drove what she called a child molester van — the cargo type with no windows down the sides. She went along willingly with the strange man, not thinking much about the van. She never turned down a good party, and she could take care of herself if push came to shove. Even now, she carried with her a small pistol, secreted strategically.

An abandoned hotel, the Euclid Hotel — and like the van, she didn’t give it much thought, not until she figured out the fate they’d planned for her: sacrifice. Rao spied her from an area beyond the basement — behind not a wall, but a divider of sorts. Rao stepped through, draped in white robes with crimson gashes running diagonally across the chest. He mesmerized her when he approached; his supplicants melting away into the shadows.

“What is this news of yours?” Rao’s harsh tone snapped her from the reverie and back into the present.

“I may have located something of interest. A company named Wayland Precision.”

“And?” Rao stepped back. “Why does Wayland Precision matter?”

She suppressed a laugh — the mighty Rao, obtuse? And people always misjudged her based on her piercings and tattoo adorned body, not to mention the way she wore her makeup and hair. For a Latina woman raised by good God-fearing Catholics, she was as far out there as Pluto to most people who crossed paths with her.

“Carlos visited Wayland after he met with the police.” She put a hand on her hip. “Met with the FBI, to be exact — they didn’t try too hard to conceal their conversation, either.”

“Now, this is fascinating, but how do you know they were at Wayland Precision. Did they mention it during the conversation?” Rao folded his arms and stepped back a little.

“No, I followed them.”

“What? You what?” His voice cracked as the pitch and volume increased. “You followed FBI Agents to what may be the hiding place of Völundr’s Hammer?”

Lali stepped back. Her heel caught something, sending her tumbling backward, and sprawling on the metal flooring.

Rao stood over her, hands balled into fists. “You remained hidden, right? Assure me both the FBI and the guild remain ignorant of where your allegiances lie and your role in Câ Tsang.”

She swallowed, and for the first time since she’d met Rao, no, the second time, she feared for her life — the first being the night of her sacrifice. But the sacrifice never happened. Rao took Lali as his own, saving her life and indebted her. But had Rao really saved her life? He’d been the one who ordered the kidnapping and sacrifice in the first place.

“The FBI Agents were too busy following Carlos. So it was a simple matter, remaining hidden.”

“You are overly confident,” Rao said. “You’d better pray they were unaware of their surroundings. We need another successful sacrifice before we can stop caring if anyone finds us. Finds me.”

His fists unclenched and his breathing slowed.

“I’m not going to punish you, at least not in a way anyone will see.” He bent over and yanked her to her feet. The sudden show of force exhilarated her — a taste of the power from beyond? The nâga and what their world had to offer those of the Câ Tsang? “We’ll discuss the next course of action once you’re fully one with Rao, the Tip of the Horn, leader of the Iron Thorn.”

Rao popped the buttons of her blouse as well as the button on her jeans. He tore the clothes from her and stepped out of his robe. He wore a chain with either a horn or thorn dangling from the links. Rings adorned every finger, including thumbs. He discarded the watch, also.

He scooped her into his arms, carried her up another flight of stairs, his bare feet thudding the metal. Upon their entry to his sleeping platform in the abandoned plant, a red light flicked on, casting an eerie glow upon everything.

She’d been up here many times in the past few weeks, but he’d never been this angry with her.

Rao tossed her on his bed as if she were nothing, like a backpack or something. He was very strong, much stronger than you’d expect of a man whose size was no larger than that of an average male.

He stood over her once again, and pointed toward a carved headboard, the images nearly impossible to make out other than they represented some kind of orgy taking place in a hellish nightmare. She pushed herself upright and scurried for the headboard. Rao approached and tied her wrists to thick wooden rings protruding from the orgiastic scene.

Given her Catholic upbringing and repeated viewings of the Exorcist while growing up, she wouldn’t have been surprised if Rao sported hooves or spewed pea soup. He exhilarated her, as the Exorcist movie had back in the day.

****

Rao took her with force and rougher than was his usual way. The bastard never protected himself during sex, and he forbade her to use birth control, but Lali always protected herself without him knowing.

Once he’d finished, he paced the room, his naked body glistening against the red light, lending the entire scene a sordid, no — debauched — appearance. He kept her tied up as he paced, and beneath her, a wet spot like one of the Great Lakes welled. What if everything about Rao was now affected by the other world, that of the nâga? Would she contract some sort of disease or give birth to some demon baby? No. She used birth control, the pill, and if worse came to worse, she’d toss herself down some stairs. She’d never give birth to this man’s child, and certainly no half-nâga hybrid…

“We’ll find out more about this Wayland Precision, Völundr’s Hammer, whatever they name themselves. If they are truly the guild and are indeed lurking here, they must be dismantled.”

She remained silent — interrupting him while her arms and legs were bound was foolish.

“We need to sacrifice the leader of Völundr’s Hammer. Yes. You will lead this for me. But first, we need to deal with the FBI Agents. Now tell me, who are these people?”

Lali related all she knew of them from what she’d overheard at the diner — which had been fairly substantial.

“Rao is pleased. Very pleased.” He paced, his bare feet padding against the metal platform.

At least the bed was comfortable, though her arms were falling asleep now and her wrists ached, not to mention her insides.

“Will you accept the following plan,” Rao paused, “no matter what it entails?”

She nodded.

“No matter what you’ll have to do or sacrifice?”

She nodded.

“I need your oath.” He leapt on the bed and straddled her naked body. “Speak.”

“Yes, I swear to you, Rao, and pledge loyalty and devotion to the Câ Tsang.” She desired power, and a glimpse of the fantastic, a taste of the fantastic.

“Manage to do what I set forth and you’ll be promoted to the rank of an adept — a khäp.” Rao beamed. “You begin tonight.”

Rao took her again. Her eyelids drooped and she nodded off.

 

Chain of Command – Snippet 29

Chain of Command – Snippet 29

Chapter Fourteen

24 December 2133 (two day later) (third day in K’tok orbit)

Seventh Principle of Naval Leadership: Train your crew as a team.

“Missile away,” Filipenko said from the Tac One seat beside him.

“Time?” Sam asked.

“Three minutes, forty-two seconds.”

The spinal mount electromagnetic coil gun, which launched their missiles, ran over two thirds of the length of the Puebla’s hull, through the center of it, and could only be aimed by physically turning the boat itself.  It took that much barrel length, and almost three gigajoules of stored energy from the power ring, to accelerate a missile to a velocity where it could get close to an enemy ship within a few hours, or maybe less. It came out the pipe at about six kilometers per second, which sounded fast until you realized that meant it would still take half an hour to cover ten thousand kilometers.

Other than physically realigning the boat, the main delay in firing was going through the simulated identification-friend-or-foe–or IFF–procedures.

“That’s pretty good time,” Sam said. “Chief Menzies has your missile rooms ready to wreck ships and kill people. Our only delay is identifying the target and getting the boat aligned.”

“Yes, sir,” Filipenko said with a grateful smile. “I don’t know what we can do to shave target identification any closer, given the IFF protocols.”

“Neither do I.  Okay, give me the all-boat channel.”

“You’re live, sir,” Signaler First Kramer answered from the Comm One seat.

“All hands, this is the captain.  Okay, three minutes and forty-two seconds. Well done, people, especially weapons division. Exercise is terminated. Secure from general quarters. Readiness Condition Three. White Watch, you’re up. First beer’s on my tab tonight, and nobody gets a second one. We’re sharp; let’s stay that way. Carry On.”

Sam turned back to Filipenko. “You’re on duty in a couple hours. Ensign Lee’s Officer of the Deck and I’ll hold down the bridge until she comes forward. Go ahead and get something to eat or grab some sack time.”

“Thanks,” she said, but she hesitated.  As most of the rest of the bridge crew unbuckled and made way for their reliefs, and the bridge filled with a low babble of conversation, Filipenko leaned over toward him and spoke softly.

“Captain, why are we doing all these drills? Just to keep the crew busy? I mean, the troops landed successfully, the cruisers pounded the only mobile troops the uBakai had near the down station, and their fleet has run away. Besides, even if they’re out in the asteroids, we’ll see them coming with days to get ready, or at least hours. Counting seconds …well, seconds don’t matter, do they? Isn’t it really about thinking it through and making the right call?”

Sam linked both hands behind his head and stretched his back, looking at the long-range sensor display on his workstation. Everything Filipenko said made sense, was all correct doctrine, but something nagged at him, something he couldn’t put his finger on.

“That’s standard operating procedure, and you’re probably right. The thing is, I keep coming back to ‘Why?’ Why would they start a war and then run away? It doesn’t make any sense, unless they know something we don’t. And remember what the Red Duchess said? ‘These uBakai are clever boots.’ I’ve got this feeling they’re going to hit us some way we’re not figuring on.”

“What way?”

Sam laughed. “Hell, if I could figure that out they’d make me the next chief of naval operations, which would piss off Lieutenant Goljune’s uncle, right? Isn’t he in line for the job?”

“Sir, I’ve got an incoming hail from Pensacola, for the duty officer,” Kramer said.

“Right, I’ll take it,” Sam said and waved Filipenko toward the bridge hatch. “Captain Bitka here,” he said on the tight beam channel. Sam suspected he knew what this comm was about and he said ‘Captain Bitka,’ perhaps for the last time, and with some regret, which surprised him. He hadn’t enjoyed anything about the last five days–frustration was closer. But he’d felt a little satisfaction now and then. He had the feeling he’d been doing something important, and actually doing it passably well under the circumstances. Maybe Navarro didn’t agree, maybe half his officers didn’t agree, but he thought he’d done okay. This was probably his scheduled relief, and he should welcome it. After all, it came before he’d encountered a situation he couldn’t deal with and had a chance to screw everything up. He’d be leaving the boat is as good a shape for Barger as he knew how.

Bitka, this is Lieutenant Commander Barger. I’m on board shuttle Papa Echo One Seven and we are approaching your orbit track from planet-side. The pilot estimates docking in twelve minutes. Be prepared to execute the change of command as soon as I arrive aboard.

“Understood, sir.”

Sam looked around the bridge, possibly for the last time from the command chair. The bridge hatch opened and Ensign Lee pulled herself through. He nodded to her and unhooked his tether as she pushed off to drift to the command station.

“Ensign Lee, the boat is at Readiness Condition Three, Material Condition Bravo, in low planetary orbit above K’tok, in formation with Task Group 1.3. Shuttle Papa Echo One Seven, carrying my relief, is approaching from retrograde and planet-side to dock in approximately ten minutes. The power ring is fully charged, reactor on standby, shroud secured, sensors active. The boat is–”

“High Energy Discharge!” Ron Ramirez called out from the Tac Three seat. “Multiple unidentified contacts!”

Sam turned and saw his workstation display light up with several flashing yellow contact markers. He punched the General Quarters alarm on the command console and immediately heard the gong of the alarm fill the bridge, knew it spread through the boat as well.

“Lee, take Maneuvering One,” he ordered, but she was already strapping in when he glanced up.

“Mean bearing two four seven degrees relative, angle on the bow one two zero, range …” Ramirez said, his voice rising, “six thousand kilometers? That can’t be right! They’re right on top of us. And they’re closing at twenty-one kilometers per second!”

Sam tried to see the situation in his mind but the numbers made no sense. He enabled the holo-display on his workstation and he pulled it into larger scale with his hands: K’tok at the center, the string of cruisers and other vessels, including Puebla, strung out in orbit around its equator, most of them about seven thousand kilometers out. But the tight cluster of contacts glowed about six thousand kilometers above them and the planet, visibly advancing down toward K’tok’s north pole at a sharp angle. It was hard to make out the number of ships in the enemy formation. They were obscured by some sort of debris or energy cloud.

Where did they come from? How had the destroyers, or the deep sensor drones, not picked them up before this?

“Kramer, make to Shuttle Papa Echo One Seven: ‘Am preparing to maneuver. Stand off.’. Lee, prepare to align the boat on those contacts. No …look at their track. They’re going behind K’tok, putting it between them and the main cruiser packet. Align on K’tok’s horizon where they’ll depart line of sight. Ramirez, all eight iris valves open and get our laser heads deployed.”

Sam’s thoughts raced. The uBakai were almost on top of them, but their velocity was the real complicating variable. They were moving over three times as fast as Puebla’ missiles would leave the coil gun. Instead of overtaking them, the missiles would fall behind. Once the uBakai were past them, there wouldn’t be a target solution. He glanced over at the Tac One seat–Filipenko wasn’t back yet. He could use someone else running the numbers but he didn’t know if they had enough time to put a missile over that horizon before the enemy ships disappeared into K’tok’s shadow. He squinted up the duty missile rating and pinged.

Port Missile Room, Chief Menzies.

“Menzies, glad you’re still on duty. This is no drill. Get ready to cycle missiles as fast as you can. How soon?”

Sir, you can fire as soon as you get this de crisse boat aligned on target. I’ll have one in the pipe by then and we’ll keep it up from here until the starboard missile room is manned and ready as well.”

“Load ’em up, Menzies. We’ll fire from here once the boat’s aligned on target.

“Ready to align,” Lee shouted from her station.

“Hit the klaxons and align the boat,” Sam ordered.

The acceleration warning klaxons sounded and Sam took a deep breath, tried to steady his thinking, slow things down, but the seconds tumbled past with undiminished velocity.

“Multiple ordnance launches from bogies,” Ramirez reported, his voice still tense but more business-like than in the first excitement of the contact.”

“Not bogies, Ramirez,” Sam said. “Those are hostiles–bandits. Code ’em red.”

“Task Forces hasn’t unlocked IFF yet, sir.”

“I just did, damnit!”

“Aye, aye, sir. Bandits have launched missiles, individual contacts tracking on all our vessels: outer screen destroyers, cruisers and transports. Bully just launched ordnance in reply!”

Bully–USS Theodore Roosevelt–one of the leading cruisers in the bombardment group. If anyone could get a missile off that fast, it would be Captain Chelanga. She couldn’t have a good target solution yet, but at this range did she need one? Just get the missile within five thousand kilometers of the target and let nature take its course. That was a hell of an idea.

Sam checked and saw Elise Delacroix had finished strapping into the Tac Four seat. Marina Filipenko and two others came through the hatch and pushed toward their stations.

“Delacroix, the laser heads are deployed. Guns up. Hit those missiles tracking on the flag and transports with our point defense lasers.”

“Guns up. Engaging,” she answered.

“Sir, incoming burst transmission from Papa Echo One Seven,” Kramer said, her voice unnaturally calm amidst the chaos. “Text reads: ‘Belay maneuver. Prepare to take me aboard.’ Signed Barger.'”

“There’s no time. We’ve got maybe a minute before those uBakai missiles are within discharge range.  Make to Shuttle Papa Echo One Seven: ‘Stand off–Expedite.’ and demand an acknowledgement from the shuttle pilot, understand? Lieutenant Commander Barger is just a passenger over there.”

“Sir, incoming text from Task Force Flag,” Kramer said, her voice now cracking with excitement. “Text reads: ‘Cease fire at once. Targets not positively identified.’ Signed, Klinedienst, Chief of Staff.'”

Part of him wanted to give in, to surrender responsibility to Klinedienst, let her take the heat if the decision was wrong. Another part of him saw the missile tracks closing on them, knew they were coming to kill them, knew it, and wanted to scream in panic.

“Kramer, make to flag: ‘Negative.’ Sign it Bitka, Captain.

Well, ignoring IFF protocols was one way to cut a minute or so off the reaction time

“Enemy missile destroyed.” Delacroix said. “We got another! Continuing to engage.”

Sam saw an energy flare from the uBakai ships on his tactical display.

“What’s that? Did someone hit them?”

“Negative, sir,” Ron Ramirez said. “They’re firing their direct fusion thrusters. Those guys are headed for the barn.”

Ramirez was right. Sam could see the velocity numbers changing on his display. The uBakai must be pulling well over one gee, possibly over two gees. He felt Puebla’s attitude control thrusters kick in and the boat’s alignment begin to shift. Sam turned to Filipenko, who was now in the Tac One seat with her holo-display activated. He took a second to gather his thoughts, try to put them in an order that would make sense, make what he saw developing clear to her. He couldn’t afford many seconds, though.

He took a long steadying breath,

“Okay, Tac, Delacroix’s on guns, you’re on missiles. Set the missiles on TeeOpp mode–targets of opportunity–code everything you see in that bandit cloud as hostile, and start launching as soon as our bow’s within, oh, twenty degrees of them.

“Now look at your display. Think about what you’re seeing. They’ve fired off their missiles, lit up their fusion drives, and they’re passing on the far side of K’Tok from us and the cruisers. We’ve got maybe three or four minutes until they’re occluded by K’tok’s disc. They’re past the lead cruisers already and by the  time our cruisers get missiles out the tube, the uBakai will be in K’tok’s shadow and they’ll have so much velocity built up the cruiser’s missiles won’t catch them.”

“Where did they come from?” she asked, eyes wide with something close to shock.

“I don’t know, but they’re here. Just focus, okay?”

She nodded wordlessly.

“We’re retrograde from the cruisers in the orbit track so we’re better placed to lob missiles back and around to hit the uBakai when they pass on the far side, but not by much. Maybe we’ll get lucky. It’s going to be close, though, so as soon as you’ve got anything approaching a shot, just spit missiles out as fast as you can. I’m going to keep Lee rotating the boat past the horizon to shoot galactic south and try to get a piece of them as they emerge from K’tok’s shadow on the down side, although that’s a pretty forlorn hope.

“Here’s what I need you to do: once you start firing, put the coil gun on auto-fire and start crunching the numbers on the firing solutions for the salvo we’ll fire on the down side. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered and turned back to her console.

Puebla suddenly lurched hard to the side, hard enough to send a lance of pain up Sam’s back and neck. He felt the explosion more than he heard it, coursing through the solid structure of the boat. The main lights went out but the consoles continued to glow. He heard the whooping siren of the hull breach alarm and voices crying out in terror. For a moment he almost joined them, but the lights came back on and he took a long shuddering breath.

“Damage report,” he said, and it came out coarse and angry-sounding.

“Hit–dorsal starboard, aft of frame sixty-eight,” the engineering tech answered. “Power spike caused some shutdowns but all internal systems back on line …we’re losing hydrogen reaction mass and I think another point defense laser is down, still trying to reboot its director. I think we lost a radiator, too.”

“Do we still have our coil gun?” Sam shouted.

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, what else is–”

“They got Bully!” Delacroix said from her station.

“I’ve got a target solution!” Filipenko called out.

“Commence firing missiles,” Sam ordered and then pulled the scale up on his holo-display. In the cruiser formation the ID tag for CGS-218, USS Theodore Roosevelt, had turned red and flashed rapidly. Sam swallowed hard. Bully Big Dick had been the first starship he had served on as an ensign, following his commission back in ’22, and then was his first ship assignment after his reactivation earlier this year. He didn’t know if it was better or worse than any other cruiser in the fleet, but he’d walked its habitat wheel, served watches there, and he had admired and respected Captain Chelanga. He owed his current position to her glowing recommendation. How many casualties had they suffered? How many crew had survived?

Another cruiser tag went red. Then a transport. Then a fleet auxiliary.

And then another cruiser.

 

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 29

The Amber Arrow – Snippet 29

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Heir

Ravenelle was amazed and incredibly sad at the same time. This was undoubtedly the royal crown of Vall l’Obac. Her mother’s crown. She didn’t know what this strange creature was that her mother had conjured up. But the fact that the crown was real was enough to make her frightened that something horrible had happened to Queen Valentine.

They were inside the mead hall by the giant fireplace of the Apfelwein now.

They sat in rockers. Ravenelle held the Couronne de Huit Tours on her lap.

It was warm. She was surrounded by her foster-family. Her best friends.

She felt terrified.

“I was so worried that I hadn’t heard from Mother for over a year,” Ravenelle said. “But it was so selfish. I didn’t think that it might be because she couldn’t send any message to me.”

“What did you think?” Saeunn asked.

Ravenelle looked down, abashed. “I had pretty much convinced myself that she didn’t want me anymore.”

“We’ve all met your mother,” said Wulf. “She’s a hard woman to like, you know. Always acting superior around us barbarians and all. But there was never any doubt how much she loves you, Ravenelle.”

Ravenelle felt a blood tear forming in her eye. She wiped it away. “I guess there isn’t. I get so confused because I can’t even remember home. I’ve never even met my real father.”

“If what that thing said before it disappeared is true,” Wulf said, “then the Romans are right behind it. Rainer should be back pretty soon with Jager’s scouts.”

As if in answer to a summons, Rainer appeared. He swung his cloak behind him. He warmed himself close to the fire coals for a bit, then sat down in the rocker they’d saved for him.

“So?” Wulf asked.

“So, there is a Roman legion out there. About a league south into Vall l’Obac on the Montserrat Road.

“You crossed the border?”

“Had to. We saw fires in the woods. Hundreds of them. Got trouble all right.”

Ravenelle held up the amber crown in her hands. It glowed warmly in the light from the fire. “This is my fault,” she said. “It’s because I’m here that they’re here. I can ride off with this thing and they will follow me. Probably. This is what they’re after.”

“I don’t think they are going to let any of us go now,” Wulf said. “We’ll have to fight to break out of here. And besides we won’t let you leave us, not now. Rainer would kill me, for one thing.

Rainer nodded. “Have to get ready soon, m’lord,” he said to Wulf. “I started talking with Jager about what to do. He’s coming up with a plan to present to you.”

Wulf nodded. “Listen, I want him to talk with the centaurs. Tell Ahorn to get over this silly feud with his cousin. Bring the town leaders in on the plans we make. They can help.” Wulf considered for a moment. “And they will have to evacuate. The whole town. There’s no choice now, if there are as many Romans as you think there are.”

“Oh, they’re out there, all right,” Rainer replied.

“Maybe while we fight them, we can get Saeunn out,” Wulf said, almost mumbling to himself. Ravenelle glanced at Rainer. The obsession had returned, if it had ever gone anywhere. There didn’t seem to be anything that could dampen Wulf’s determination to take Saeunn to Eounnbard and . . . what? He wasn’t even sure the Mist Elves had a cure for her condition.

After all, her condition was death.

“I won’t abandon my family and my friends,” Saeunn said softly. “You have to see that this is more important than getting me to Eounnbard, Wulf. These people are invading your land. You are sworn to defend it.”

Wulf shook his head. “No. I’m not going to choose between the land and you. The dragon isn’t making me do that. Why should anyone else?” He stopped rocking and stared into the fire. “What we are going to do is face the Romans. We’re going to fight to allow the town people to get to safety. Saeunn, Ravenelle, and the other women will head west. Then we will rendezvous and keep going south to Eounnbard. There’s no reason why we can’t. Everybody is trying to stop me from doing something that my heart tells me is the right thing to do.”

Ravenelle set the crown back on her lap and reached over to take Rainer’s hand gently in her own. “Wulf is crazy as a bat flapping around a tower with no windows,” she said, loud enough so Wulf could hear her.

“Yeah,” Rainer replied after a moment. “He is. But he’s also right.”

Ravenelle sighed. “Then I guess we have to get ready for the Romans. What am I going to do with this crown?”

“Get it out of here,” Rainer answered. “Then . . . anything you want. You don’t need a crown to be a queen.” He squeezed her hand and stood to go. “You never did, Princess.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven: The Flood

The Roman Imperials lined up at dawn in rough squares of a hundred. Romans attacked in staggered checkerboard rectangles as much as possible. They moved through the woods and the Tjark village outskirts, so there was no real “battlefield” to spread out on. But these were seasoned troops and it didn’t matter. They had fought the Nubian rebels of southern Aegypt. Many of them were veterans of campaigns deep into the Afrique jungles or the deserts of Araby. Their commanders knew how to position themselves for the best effect in all kinds of terrain.

It was part of the Roman marching training to learn how to flow around obstacles while not breaking ranks. On either wing of the troops rode the Roman cavalry. They were ready to swoop in and soften up a target before the infantry hit. They could also crash into the ends of an enemy’s lines and attack from the side while the troops fought head on. Most deadly of all was when the cavalry broke into the rear of an enemy and attacked the supplies and reserve forces, or the enemy itself from behind.

Wulf knew how the Romans fought. He had studied it for years under his old weapons master, Marshal Elgar Koterbaum. And as a scholar, he’d read about it many times in the sagas. A battle of Kaltemen against Romans was described in detail in several of them, especially two called Hlafling’s Folly and Rugga’s Saga. These were part of a group known as the Battle Sagas. Wulf had spent a year working through them with the best and toughest teacher of all, Albrec Tolas. Tolas also happened to be a master scholar at Raukenrose University.

I still can’t believe Tolas made me memorize sagas by playing mumblety-peg with a real, sharp knife poking between my fingers, Wulf thought. But it sure was effective.

In most of these stories it was a very bad idea to fight Romans head-to-head. They worked together like swarming ants and overwhelmed even very strong foes. No, the best way to take on the Romans was with raids, surprise attacks, and running battles.

This was where Kaltemen were at their finest anyway. It was how they had kept the Roman colonies from taking over the north for many centuries.

 

Iron Angels – Snippet 37

Iron Angels – Snippet 37

A chair squeaked, and Carlos stepped out of the shadows near the back of the office, as if he’d been hiding.

“What can we help you with today, officers?” Steve leaned against a filing cabinet, which emitted a screech as it slid an inch or two on the tile flooring.

“Special Agents,” Temple said.

“Carlos may have information on the accident and kidnappings. May we speak with him alone?” Jasper asked.

“Nah, let’s just chat all together here, sound good?” Steve stated, more than asked.

“If Carlos agrees,” Temple said.

Carlos stepped forward and nodded. “We can talk about anything you like in front of them.”

“All right, general question here,” Jasper said. “Why are you growing all those mushrooms? It’s odd.”

“Let’s say we’re a tad superstitious,” Steve said.

“I thought I’d heard it all,” Temple said. “I mean, all the random acts people practice because they think it’ll bring them luck or ward off evil spirits.”

Steve shrugged. “You going to ask anything relevant? If not, I’ll show you out.”

“Hold on,” Jasper said. “We’re part of a special unit within the FBI — ”

Temple held up a hand, stopping Jasper. He hadn’t realized how proprietary she was regarding SAG. “Yes, I head up an investigative unit called the Scientific Anomalies Group. We have reason to believe there is something going on in the area involving a cult. We’ve also found traces of an element a scientist attached to SAG has never seen before.”

Temple paused. Steve, Penny, and Carlos didn’t flinch or blink.

Temple continued, “This element is foreign to our world. My Agent thinks it’s alien, from another universe. I think it may be demonic in origin.”

Penny’s eyes flicked toward Steve. Her father chuckled. “Aliens or devils, huh?” He scratched at his beard. “You’re serious?”

Temple nodded.

Carlos stepped forward, appearing eager to get this impromptu meeting over.

“Ah,” Jasper said, “tell us, Carlos, what were you doing at the Euclid Hotel earlier?”

Steve and Penny shot each other indecipherable glances.

“I wasn’t — ”

“Save it, we saw you at the hotel, by chance, of course. Awfully suspicious behavior.” Jasper raised his eyebrows. “Wouldn’t you agree? And you never glimpsed us following you?”

“What? No.”

Jasper focused on Carlos, staring him down. “So, why were you at the Euclid Hotel?”

Penny spoke up. “He was at the hotel under my orders.”

“But what could you possibly want with the Euclid Hotel?”

“Is parking behind a hotel against the law? I frequent a nearby auto parts store, and I’d rather park in the alley.” Carlos seemed proud of himself for that bit of lying.

Temple sighed. “We’re not your enemy. We’re trying to stop a bunch of senseless murders — ”

“And suicides,” Jasper added.

“All right. How about this,” Temple said, “do you know anything about mangled bodies and strange figures made of mist or haze?”

Steve and Penny glanced at one another again — clearly aware of what Temple said, and clearly hiding something.

Jasper decided to take a different tack: “We’re not getting anywhere.” He walked toward and pointed at the aquariums. “What sort of fish do you have in the tanks?”

“Not fish. Sea squirts.”

“Salt water tanks, huh?” Jasper bent over and peered inside. “So, you grow mushrooms and have a bunch of sea squirts. This is truly an eclectic machine shop.”

“We spend a lot of time here,” Penny said, “and we each have our little diversions.”

“Okay, back to business,” Jasper said, and moved away from the aquariums. “What sort of metal work do you perform here?”

“We specialize in stainless steel and exotic alloys.”

“Ah, okay. I see.” But Jasper didn’t, really. His familiarity with machining was passing and, in any event, quite a few years back. One of his cousins in Tennessee had owned a small machine shop but he and Jasper had never been close.

He stood near a desk and glanced at the papers littering the surface. Temple spoke up — good, a distraction while he stole a few furtive glances.

“Ever deal with thermite?” Temple asked.

“No.” Steve, Penny, and Carlos all answered at once.

Jasper scanned the desktop: a few papers with Wayland Precision on the letterhead, a notebook, a ledger, and poking from the corner of another notebook, a symbol. No, a hammer, and arcing atop the hammer the words: Völundr’s Hammer.

“Find anything interesting, Agent Wilde?” Penny asked.

“You can call me Jasper. Sorry, I was intrigued by the hammer on this piece of paper.” He tapped the paper in question.

“Oh, that,” she said, waving as if the paper were a trifle. “I considered re-naming the company Völundr’s Hammer at one time, but Wayland Precision was my father’s brain child, so we let the name be.”

“This may be a silly question, but why Wayland Precision?” Jasper glanced at Steve, Carlos, and settled on Penny. “I mean, no one named Wayland works here, right? Does Wayland mean something to you?” He turned his attention back to Steve.

“It’s an old blacksmith thing, from Northern Europe — a fairly common tale, that of Wayland the Smith. Do you have any other questions for Carlos? We’re busy, and running a business, you know.”

“Of course,” Temple said, “but I’m not sure I understand why Carlos was at the Euclid.”

Carlos started: “I told you — ”

“By my direction,” Penny repeated. “And that’s all I’m going to say for now.”

“You’re going to leave it at that? Do you have anything you can tell us that will aid our investigation? We’re trying to prevent any further kidnappings and deaths.”

Steve, Penny, and Carlos remained silent.

“May I contact you again?” Jasper asked, hopeful Penny would say yes, but Steve stiffened.

“If we learn anything, we’ll reach out to you. Do you have business cards?”

Temple and Jasper handed them each one of their cards.

“You can call me at anytime,” Temple said, and glared at Jasper, stopping him from saying the same to Penny.

They were promptly escorted from the building and back in the oppressive heat.

“Well, that was different. I’m not sure what to make of them.” Temple squinted and shielded her eyes.

“We got some info from them, and a bunch of weird hobbies. We need to put all this together and see what we can come up with.”

Temple’s phone erupted into When the Saints Come Marching In. “Ah, that’d be Vance. Hopefully they’ve come up with something on their end.”

Gravel crunched, the sound of tires rolling over loose rocks and pebbles. They’d almost rounded the building to where Temple had parked on Hump Street, but both of them stopped and gazed behind them.

A deep blue compact car sped off, but in the opposite direction, up Summer Street. A Yaris perhaps? Jasper squinted.

“Think the car is related?”

Temple shrugged and answered her cell. “Hold on one moment, Vance.”

“Eh. Probably not,” Jasper said. “Maybe I’m paranoid after our bizarre encounter among the toadstools.”

“No, you’re in a daze after drooling all over Princess Toadstool.”

Jasper grinned. “Good one.”

 

Princess Holy Aura – Chapter 07

Princess Holy Aura – Chapter 07

Chapter 7.

Steve had to admit there was a vast satisfaction in seeing the patrician features of Varatraine nee Silvertail go slack-jawed with shock. “Er . . . I beg your pardon?”

I need something to keep my mind off the other issues. This conversation hasn’t fixed them, just . . . temporarily reduced my panic mode. “You haven’t thought this part through, Silvertail. Oh, if it’s easier for you, you can pop back to your rat form.”

“How . . . kind. What do you mean, I have not thought this through? I have spent a great deal of time thinking of this approach, rather than the prior one.”

“In your prior approach, your girls all had parents or guardians, I’m betting. Me, though — your Holy Aura is being created out of nothing, or at least nothing you ever want to admit to the school administration. Assuming they’d believe you. A fourteen-year-old girl is not an independent adult in this culture. She’s expected to have parents or at least a guardian who registers her, looks out for her welfare, tracks whether she’s doing her homework, and generally has responsibility for her.”

Varatraine blinked, then closed his eyes as though he had a headache. “Ah. I see. You do have a point, Stephen.”

“Like they say on TV, but wait, there’s more! Where we are right now? Not in Whitney High’s school district. You have to get almost over to DIY Home’s little mall before you cross into that district. And my hours working at Barron’s Bagels, they overlap with school hours. Now, we’re lucky at the moment — school’s about to let out for the summer this week, so we don’t have to solve these problems this very minute — but the way I see it, you’re going to have to help me solve at least three problems: being Holy Aura’s parent, getting an apartment or even a house that’s in the Fullertown district, and figuring out how we’re going to live there when I won’t be able to keep working at Barron’s.”

Another thought occurred to him. “Oh, and we’ll have to figure out how to do all the documentation. Which means we need a name for me . . . or her . . . other than Holy Aura and we’ll need a social security number and, well, a lot of other stuff.”

Varatraine had slowly opened his eyes as Steve continued his narration. Once Steve stopped, Varatraine nodded slowly. “You are correct, Stephen Russ. There is indeed more to do than I had thought. To your latter problem . . . can you show me, or find me, examples of the needed documentation?”

“Ummm . . . Probably. I’ll have to check on things like dates and form changes. Like, my social security card was issued when I was born thirty-five years ago, and I’d bet that the cards didn’t stay the same up until fourteen years back, so you couldn’t use a duplicate of mine. Plus they’ll probably check background . . .” It started to become clear to him that this could be a major problem. Holy Aura, or whatever name we end up using, never existed before. We have to fake up her name, probably birth records, and prior school records, employment records and stuff for Varatraine or whatever his name will be . . . “And even if we get past that, I just realized that I won’t really be able to work at all. If Holy Aura’s going to actually make friends, she’ll have to meet up with them outside of school, hang out, really get to know them. Plus actually do her homework and stuff. Yeah, that will probably be easier since I’ve already done the whole high-school thing, but I’ll bet they’ve changed even the curriculum stuff since I was there.”

Varatraine shimmered and turned back to the white rat. “I find that I do need to stay in this form more,” Silvertail said in a peeved tone. “I will need to weave the transformation spells carefully to permit longer-term stability. A considerable annoyance.”

He looked up at Steve, a tiny white face with a far-too-wise expression. “However, I believe I can put your other immediate concerns to rest. As you have seen, I still have some significant magic at my disposal. In terms of raw power, of course, it does not in any way rival that of Princess Holy Aura or any of our likely adversaries. However, given my rather extended age, I believe I can claim to be more skilled with magic than any other mortal being has ever achieved, and one can often substitute skill for power; moreover, most mortal problems are better solved through subtlety and caution than through the application of a sledgehammer of power.

“If I understand correctly, in this era as in others, money is a powerful lever.”

“Is it ever,” Steve said with feeling. “Especially for those of us without it.”

“Very well. I can give us access to very significant funds quite easily.”

“What? You can . . . what, summon cash or something?” Steve was somewhat ashamed at how eager he felt at the thought. I have a cosmic mission and here I am thinking that I could maybe afford to have a nice roast chicken for dinner.

Silvertail laughed. “Not so outré a power, no, something rather more mundane. I have been around since the beginning, and over the many, many centuries I have accumulated a little wealth here, a little there, each time the cycle repeated, before I had to return to my small form and remain that way. With practice I have become most proficient at assuring the resources are available in various locations. Just a few touches of magic to assure, shall we say, proper provenance of the resources, and money will cease to be an issue. This will, of course, solve both the problem of your employment and that of where you shall stay.”

“That . . . yeah, if by ‘cease to be an issue’ you mean we can live in decent style, yeah, that solves those problems. But –”

“Yes, the bona fides for both Holy Aura and myself as ‘Dad’ will require some thinking.” Silvertail twitched his ears and somehow managed a grin. “And while I admit to being . . . taken unawares by the suggestion, I confess I can think of no better way to provide your civilian self with a proper guardian.

“Still, once I fully understand the requirements of documentation, I believe that I can establish background credentials of sufficient solidity, and then we can do whatever the appropriate registration activity is in the proper, mundane manner. This should suffice for a year, which is the longest I can see this having to hold.”

Steve couldn’t help but grin. “So you can just . . . magic the documentation into existence that shows, oh, I was born in 2001 in Nebraska or something, and moved around until I got here?”

“I certainly believe I can. The great advantage of papers and, once understood, electronics is that it takes very little energy to modify them. If your documentation had to be carved into giant stone tablets we could have a serious issue, but for this? I am reasonably confident — if you can guide me in determining all of the factors that must be addressed, including the appropriate seals, signatures, forms, and so on.”

Wow. “Lucky you’re on the side of the good guys. Being able to magically forge documents would be power with major potential for abuse.”

“In my era, there had to be significant security magic enacted to prevent exactly that, so yes, I am very familiar with the potential implications of that use of my power. In this case, though, I do not see any moral issues; while the identifications and records will be placed retroactively, they will not be used for nefarious purposes, merely to allow you to enter the school for a mission that will save the entire world.”

“Yeah, I guess I can give us a pass on that.” Steve glanced hesitantly down at him. “How long would it take to deal with the money side of the equation?”

“A few days, no more. As I said, the wealth involved is quite real, I merely need to arrange access to it. Why?” Before Steve could answer, Silvertail shook his own head. “A foolish question. You are in economic distress already and this concern will not assist you in focusing on the problems at hand. I will address this issue as quickly as I can, Stephen. And that will not be long, even as you think of things.”

“So . . . my savings . . . ?”

Silvertail did not laugh; his tiny face showed great sympathy. “Stephen, for all you are sacrificing I will not begrudge replenishing — indeed, increasing vastly — your own resources. As I said, if we succeed, you shall find yourself improving your position. If we do not . . . I see no reason to force you to live in less than pleasant circumstances.”

“Thanks.” The little rodent-who-wasn’t really did seem to be a decent guy.

But I don’t want to be played for a sucker either, so . . . “A couple other questions, Silvertail.”

The tiny head tilted, whiskers twitching. “Your tone is serious. Go ahead, then.”

“It might be a little late, but . . . I want to know if there’s any catches in this arrangement you haven’t told me.”

“Catches?”

“Yeah. You mentioned you know the memes — that you promoted the mahou shoujo memes. So you also have to know how some of those things don’t go so well for the girls. Sure, the outline’s usually the same, whether it’s Sailor Moon, Dynamic Avatar Akane, Zenkai Millennium Symmetry, or Madoka Magica: Girl gets chosen to fight evil of some kind and gets a neat new outfit and shiny new powers, usually has a cute sidekick, and usually gets one or more companions along the way, yada yada. BUT the details vary — and they can be a real screw-fest for the poor girl in the middle. Like, turns out the girl’s destiny is to be sacrificed at the end of the show, or that she’ll end up turning into one of the monsters, or she’s sold her soul as part of the contract and will burn up at the end, et cetera.”

“Stephen, I — ”

“Hold on. I just want to make it clear I want to know all of the ‘provisos and quid pro quos.’ I know I’m committed to the course — I can feel it, really, if I think about it, and that still scares the hell out of me. But if there’s any more surprises, I want to know them now, even if you’re really the bad guy. I’d rather just deal with the betrayal up front.”

Silvertail did laugh then, long and loud. “Stephen Russ, isn’t this something you should have asked before?”

“Yeah, probably. So?”

The silvery rat stood on his hind legs and gave a very humanlike shrug. “Stephen, if I were the ‘bad guy,’ do you think I’d just tell you like that?”

“Might, since you’ve already got me suckered. But sure, you could still lie, I guess.”

“I could. But I will not. Stephen, I have to admit that I probably won’t think of all of the . . . ‘gotchas,’ so to speak, in this most unique situation. But I will tell you the remaining . . . well, not traps or tricks, but key aspects of the situation as they may pertain to you.”

“Better than nothing, anyway.”

“First . . . no, I am in no way the ‘bad guy,’ at least as you and I would view it. I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but the mission I have for you, and the others, is exactly as I told you. It is not in my plans, and certainly would in no way please me, for any of you to meet an untimely end during the final, or any other, battle. It is my most fervent hope that you will all succeed and emerge alive from the conflict, and I believe that all of you can; your predecessors mostly did, and all of them did succeed — obviously — in the main mission.

“Our enemies, of course, are aware of my existence, although they cannot trace me directly. They will be preparing a response to your presence. That, too, will be affected by the zeitgeist, the memes of your era.”

“So I can expect not just monsters but demon generals, dark magical girls, something like that?”

“Something of the sort. Exactly what I cannot predict, but there will definitely be coordinated assaults as well as random perils.” He twitched his whiskers. “Each of the Apocalypse Maidens will have their own . . . psychological issues. Overcoming adversity — sacrifice, in other words — is as much a part of their existence and power as it is yours. We already know much of your challenge, and undoubtedly there are aspects of that which we have yet to understand.”

“But my new friends are also going to have some kind of baggage they have to deal with.” Steve sighed, but that didn’t actually bother him as much. Helping kids deal with their issues, well, I’ve done that before. This’ll be a lot different, but I actually like helping people work out their problems. “I can live with that.”

“Good. The power of our adversaries will of course increase as we get closer to the time when Azathoth Nine-Armed manifests. I will get a better idea of when that time will be after a few months.” He looked down thoughtfully, then looked up. “I believe I mentioned this, but I should emphasize — any people killed directly by our adversaries will remain dead in the . . . repaired continuity. This makes it very important to fight efficiently and well; there truly are lives at stake in this world and the one we hope will exist.”

Steve nodded. That part didn’t make him happy, but it did, as Silvertail said, make this a lot less of a game, something with real stakes. He wasn’t just marking time until the Big Bad showed up, what he . . . well, she did was going to matter right from the start.

For the first time since the transformation, he felt himself smile with wonder. “My god, I really did turn into a superhero and beat the hell out of a monster, didn’t I?”

“You did indeed, Stephen Russ, and did so in a way . . . most uniquely your own.”

“What? You mean my catchphrase?”

Silvertail snorted. “Well, yes, there was that, but I meant in the more . . . direct approach you used. The Silverlight Weapon can channel the power of Holy Aura into a powerful attack. I admit I had underestimated just how powerful you are — I would not have expected a direct physical assault to work on a rock-worm of that size.”

“So I’ve got signature attacks too.”

“As you said, Stephen, the outline of the meme is very well known. But we will discuss these when next you are ready to transform. I think that can be left for another day.”

Something much more urgent suddenly occurred to him. “Oh, one more thing. How often can we expect attacks?”

“Initially, not very frequently. But once more than two or three of the Maidens have been gathered . . . once a week, on average.”

Well, of course. One episode a week. I should have guessed. “So I shouldn’t be needed in the next few days?”

“No, I would not think so.”

“And you’ll have money for me in the next few days?”

“Yes. I will promise you that much.”

Steve stretched, finally feeling one set of tensions slowly starting to fade away, replaced by a much more mundane and urgent demand. “All right, then — I’m going to order us some real food!”