Chapter 40

“So, it appears that this enemy are unaffected by the supreme Psiontial,” Archimandrite Chusok stated in the calm tones, which he knew infuriated the Most High.

“They have not reacted to it and their depredations continue, yes,” Karkol replied in his new role as Planetary Defence Co-ordinator, currently a poisoned chalice if ever there was one.

“Is there nothing we can do to tighten security?”

“I am open to suggestions. However, it is difficult for our forces to fight an enemy they know virtually nothing about, have abilities we don’t fully understand and strike seemingly at random throughout Vultoq.”

“Would Beog himself not know?”

“He requires us to do our own thinking as well as defence. Remember what happened after we begged for help with the Vultoqi,” the Most High sneered.

“We asked him to fight, not provide us with information,” Chusok hit back.

“Are you willing to take that chance? I’m not, not until we have run out of options.”

“Perhaps they are using a rival god to aid them?”

“We do not know, everything founders on this one factor,” Brnnt added.

“What of the Seeker that was sent to investigate?”

“What information we have has come from him. Much of it is inferred and some of his speculations are disbelieved as impossible by the techno-Yr’ch except for the ThaumoYr’ch. He also doubts that they have the aid of a godlet as mostly they use physical and psionic attacks, not thaumaturgical ones,” Karkol explained.

“What of sending an Inquisitor to aid him?”

“That is one of the options I am considering, that and insisting that our other ranks start earning their pay in helping to keep Vultoq as our own. Remember, brothers, what the potential for disaster might be if they take it from us.”

“It might be worth letting them have to deal with the Vultoqi,” Chusok replied with a savage grin. “But no, brother, what Beog fought for, must be preserved for him.”

“My biggest fear would be that they ally with them and permit the Vultoqi to portal to other worlds in our regime, something they were on the verge of doing before Beog intervened.”

The Council was silent on that point, as Karkol spoke their greatest fear aloud. What information they had, suggested that the Vultoqi were supreme psiontists, as well as the ultimate xenophobes. Still, it had not yet occurred to them to travel to other worlds until the Yr’ch invaded. However, their hatred of the Yr’ch (and anyone else) had them constructing a portal to enable travel to Draenoric and had caused a desperate Most High to summon Beog for help. This had led to a mass cull of the Council and lesser ranks, whom Beog had accused of failing him. Or that’s what was believed. Again, only the Most High could know for sure and he, as far as Karkol and Brnnt were concerned, was fearful of actually speaking with Beog. He preferred simply doing the rites to ensure power flowed to Beog and permitting his chosen to draw upon a smidgen of that power, just enough to ensure the Yr’ch remained faithful to Beog.

“Lot of guards,” I murmured to no one in particular.

“Yes, but so far they haven’t shown any signs of actually looking for intruders,” Lenna replied as, uncloaked, she observed the base from the top of the building we were currently using as an observation post.

“I suspect they may be more worried about a fusion powered borer dropping down on them,” Clara chuckled. “Particularly in the cavern where Una is based.”

“I would be too,” Kate added with a grin.

“Una says there’s a gap in the pattern they use and it should be coming up ... now,” I stated as we observed the patrols and guards around the complex.

“There,” Clara announced, giving us the mental image as well.

“That would give us thirty seconds to plant the bomb and get back under cover,” I mused. “Lenna, could your people do it?” I asked as, other than the wolves in their true form, the Drow were the fastest of the rest of us.

“Yes. It’s doable,” she replied, still observing the site.

“Good, because for all Marja volunteered, I’m still a little leery of their jaw strength when carrying the package, plus what might happen if she’s spotted,” I replied.

“She’d likely be fine, John,” Lenna replied.

“Yes, but their weapon is their speed and jaws, your people would at least have a hand free to shoot back, plus you can cloak,” I explained.

“True, but the sand down there will show up footprints and dust at the speed we’ll have to go.”

“There’s also the case that I don’t want to lose anyone for what to all intents and purposes is a distraction.”

“Yep, we want a couple of thousand Orcs milling about here, fighting us, whilst Alice’s team grab Una and an Orb device ... assuming there’s one in there, which is very doubtful,” Lenna noted with a slight grin.

“Yes, the whole thing might just be a gigantic bomb, waiting for someone to set it off. After all, they know we’re after the Orbs and are studying them. They’d have to be stupid to have one there where a Psiontial is supposedly sounding off,” I nodded. “Particularly after what happened with the last one we supposedly took an interest in.”

“Alice’s team are in position,” Tirus, who along with Kate was monitoring our comms, announced.

“They’ll have to wait at least another five minutes until our window of opportunity crops up again,” I replied.

“They know, they were delayed getting into position by a patrol wandering through their chosen route,” he replied.

“Best laid plans,” I chuckled, getting a blank look off him until Clara explained the saying.

“It matches one of ours in that you can’t lay a path over a running stream and not expect something to wash away,” he nodded.

“Yep.”

Time seemed to crawl for a while as we all nervously awaited the moment when observation showed a gap available in the Orc patrols.

“Who’s taking the bomb?” I eventually asked Lenna.

“Tranduil, he’s our fastest.”

“Let him know he’s got thirty seconds, please.”

“Done. He’s moving to position,” Lenna replied, though we didn’t try to spot him as he was cloaked.

“Ten seconds,” I announced.

‘Go!‘ Lenna sent.

For all Tranduil was cloaked as well as wearing Mage armour, he was easy to spot from the dust he was throwing up, if you knew where to look, as well as a very obvious set of footprints on the dusty ground. There was also a fairly loud, to our ears, ‘clang’, as he magnetically attached the device to the door of the storage bunker before sprinting back to cover at an amazing speed.

“Fast,” I murmured.

“He is, though speed wasn’t a valued talent of our old ways, well not running anyway,” Lenna agreed.

“Stealth in approach and speed of the blow, I’d hazard a guess?”

“Yes, John, pretty much so,” she nodded as we observed for any immediate reaction from the Orcs.

“Orcs did not spot him, I’m not even sure they would have even if we didn’t use the window,” Clara observed.

“Possibly not, but he broke several detector beams going in and that’s what we’re now waiting for,” I replied.

“Footprints now covered,” Kate stated. “Just waiting for a reaction.”

Compared to what I’d seen in the past, the Orc reaction time was incredibly lax and it took all of a minute before a patrol suddenly changed its pattern to head out to investigate.

“Get ready,” I stated.

“Team Alice are in position,” from Tirus.

“Team Marja in position,” Lenna announced.

‘Prepare to give covering fire, ‘ Clara sent to the surrounding teams.

The Orc patrol eventually reached the bunker entrance and started to check the area, though completely missed the bomb attached to the door, at least until Kate set it off, then things got interesting.

It wasn’t a large bomb, it certainly wasn’t designed to bring the bunker door down, but, it did make a damned good support for a massive anti-personnel mine we’d constructed and almost a million small Teflon coated ball-bearings sprayed out in an arc of death to snuff out the patrol and send out alarms all over the base.

‘Go Alice, ‘ I sent out.

‘Releasing gas now. Una is shielded.‘ Alice sent back as she began flooding the interior of the cavern with the evicerator toxin we’d last used on Nansack.

“Tirus, start the teams sniping at anything and anyone you deem to be a threat.”

“You got it,” he replied, sending out the message to the various Loegrian snipers based around the bunker complex.

“Lenna, target the leadership, let them think they’ve got a major fight going on here.”

“We’re on it,” she replied before setting her cloak and heading off to join the fun.

‘Marja, rampage time.‘

‘Way ahead of you, ‘ came a mental chuckle as the wolves began a savage sweep through a nearby storage depot, backed up by Naimh’s team who were sniping at any Crimonachs foolish enough to get curious.

“It’s on, the base commander is squealing for help,” Kate announced. “All other sites we know of are going into lockdown.”

All over the militia base there was chaos as we took advantage of their lack of preparedness to target various personnel and pieces of equipment. Not that we were looking for anything in particular, this was simply a massive decoy to keep the Orcs eyes elsewhere whilst Mage Alice and her team had a look around the sealed cavern which had also gone into lockdown at the first alert. Their other task was to ‘rescue’ Una and transportal her, via the Seers, to her new world. This also meant we were fighting without major Seer support as pretty much all their attention was focussed on ensuring Alice’s team were safe. We were pretty sure they were going into a trap.

‘We have their attention, ‘ Marja sent with a mental laugh.

‘Good, just make sure you can get out to the portal point, ‘ I replied.

‘We’re OK. They’re massing to the front of us. Got Naimh’s team laying claymores.‘

“Clara, make sure the wolves don’t get flanked in case Naimh’s distracted.”

“Yes, John,” she replied as she observed the chaos below us.

“They don’t react well to surprises,” I mused out loud.

“No, but there are a hell of a lot of them and they are getting their act together pretty well now,” Tirus replied.

“True, they’re also keeping their leadership a lot better protected as well,” I noted.