?? Plavurimtsu (2), 4269, 10.
——
The fresh fallen snow tried its hardest to crunch beneath Kaewer’s armoured feet as she slid through the frigid alien night but her own magic smothered the sound almost before it happened. Another small spells whisked away her footprints scant inches from her heels.
The small town of Flapaidia twinkled before her, an island of light in a dark stark world. The same town where, if the MoNI Intelligence was right, several high ranking Muragaki had gathered for a quiet holiday retreat. The Magi of Dead-Knowledge where the Soudathkin Dominions single most valuable magical asset and an aberration of the natural order. Not even the last half-century of relatively cold-war would’ve stopped MoNI planners from nearly wetting themselves at the strategic windfall. Three Muragaki masters and their personal students attended only by a light skeleton guard and staff were a tempting target. Having them isolated on a sleepy little border world along the edge of the Soudathkin-Wilds border was a gift from the ancestors. Or a trap. Kaewer frozen fractionally as the thought flitted across her mind.
If it was a trap, it was a sloppy one. No one could’ve known her people were coming or that they had arrived. The Dive Shark-D that they’d ridden was the height of Imperium stealth tech, a stealth destroyer that even Kaewer had barely heard rumours of. The Ash single-person drop pods the destroyer had flung at the planet from the edges of its immediate orbital sensor net were even harder to spot. With their low-speed, anti-grav cushioned decent and nighttime drop, the odds of even the most hair-triggered sensor network noticing the teams drop was low. If this was a trap, it would be set to catch an enemy that the ambushers couldn’t know were coming. Any trap would have to be reactive instead of proactive, with all the inherent delays that entailed. Which meant the muragaki were dead regardless of any waiting ambush. Getting out though. Getting out was going to be harder.
Kaewer continued her steady advance toward the town, arrowing in on the small temple compound along its eastern fringe, just north of the small lake. It was slow going as she kept her movements painstakingly slow and smooth to avoid catching the attention of any watchers. Her assault armour’s paint had shifted into a molted pattern of snow white and grey. The small see-me-not illusion over top was just added insurance, help protect her from the shockingly open scrubland that surrounded the town. Kaewer knew she was just a part of a double thick arc of Kidorlus that were spending the night slowly slinking toward the temple. They were the only Iradathkins on the world, except for one special agent. One very luck, very warm special agent who should be getting in touch very soon… Kaewer mused as the temple wall loomed large ahead of her. She was on her belly, crawling forward an inch every five minutes now. The temple guards were so close she could read the names off their winter coats without using any of her armour’s vision enhancers.
“Don’t forget to purchase Crystal Beet Scrub today! Guaranteed to clean or your money back!” Kaewer grinned at sudden broadcast from the town’s advertising network. The slightly altered sub-frequency that her communications equipment was scanning for wouldn’t be hard for a computer forensics expert to find but only in the aftermath of what was about to happen. For now, anyone who did catch an off-frequency advertisement would just assume the advertisers were frequency hopping to get past any blocking software. In other words, it was the perfect signal.
Zero Seconds
The temple’s modest security FI noticed the sudden appearance of an unknown, encrypted network within milliseconds. It spent a few more precious milliseconds analyzing the data against its threat thresholds before spitting an alert to its meat space handlers. Surprise froze the young ialor in charge of security, a hapless private whose boss had stepped away at the wrong moment. Those precious seconds of surprise, confusion and indecision weren’t enough for Kaewer, already alerted and moving, to bring her rifle to bear and fire at her first target, a patrolling guard with a bored droop. If the fight had been entirely at the mercy of meat-space intelligences, the alarm would’ve been ringing before anyone had fired a shot. But it wasn’t and Kaewer’s own military-grade Fragment Intelligence built into her advanced Interface and boosted by her assault armour was to the temple’s FI what a surface-to-air missile was to a bow and arrow. Before the private in the security room had processed the alert message, Kaewer’s FI was tearing through the temple’s wireless network, shredding firewalls and defensive programs like cobwebs. And it wasn’t alone, a half dozen other high-end military FI’s launched a nearly simultaneous attack on the temple’s digital defenders. By the time, the private’s hand came down on the ALARM button and Kaewer’s finger pulled her trigger back, the war for the temple’s network had been decided.
Four Seconds.
The sullen click of the ALARM button caused the Dominion private to blink. Click. He hit the button again in dumbfounded confusion. Click. Still no sirens. “This is SecCom, we have a system breach! All units go to…” No telltale feedback, no response on the comm network. Click. Mind dull with shock, the private hit the button one more time, a part of him hoping this was just a test. Then the metal door behind him burst open and training swung the private around only to find his sergeant standing, his eyes wide.
“We’re under attack!” The security sergeant shouted at the dazed private, the muted phoom of gunfire barely audible in the background.
Eight Seconds.
Kaewer bared her teeth in a feral grin as she squeezed her rifle’s trigger. Her gun phoomed as it hurled its sapphire energy bolt toward the clueless guard. A fraction of a second later the guard spun, gore exploding from his head. Kaewer didn’t waste her time on needless orders as she exploded into a sprint. Her renewed connection to the unit’s L-net showed her the exact location of all seventeen other Kidorlus. Everyone was in motion, executing a plan they’d drilled on for days before their arrival. Vines spidered up the wall, their young, fresh greenness a shock in the winter-stilled landscape as they grew in seconds. With fresh handholds and the exaggerated power of their armour, the Kidorlus were over the temple wall in seconds. Rifles phoomed in sporadic bursts as the attackers cut down anything moving.
Eighteen seconds.
Pairs slit off, heading for the temple gates or security rooms. They moved following memorized and displayed blueprints their deep cover contact had provided. Kaewer headed straight for the temple’s guest quarters. Sergeant Lorkei and several of his squad members pushed inward as well, scrambling over the wall and in from other directions. Jalbystro and Uancai were angling toward the quarters too, the large carnaven smashing through decorative planters while her spry halinwas partner leapt onto the roof.
Thirty Seconds.
A stout wooden gate closed the guest quarters off from the rest of the temple compound backed by a manicured lawn and walkway. It vanished into shrapnel as Kaewer hit the gate with a wall of kinetic energy that tore through it. A security guard tumbled through the air in the hailstorm of wood. Another guard staggered into view, clutching the two-foot long spear of door in his arm. Kaewer shot him without slowing and slid through the entrance on a sudden sheet of ice that coated the lawn. Energy bolts exploded past her as surprised security fired where they expected their target to be. A deeper boom boom boom ripped the air as Uancai opened fire with her Aricor Nightstalker Sniper Rifle. Security went limp as 8.12 TEOIS energy bolts ripped through them, their cover and blew holes in the ground beyond. Kaewer’s own Wraith Assault Rifle phoomed again, catching a running draiker in the spine even as Jalbystro raced past the Jirvaerka. Another door exploded inward, this time giving way to sheer mass as Jalbystro leveled an armored shoulder into the synthetic-wood door and tore it from its hinges.
A small boulder ricocheted off the falling door, cracking the stone wall before falling to the ground. A young ialar in apprentice’s robes stood beside a half-open door, her eyes wide as she chanted hurriedly. Jalbystro’s claws, armoured versions of her actual claws, tore the draiker ialar’s face off as she passed, the violence of the strike slamming the young muragaki’s back hard against the door frame. Several things snapped as the Iradathkins raced past and the muragaki’s scream vanished in choked crackle before it started. Kaewer’s FI marked the young ialar for cleanup by someone else but it noted the gurgling whistle of escaping air that meant she was already dead.
Forty-Five Seconds.
Kaewer and Jalbystro were the first two Iradathkins to reach the guest quarter’s inner courtyard with Uancai scrambling along the roofs overhead. The two on the ground split up, cautious as they reached the heart of the enemy position. Jalbystro circled to the left, sniffing warily at the tense air. Kaewer strode straight into the courtyard’s center, rifle sweeping between the surrounding columns, in a silent challenge.
A fleeting image on L-Net showed a swarm of fiery insects diving straight for Uancai, who’d found a decent overwatch position only seconds earlier. L-Net showed the halinwas diving for cover even as some other Iradathkin mage countered with spout of water. Then Kaewer had her own problems as electricity rose from the courtyard flagstones like fog, taking the shape of snarling lunging animals made of lighting.
“I think we made them mad,” Kaewer muttered to Jalbystros over the L-Net. Her own counter spell forced a circle of calm to spread around her, pushing the electric shapes back a meter.
“So, the Confused send a Lost One and their pet animals to challenge us,” The male voice oozed, echoing from every shadow in the courtyard. Jalbystro let herself get herded into a corner by two snarling electric hunting cats and began to pray.
“How desperate they must be, to rely on fallen mages and mortal hedge-witches,” Another male voice taunted.
“How lost they are, to savage so many innocents to kill us,” the first voice agreed. “Tell me child, does it bring you any great joy to kill monks or set your savages against apprentices?”
“I’m a warrior, like you. I follow orders and protect my own,” Kaewer answered, watching the sullen orange tendril’s of Jalbystro’s own strange magic reach into the shadows unheeded.
“Child, you came to us. Your own were safe until your master’s gave you orders.”
“The people of Abisplika would beg to differ, Duke Thilmir,” Kaewer countered, slowing building her own grand spell.
“People? There were no people, only animals and the corruptible!” The second male, a Duke Thilmir, shouted. “You Iradathkins have become so lost to the tenants of the Firstborne that you consort with those who brought the Shadow down upon us!”
“Only someone who deluded and broke their own mind by playing with false necromancy could see the world such,” Kaewer retorted, anxiously counting the seconds.
“You DARE! Sorimaikyas ci varak fe muswa zui!” A new swarm of flaming insects began to swirl overhead. So, Kaewer mused, intel was right about Duke Thilmir at least. A sharp mental prod from Jalbystro over the L-Net told Kaewer the time for talk was done. The subtle orange outlined two draikers at the far end of the courtyard. Stupid, Kaewer snorted mentally, it’s the first place anyone would check.
“For one so young, you walked into the verep den with astounding confidence. It’s a shame to kill such audacity,” The first male voice lamented, the tenor of regret just a shade false enough to be heard.
“Duke Thilmir, Marquis Falta. It’s been a pleasure, but you really should mind to your magic better.” Emerald lighting rippled through the courtyard, swallowing Marquis Falta’s own electric beasts in its tidal wave and stripping the Soudathkin’s enshrouding illusion.
At the same time, Jalbystro shouted “Voyddh za Lakti, your child calls!” And Something reached through the fabric of the world and crushed the fire swarm overhead even as something else lunged toward Duke Thilmir. The Duke was a high-ranking member of the Soudathkin Dominion’s nobility and full of the knowledge of numerous predecessors, older mages whose deaths had transferred their knowledge to another of their caste. He was also a highly trained mage in his own right and a particular luminary in the combined fields of Evocation and Calling. A master at manipulating elemental spirits in combat.
He was also, events would show, stupid. He’d dismissed the carnaven as a little more than muscle, a disposable lump of meat that couldn’t possibly be a threat. Despite his own vast store of knowledge, he’d not even bothered to try and sense the shamanic magic Jalbystro had been calling on. When the something lunging at him tore the lower part of his left torso and left leg free, his wards didn’t even twitch, all attention focused on Kaewer until far too late.
“Lujimin,” Marquis Falta intoned as the something lunged toward him. Jalbystro cried out in pain as the something was forced out of reality by his magic. “A disappointing, if surprisingly successful, trick. I admit, I didn’t sense the dog’s seekers, but her hedge magic is hardly a threat to a proper mage.” The disdainful look he gave at the rapidly bleeding out duke nearly killed him as Kaewer hurled a pair of iron-hard ice lances at him. The half instinctual jerk his body gave kept the pair of lances from skewering him outright but one tore hard through his outer thigh. His own oker blood mingled with the lifeblood of his former comrade.
“Raik, Stomara” He snarled, thrusting his right hand at Kaewer, palm out. Crimson lighting flashed across the courtyard, burning into the Jirvaerka. The rolling thunderclap echoed oddly as an emerald fire exploded just inches over the Marquis’ head, the shockwave throwing him to the ground, but the flames didn’t seem to touch him. Secondary fires, natural and spellfire, winked out as ball of super-concentrated cold stole their heat with equal violence.
“Marquis, I can’t believe you haven’t figured out who I am, but I suppose all you need to know is I bring death,” Kaewer’s smile was as frigid as the ball of cold she summoned to stop the fires. The Marquis staggered to his feet, clothes lightly singed and fringed with hoarfrost.
“Your power is false, Lost one. Raikoom!” The sky split open as a crimson lightning bolt the width of a small house hammered down, drawn straight onto Kaewer. The roiling thunder masked the rapid boom boom boom of a certain rifle and when Kaewer blinked the after images from her eyes, Marquis Falta’s head and heart were little more than charred holes and spread patterns of gore.
“No, Marquis,” Kaewer muttered, shaking her hand to chase off the dying sparks of crimson lightning. “My power is distinctive.” She switched mental gears and turned over her shoulder. “Are you okay, Jal?”
“Stupid toad-blooded demon, I hope Voyddh za Lakti feasts on your liver for a thousand years!” The large caniod snarled in response. “Sura, that hurt!”
“Targets One, Three and Four down. All units, report status,” Kaewer demanded, breaking radio silence for the first time. Jalbystro was fine if she was swearing.
“Targets Two and Five are dead, Boss,” That was Lorkei. “I’ve got one injured but none down.”
“Gate and main compound secured. There’s nothing but us breathing out here. If Target Six is hiding, she’s somewhere in there with you,” Master Sergeant Tavoik ‘Minks’ Poras, Karvusan Seven’s executive officer, reported briskly.
“Surbai lovely,” Kaewer muttered. “Lorkei bring in your team, we’ve got a catatonic kid hiding somewhere in the guest quarters. Jalbystro…”
“I’m going to have to sniff her out,” The caniod snarled, unlatching the front of her specially designed helmet. “The piece of maiso Stinger shot knocked my magic onto the wobbly for another few hours.” She used the halinwas’ nickname with affection, even with the deprecating curse.
“We’re going room by room, killing anyone left,” Kaewer said, making sure she broadcast the order unit-wide. “Nasty part about Muragaki is if we miss even one of them, all the knowledge we wanted to deny the Dominion survives. We know our six targets, but we can’t risk there being a seventh intel missed.”
“And what if there is another Muragaki on the continent?” That was a private from Lorkei’s unit.
“Intel says that’s not possible,” Kaewer answered dryly. “They also say they’ve got a plan for that. I seriously don’t want to know.”
“Jirvaerka, you know what this kid represents right?” Lorkei asked over a private channel.
“A minimum of four thousand years of magical knowledge and research in the mind of a young apprentice. I know, it’s a surbai golden opportunity but unless you want to leave someone behind, our way out doesn’t have spare room.” Kaewer sighed. “Falling stars! I’d love to get her back home but I’m not sure how we’d manage it.” A door crashed open behind her and someone’s scream ended abruptly by the roar of Jalbystro’s shotgun.
“Maiso,” Lorkei muttered. “You’d have thought Command would’ve seen this possibility and accounted for it. The tight timetable and the fact that they dropped us with capture pods, not Stealth Talons don’t leave us a ton of options.” Capture pods were, at the most basic, reverse drop pods. They fit a single, or a small squad of people and accelerated using anti-gravity into a near planetary orbit where a specially outfitted ship could scoop them up as it passed by. They included enough life support for about three days, but they were capable of reentry if the podder got jumpy. They made a great covert ops exfiltration methodology, but their non-frills nature didn’t make them the most flexible tool. Extra people were one of those things they couldn’t accommodate.
“Surbai sura,” Kaewer snarled, caving in a small dresser with a savage kick. A new list of orders was unrolling itself in her L-Net vision. “Apparently someone in command has a low opinion of us. New orders just appeared, contingency plan in the event the opportunity to capture a Muragaki presents itself and we’ve had ‘combat losses’.
“Torch the dead and take the kid?” Lorkei guessed with a snort. “We don’t have any dead.”
“Stars, this reads like a ladishin Dominion villain from a holo-vid. I’m apparently to select a ‘combat-ineffective’ casualty to leave behind to make their way off world on their own devices and take the kid.”
“This is a dark-op, we can’t leave anyone behind. Anyone we leave behind would know far too much…” Lorkei grunted as he worked through the implications. “Are you sure MoNI wrote that order?”
“Allegedly,”
“So, what are you going to do?” The quiet phoom-pop of gunfire trickled over her second’s feed.
“The sura do you think I’m going to do? ” Kaewer nearly spit in her helmet. “I’d have gutted Forial if he’d even suggested something like this to me, but I guess that’s why it was time delayed. I might gut him anyway, as soon as I find out who he’s working for. Glad I left contingencies to make it hard to leave us behind or abduct us though.”
“That’s… good call, Lieutenant.” Lorkei gulped. “Let’s hope whoever it was doesn’t decide that your mom’s wrath is more convenient than you coming home.”
“Well sura them,” Kaewer spat. Behind her Jalybystro was smashing in her third door and around the corner, Kaewer could here Lorkei’s team smashing another door. Another shout, this time male, and another roar of the carnaven’s shotgun.
Four Minutes.
“Found her,” Jalbystro rumbled, a minute later. Kaewer shouldered her rifle, racking it home into the specialized carrier and dropped her right hand to her side. Her Varkantis Fracture pistol popped free of its leg compartment as her hand swung down to meet it, connecting with the smooth solidity of practice. She stalked out of the room she’d been clearing and moved with L-Net born confidence through the ruined halls of the temple.
“You and Lorkei figure out what you’re going to do with her yet?” The carnaven asked over L-Net. She had already resealed her helmet and was standing just inside a small monk’s room staring down at a young draiker female who was collapsed across the small cot. An old-fashioned writing desk and small trunk rounded out the room’s furnishings. The girl’s eyes were wide open, watching things with a mixture of madness and terrible sanity. Her mouth was working silently, spilling the secrets of untold eons in silent jerks and twitches while her limbs jerked in time to some unknown beat.
“What makes you think we had to figure that out?”
“I’m big, not stupid,” Jalbystro rumbled. “I can also count. From the way you were destroying furniture, I’d bet no one expected us to get through this without any dead and your orders want us to prioritize getting her out.”
“Yeah, well,” Kaewer sighed. She leveled her pistol and squeezed the trigger four times, nearly atomizing the young ialar’s head and heart. “No one alive besides us, no issue.”
“Stars Boss, that was cold.”
“Did you want to stay on this iceball?” Jalbystro shuddered, her armour rattling as it amplified the motion.
“No, ma’am.”
“Good because it’s a little late to volunteer.” Kaewer said, gesturing to the corpse. She reopened her private channel to Lorkei. “Problem resolved, time to get the children back to the bus.”
Eight hours later, her team was gone. Only a scattered handful of sensors in the system noting the traces of their ride’s outbound Shift in the disinterested way a computer might regard some back scatter.
