Chapter 32

“So, getting anywhere near the base will be difficult?” Roxanne asked during our debrief.

“Getting past their outer defences, yes,” I replied. “The base is essentially used as a backup for any insurgency happening that the local commanders can’t cope with. Hence, because of the nature of the Orcs, they’re well trained, alert and utterly ruthless. That said, I believe we can do it, we just need to come up with a cloaking device to fit on the wolves when they’re in their natural state.”

“So, that gets you past the outer defences, what then?”

“Won’t know till we manage. However, I suspect the outer defences are there simply to hold an enemy up long enough for the base to come to readiness, bit like the hard outer shell on an egg, once you’re past it, it gets a lot easier. There’s also the suspicion of too much reliance on their sensors as we didn’t observe any patrolling.”

“Hmmm, very well, keep on trying and keep me updated.”

“I also think this might be a good place to get at an Adept and their staff,” I added.

“Surrounded by a million Orcs?”

“A million Orcs doing stuff other than guarding them, yes.”

“That’s true. Well, keep me updated,” she replied before dismissing us.

“Tirus, could you take the readings to your scientists and see if they can come up with a counter?” I asked him. “We’ll design a ward amulet to go on the wolves once we have it.”

“Yes, John.”

“We’ll wear it, but if anyone says ‘nice doggy’ when you put it on, I’ll rip their arm off,” Adok added, straight-faced.

“Getting mellow in your old age, Adok. The younger you would have ripped their throat open, assuming you’d let us near you,” I chuckled, seeing an answering grin.

“What can I say? I’ve got to like you a little bit,” he laughed before heading off to the wolves’ compound and Marja.

“He didn’t mean it, did he?” Lenna asked.

“Oh hell, yes,” I chuckled. “Lot of pride and dignity there and collars are for dogs, not wolves. Good sense of humour too, once you know him, but, the wolves do not like wearing anything when in their natural state. The only time I saw them do it, was during the victory parade into Keldravan after Oonagh was forced off the throne. They only did it then as a favour to Verenestra and to let the city dwellers know just what Verenestra could throw at them if necessary.”

“So, no jokes?”

“Not with that ... assuming we can come up with an amulet.”

“I’ll pass the word around.”

“As will I,” I nodded.

We spent the next week working around the various approaches to the Horde base, trying to see if we could find an easy way in, but the Orcs were efficient if ruthless and all our efforts foundered on the wolves being detected in their natural form. Adok, to be fair, offered to lead his people in wearing Mage armour, but I valued their mobility and shock troop abilities greatly and their need for them to feed after a change left them extremely vulnerable to a counter-attack or going on an indiscriminate killing spree by the more inexperienced wolves.

Finally though, we were ready and having hung the medallions containing a very complex ward over the necks of Adok, Marja, Katja and Szymon in their natural form, we moved towards the original site of our scan, where various terrain features would give us a better chance of slipping through unobserved.

This time we were able to carefully move past the bunker. The only heart-stopping moment coming when one of the Orcs stepped outside to urinate and was looking directly at Tu’tar, though thanks to the chameleonesque aspects of the armour, didn’t spot him at all.

After that we made rapid progress until we came to a fence surrounding the massive octagonal base area with the various barracks and storage facilities.

“Careful,” Tirus warned. “There are so many detection beams and sensors running through that fence, I’m surprised it doesn’t melt from the energies.”

“We noticed the energy signatures, yes,” I replied, sending a mental signal to halt, except for the wolves and Nosferatu, whom I sent off for a scout around the surrounding area with the warning of ‘don’t approach the fence’.

‘We can fool it, ‘ came an eventual message from Seer Jemima who had been scanning via our Mage senses. ‘Just find a gap where you can get through.‘

“There’s a gap where we can crawl under just over there,” Lenna stated, pointing towards it.

“Mark it mentally,” I said to my team.

“No way am I getting my armour under that,” Tirus stated.

“You’re right, stay under cover and observe,” I replied with a nod. “Same with you, Mazdani. Looks like this is a job for us more petite types,” I finished with a chuckle.

It was a little tight, but we Mages, the Drow and a couple of Nosferatu, including Daniel, made it through and into the shadows around one of the buildings.

“Right,” I murmured softly. “Start mapping things out, avoid trouble. We don’t want them to know we can get in here until we’re ready to start kidnapping their higher personnel,” I warned.

We paired off and started gathering intelligence about the base; soon locating the various areas used to house personnel, as well as office areas. The storage areas were huge and I found myself examining several stasis tubes used to store what appeared to be Orc DNA.

“Wonder if these are upgrades?” I asked out loud.

“Might be,” Clara replied. “We know they must use something.”

“Guess we’ll be back with the medic Mages.”

“Yep, this is a positive playground for them,” she replied with a grin.

“Might have to think about getting an Adept from elsewhere. I can’t see them wanting to give this up for quite a while,” I nodded with a corresponding smile.

‘Patrol, ‘ Lenna warned us.

‘Thanks, ‘ I sent back as Clara and I moved further into the shadows as we heard the approach of twenty grunts and a Squad-boss.

It was a standard grunt patrol, just a bunch of Orcs putting one foot in front of another, following the same route, taking no notice of anything around them.

‘Let’s follow them, they may have access to various areas we don’t.‘ I sent to Clara.

‘Good idea. Less tampering we do with the doors, the better.‘

We followed the Orcs surreptitiously, though our armour made us invisible in the dark. Still, you do need to be careful of not knocking things over, or other acts that might give away the fact that you’re there. I presumed Lenna was following us (or ahead, hard to tell with the Drow cloak) as she’d given no indication otherwise. Warehouse after warehouse was passed through as we catalogued anything we saw, Clara grabbing an inventory list lying on some racking as well. Finally the Orcs headed back to what appeared to be a guardhouse as Clara and I turned back to our rendezvous point to meet the rest of the team.

“This place is a goldmine,” Kate stated when we all met and started heading back to the fence.

“Yes, I strongly suspect we’ll be escorting our science types here for study for weeks, if not months,” I agreed.

‘Just need to make sure we’re never spotted, ‘ Lenna added.

‘Other than a few patrols, the base seems inactive at night, ‘ Marja added on the channel we had open for the wolves.

“Which means we’ll have to make damned sure nothing goes amiss until we’re finished here,” I agreed.

“Yes, so no kidnapping Adepts, John,” Daniel chuckled.

“Yep, every time I think we may have found somewhere we can get at one, turns out there’s more interesting things to find,” I replied with a grin as we all carefully slipped under the fence, with the Seers guarding our backs.

It was a long careful walk back past the bunker until we reached the safe portal point. We kept the conversation to a minimum as sound can travel at night, plus our thoughts were mostly mulling over what we’d found and how we could grab some before the Orcs noticed.

Finally though we reached our destination and tranportalled to the Alpha site and hence to the main base on the Loegrian side and a debrief from Roxanne.

“Paydirt then?” she stated after we went through what we had found.

“Yes, Roxanne. From the little we could survey, there appears to be everything the Orcs need to re-conquer and re-stock the planet,” I replied as Xi read through the manifest.

“All of it having been transferred recently too,” she noted.

“Really?”

“Yes, Roxanne. All the dates on this manifest show that the items have been transferred in the last few weeks.”

“Didn’t feel like a trap,” I mused.

“Definitely not,” Szymon spoke up. “There was no ‘edge’ to the security patrols,” he added, getting nods off Adok and Marja.

“Lot of stuff, wonder why,” she replied thoughtfully.

“Nor any work going on through the night, which suggests they’re done for the moment,” Lenna added.

“Why suddenly have enough supplies and equipment to re-build and re-stock a planet ... unless they’re planning to restart here,” Roxanne stated thoughtfully.

“Well, they are overcrowded from the failed conquest of Nansack,” I added.

“Aye, but whilst we were expecting some sort of cull, it wouldn’t have involved the entire planet, which is what these numbers suggest.”

“Don’t suppose they’re going to sterilise the planet in the hope of getting us too?” I posited.

“Nasty thought, John. 24 billion Orcs just to get a few of us? Really?” Xi replied.

“Does seem excessive,” Roxanne nodded. ‘Not sure how killing off the Orcs would get at us without making the planet uninhabitable anyway. Even that god-awful flesh-eating plague they have is not going to kill off a Mage and we’ll be able to cure the non-Mages easily. Still, I’ll task the Alpha site to minimal occupancy, just in case.”

“They’d probably try to stage something that would get our attention anyway,” I shrugged. “Bit like that Inquisitor visit on Nansack.”

“Aye, we’ll be careful. In the meantime, I want the medic Mages escorted onto the base and allowed to run riot ... in a manner of speaking. Plus Brianna and the other teams as well, there’s a lot here that they’re going to want to study and it’s your job ... and the other teams to get them in and out safely,” Roxanne ordered.

“Wonder if we can find a hiding spot there to retire to through the day,” I mused. “It’s a long walk there and back and time is limited.”