Chapter 20

“He’s coming back,” I heard Xi say.

“Good. Glad he’s back, silly bugger,” Roxanne replied in slightly amused tones.

“Good to be back, but I still feel exhausted,” I croaked.

“Not surprised, John. You used up all your internal reserves getting our people out. I do agree however that it was the right thing to try.”

“Considering they had us trapped, I thought it best to use internal reserves rather than tap into the quantum boundaries and light myself up like a searchlight to the psiontials.”

“Too close, another minute and your heart would have stopped; then again, I suspect you knew that,” XI replied, mildly I thought.

“Good timing then, and yes, I knew it was going to be close.” I tried and miserably failed to chuckle.

“Aye, it was risky, but, considering you survived, a good decision. Had to get Rowenna to advise on treatment for you as you’re the only one who normally gives energy boosts,” Roxanne replied.

“How long was I out?”

“Six days.”

“Ye gods!”

“Couldn’t even cap you, you needed what magic abilities you had to keep yourself alive,” Xi added.

“Sorry to put you to so much trouble ... again, Xi.”

“You were no trouble, John. Consensus is that you did exactly the right thing to keep the Orcs guessing. You ran it close, but were in no real danger once it was done. Though a mundane would probably have died.”

“Makes a change, normally you’re quite angry when I do something unexpected or stupid,” I said with a slight smile.

“Aye, well you were the only one cognisant enough of high magic amongst the lot of you capable of doing such a thing. None of the others can do phase shifts. I had to tell them that Morgana trained you in it and most Mages can’t do it at all,” Roxanne replied.

“Still hiding the higher levels of magic,” I nodded.

“Aye, as you well know why when you trained in them. They’d like as not kill themselves if they knew.”

“Most of us learn bits of it, particularly medic Mages, but few learn or get taught to do it all. Even the medic Mages learn control by rote ... very carefully,” Xi added. “I only started my training just after Myrkálfar, after exposure to you I think. I also suspect Imelda will be offered the training once the baby is born.”

“Is Brianna OK?” I asked.

“Yes, I’ve notified her, but she’s out on a mission. The others are waiting outside now. She’s not angry with you either, if that’s what you were hinting at.”

“You have another week off, John. Rest up and report back then. In the meantime you can assist the science groups if you’re up to it ... but not today,” Roxanne ordered as she and Xi withdrew, letting in my team and a few other friends.

In frustration Crnnch slammed his fist down on the desk in his quarters. It was the sixth day of his current investigation and other than using a quadri-brain digitiser to come up with a basic form of the enemy and some base dimensions he had nothing! He still could not figure out how they avoided the Omniscient’s probes nor how they could get out of the building ... assuming they had. The only thing that had shown up were some shadowy shapes in the fog created by the cryogenic coolant being pumped into the storage tanks.

Nor had the psiontials been any help, though he was coming to the conclusion there, that the treacherous creatures would avoid giving him the whole truth if they could manage it. He had ordered a deep scan of the floors and walls of the building, but other than picking up a few dead and some sealed off (and empty) spaces there had been no other reports. He did wonder about the sealed off spaces, but that would imply teleporting, which the psiontials could detect, or walking through walls, which, although impossible, was still not off his potential escape route list as he wasn’t sure if it was impossible for this enemy.

Examination of the dead guards had simply confirmed that the enemy used a deadly toxin of some type and all he had been able to recommend was a redesign of the guard armour to cover all their bodies, which was taking its own time to work through the system. Nor as usual, were there any signs as to how the enemy managed to get into that area in the first place as the outer doors had nothing but normal and confirmed entry logs.

‘They must be using a dimension gate, but one that we cannot detect,’ he finally mentally sighed, before going to his bed to meditate.

I found the next day to be frustrating. Initially any effort, mental or physical was seriously draining and my restoration tricks were no use on myself. I decided to limit myself by going over the various reports of the teams to collate and study them to see if we could improve our performances or if we’d missed a trick. Mage Aludra from Alice’s team had temporarily taken over as head of my team and the missions were going to plan as we mapped out an alien and hostile (not just to us, but to each other) society. All accessible land was farmed; this food was then added to massive food production plants along with a basic bioyeast product to produce a high energy protein and mineral rich bar (to the Orcs, the stuff was inedible to humans ... or Fae come to that), which was doled out to the populace to keep them fed and dependent on the Orc state. They also recycled pretty much anything, including bodies. Nothing got left to waste if they could reuse it.

What land that wasn’t farmed was used as the planet’s lungs, hence our jungle site being left alone. As far as we could tell, all worlds were the same in their use and their massive population, with few of the Orcs actually doing anything useful, except just existing. There was one exception to the rule of course and that was the planetary mobilisation. All ‘citizens’ were required to turn out for their block hordes and be prepared to attack anything they were ordered to. Whilst not at the standards of the cloned grunts, it was still an utterly formidable number of natural warriors to have to face.

To keep their ‘edge’ as it were, they also fought in gladiatorial contests from small block affairs up to city and then planetary contests, often involving hundreds of thousands.

“What a damned life,” I mused as I was talking with the medical and Mage science groups on my first day out of bed.

“Not something we’d care for, but we aren’t remotely mentally like Orcs,” Xi replied as she studied the entrails of our first Crimonach and compared them to the very angry one in the transpar-steel confinement room we’d constructed for it.

“Grumpy bugger,” I muttered.

“You or it?” she asked with a grin.

“Ha ha. It.”

“Doesn’t like being confined.”

“Do we have what we need?”

“For now, yes, why?” Serena asked.

“Going to ask the Seers to drop it into that military base and let it gorge,” I replied with a wry grin.

“No ... at least, not yet.”

“Why not?”

“We don’t need to, besides I’m working on a method to remove its protocols regarding pheromone avoidance of certain Orc types.”

“And we don’t want to have to capture another?” I asked with a sly smile.

“Definitely not, the things are mentally resistant, violent and bloody sneaky if not under direct observation.”

“Yes, I heard you had fun capturing that one,” I chuckled.

“Yes, John. The only way to get one to approach is to pique its curiosity with a mental spoor or a scent infusion and then get out of its way when it attacks,” Ilzik replied for her. “Approaching it, even in normal armour, isn’t safe and those tongues utilise a shield-breaker. Tranquilisers don’t really work so you need a quantum-infused net to throw over it to enable the Seers to portal it.”

“Bearing in mind that it’s strong enough to rip to shreds any net light enough to throw,” Esira added. “Took all four of us to drop the special net on it down from the ceiling whilst Alice’s team had it suspended. Even then it nearly broke free a couple of times by using its tongues to grab objects and pull itself out of the anti-gravity fields.”

“Wow, and I thought we had it hard,” I chuckled.

“Well, Arwen helped a lot, but she couldn’t drop the net for us, just help hold it up mentally until the right moment.”

“I’m sure they are working on a method to detect them better, rather than just an approximate location,” I shrugged.

“It’s the things internal gravity vortex, it affects the Seers detection. The creature is too small, unlike the sleds. It’s also why we can also pick up the Omniscient probes when they can’t. Distance is definitely a deciding factor here.”

We all looked up as Alice’s team returned toting a few Orc-tech items they’d looted.

“Ah, up and about at last, you lazy so and so,” she greeted me with a beaming smile.

“It’s not about working harder, it’s about working better,” I chuckled as we hugged.

“Glad it was you, not sure if I could have got them that far on my own,” she nodded.

“You’d have had Aludra to help.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Mage John. I am so sorry that my team alerted the Orcs to your presence,” Lenna stated as she approached nervously.

“There is nothing to apologise for Lenna. You weren’t to know the chill factor would put droplets of moisture on the armour and affect the chameleonesque characteristics and show a shape under your cloak,” I replied.

“I have already told her this, friend John,” Ilzik added. “And also not to call you a Mage, yet,” he finished with a grin.

“There are some would take offence to it, but none of them are on this expedition, thank God for small mercies,” I replied with a grin of my own and a shrug. “And, friend Lenna, I will have no problems linking your team to mine for future missions. You acquitted yourselves superbly as I would expect of the Drow.”

I could see the pride shine in the eyes of Lenna’s team as well as her own. “I thank you ... friend John.”

“Friend John,” murmured the other three in her team.

“My friends.” I returned their respect.

“What have you got?” I asked Alice as Brianna came in with Roxanne.

“Some sort of messaging system. They use some sort of neural transfer device on these big brained flightless birds and pop them through a mini-portal to be read on the other side. It kills the birds once they are read; hence it’s a very secure messaging system against interception as there’s no radio transmission at all.”