Chapter 21

“We have detected an unusual Orc, who appears to be directing the Adept’s investigation team on certain occasions,” Lagertha announced during the morning meeting.

“Do we have a visual?” Roxanne asked.

“It is shielded from us, but the Orc analysts call it a Seeker and their surface thoughts inform us it’s clad all in red and is supposed to be as ugly as sin, though none have seen its face.”

“Open a file on it and see if we can set off an incident they can trace to us where we can observe it safely,” she replied after mulling it over for a few seconds.

“Of course, Roxanne.”

“John, the medic Mages want to scan these maintenance drones. Take Kyra and Serena to a power plant we haven’t been to and see if we can get them close.”

“Yes, Mage Roxanne,” I replied.

“Alice, the Æsir want a few more of those neural implanters and a couple of those avian things they use to experiment with.”

“At once, Roxanne.”

“Arch, planetary base status?”

“All quiet, the psiontial scans are regular and predictable. There are no physical searches being done as yet. Marja’s people patrol regularly and we mix them up to keep them from getting bored. The Loegrian sniper teams are currently on duty at the planetary base; I’ll be rotating them out and putting the Azurans in next.”

“Aye, not really a lot for the wolves to do on that world.”

“They don’t mind, they’re having fun hunting on this side. There’s a big bug-like beast in the mountainous regions that they find to be a challenge. It’s not edible to them, but hard to catch and mark.”

“Counting coup,” she chuckled. “Well, so long as they’re happy.”

“They are, they rotate their young through constantly.”

“Whatever works for them, they’re good allies.”

“The Mazdani are still helping the squids rebuild when they’re not on guard duty along with the Azurans and Loegrians.”

“Good, I want them kept occupied. I hope we won’t need them, but I don’t want them getting stale either.”

“Teali, Dunon and Tu’tar won’t permit that.”

“I know, but it needed saying. Our biggest danger is complacency, people. We’ve had it easy so far, but one mistake could be serious. Remember what happened to Mage Negg, so be very careful and don’t presume anything.”

“Yes, Mage Roxanne,” we all replied.

An hour later with the Drow under Lenna probing ahead of us and the Nosferatu of Nell ensuring no one was creeping up behind, my team, along with Kyra and Serena, were moving carefully through the cellars of a relatively small power plant set up on the Australian continent.

“Hot,” murmured Kyra.

“Yes, both the weather and the generators keep it that way,” I replied as we waited for the Drow to get back to us with information on our planned point of entry.

“A half billion Orcs in one mega city, most of them doing nothing but eat, sleep and fight.”

“Battery farming,” I shrugged.

“Seems that way. They appear conditioned to believe in this Beog and we know belief can empower a Power.”

“A Minor Power, yes, or one fallen from grace as Athena did. Not so sure on Higher Powers though, but I doubt it hurts them any.”

“Yes, the demonic side aren’t exactly worshipped, but they have massive powers to throw around. Just one of those mysteries I doubt we’d ever solve.”

“Or ask about,” I chuckled.

“True.”

‘Four guards ahead, fully armoured in that there’s no skin showing for our toxic darts, ‘ Lenna sent to us.

‘Crossbows?‘

‘Will work, but probably not quickly enough. An alarm might get out, ‘ she warned.

‘You’re free to use silenced pistols with AP (armour piercing). Just ensure you get them all.‘

I felt the tensions in Lenna’s team ratchet up several notches as she and her Drow had never used their specially designed, steel-free pistols in anger before. There were a series of loud ‘pops’ (well, loud to us) from up ahead before we got an all clear.

“Anything within range?” I asked Clara who was scanning ahead for problems.

“Couple of Omniscient probes in the distance, but nothing else.”

“Let’s go. Nell, hold the fort.”

“Yes, John,” she replied as we slipped into the main area of the plant.

“There’s a party of drones up ahead, you can scan those,” Clara declared as we slipped between the generator sets, being careful not to move anything mysteriously.

“On it,” Serena replied as we hunkered down.

“Smart, but no individuality,” Kyra murmured. “I doubt they’d report us even if they saw us, not unless we were vandalising the place.”

“Massive built in database of parts and repair procedures. Good problem-solving skills too. Not quite a group mind, but capable of passing anything new on to all their fellow drones during their sleep cycle.”

“Telepathic?” I asked.

“No, neural radio link as most Orcs have,” Serena replied.

“Weird.”

“Functions the same as telepathy, so it might as well be.”

“Wonder how they translated the sub-atomic matrix used in thought to allow this.”

“Good question, John. Xi and I are currently working on that as different creatures use different channels.”

‘Party of Orcs approaching!‘ Lenna sent.

‘OK, we’ll keep an eye out for them. They’re probably checking out the work these drones are doing, ‘ I sent back.

‘They are approaching the drones.‘

“Interesting,” Kyra murmured.

I simply raised an eyebrow at her.

“Head of this group is planning some form of sabotage to get his supervisor ... enlightened ... whatever that means. He’s planning on trying to make it look like we did it.”

“Perhaps we can help,” I replied with a thoughtful look. “It’s bound to bring in this Seeker with the investigating team.”

“Almost certainly.”

“Let’s see if we can find somewhere to hide and observe, preferably not in the plant itself though as they’ll search it thoroughly, I’d expect.”

‘We’ll have a look around, ‘ Lenna sent.

‘Make it a good one as you’ll be the eyes and ears of the Seers most likely. We don’t know what this creature is, or what it’s capable of.‘

‘You got it.‘

“Kyra, can you find out what he plans, when and where, please? If necessary give him a better idea of our capabilities to help him out.”

“I’ll try, though only their surface thoughts are really clear.”

“I know, but it is important. It might save us a lot of time setting up our own trap; particularly as we won’t be anywhere near this one if we plan it right.”

“We’ll find out,” she nodded.

“Gotta love their society,” I sighed.

“It is rather untrusting and ambitious,” Serena nodded as she and Kyra concentrated.

“Right, we have something,” Kyra announced after a few moments. “They have a strong-room where important documents and backups are kept. It’s physically locked and guarded and only this supervisor has a key and the codes ... or so he thinks. This underling believes he can make it look like it was left open as he plans to drug the guards.”

“Clumsy and unlikely to work,” I muttered.

“True, John. He’s not very smart.”

“Anything in there that we would want?”

“Not really, John.”

“Give this underling the specs for a small anti-personnel mine that can be made from materials on site and have him plant it in the room set to go off when it’s next opened. That’s a bit more likely to bring them running as they don’t appear to use much in the way of explosives.”

“He has the plan for a pipe bomb, John; he plans to make it tonight.”

“Good. Thank you, Kyra.”

‘We have a spot. I don’t believe the Orcs would suspect we could observe from it, plus there is an escape route away from the site to where we could portal out, ‘ Lenna sent.

‘Good work. Return to the assembly point.‘

‘You got it.‘

“So, you’ve given this Orc the plan for a pipe bomb made up from the chemicals available on the site?” Roxanne asked during the debrief.

“Yes, Mage Roxanne. It is our belief he will plant it and attract the attention of this Seeker creature,” I replied.

“Do we have a timeframe?”

“No, but the Seers now have him under observation and we can have a Drow observer on the site at all times, once the Seers tell us it’s built.”

“How often is this room officially used?”

“Once a day to store and retrieve their equivalents of data backups.”

“Very well, permission granted. Just ensure we can get the Drow out if it goes to hell,” Roxanne nodded.

“I’ll make sure of it.”

“See that you do.”

It took almost three weeks for the Orc to finally make a pipe bomb that would work. He wasn’t terribly smart, but he was methodical and never took more than one of the ingredients at a time. Once it was made though, he placed it swiftly on his next shift whilst the Omniscient probes were busy elsewhere and we settled in to watch and observe whilst the three Seers made a trip to the planet to watch and scan via Ilzik who was currently stuffed into a drainage tube overlooking the landing pad.

Five hours later the bomb detonated from a signal received from the neural interface of the door controller, killing the equivalent of a programmer and the supervisor, along with the guard and the door itself.

‘An alert has gone out. The Adept of this area is coming along with his analyst, ‘ Arwen informed us as we watched on a screen linked mentally to Ilzik.

“ETA?” Arch asked.

‘Fifteen minutes. Apparently all mysterious incidents have to be investigated.‘