Chapter 9

Crnnch stood nervously whilst the Higher Adepts went over the scant evidence available over the death of Hortcha.

“They are competent at least,” one of the Adepts finally said.

“I disagree, Higher Adept,” Crnnch replied, drawing a frown from the Adept.

“You believe this to be luck?” came the reply.

“No, Higher Adept, I believe this to be a most formidable enemy who are playing us like puppets, they are beyond competent.”

“Explain.”

“As soon as Hortcha went into the field, all their attacks focussed on him, not, as he believed, because he was close to their ... base, but, because he presented himself as an easy target. He also presumed that their intelligence gathering ceased because of his proximity. My belief is that they didn’t, they simply used their attacks on him to cover their activities, though this is pure submission on my part as we have never, save in an attack on us, had any data on their presence, something Hortcha chose to ignore. Finally, as soon as the psionic eviscerators took to the field they concentrated their efforts on studying them and finding ways to counter their abilities, until I believe they found a method. In the meantime, they used other ... assets to sow dissent in Hortcha’s camp, taking down strategic targets of opportunity until finally they took down Hortcha.”

“An interesting theory.”

“I may be wrong, Higher Adept, but I would rather be wrong my way by overestimating their abilities.”

“Agreed, what do you need?”

“Something they’ve never seen before, with abilities they’ll want to study.”

“I will have an Omniscient sent through. Be cautious with it, your status will rise if you’re correct.”

“Thank you, Higher Adept.”

“That second horde appears to be bugging out,” Melanie announced.

“Figured they might after Esira killed the general in charge,” Roxanne nodded. “Earned her a date with you via Brianna,” she finished with a chuckle and a glance to the side at me.

“I’ve yet to say yes. Besides, that’s Róisín’s decision, not Brianna’s, however much I love her,” I replied with a fierce blush.

“Oh, I think Róisín will say yes, John.”

“As do I,” I sighed. “However, you were saying, Seer Melanie?”

“The horde is pulling out. However, much of it is transferring to the other horde, but they are scattering somewhat into smaller units.”

“I suspect whoever is in charge plans to set up a trap for us,” Arch mused.

“I agree,” Roxanne nodded. “Wonder what they’ll use as bait?”

“Probably something we’ve never seen, but looks fascinating,” I posited. “They’re learning and they’ll get better, but, I suspect they’ve yet to get our measure.”

“Let’s try to keep it that way for a while; we’re still basically here to study them, though we’ve stretched our mission parameters to breaking point.”

“Every attack has caused them to bring more of their abilities and assets into the field,” Arch shrugged.

“True, but if we get careless they’ll squash us like a bug. If they get careless, they just lose a couple of assets.”

“Agreed,” Arch nodded. “That said, we do need to see what they might field next.”

“Aye, we do, but this time we’ll take constructive paranoia to new levels. I’ll order the Drow to begin random attacks, never in the same place twice until we have them starting at shadows.”

“Eventually they’ll start ignoring the obvious, then we’ll be in a position to see what they think they can hide from us.” I chuckled.

“My thoughts exactly.”

It took far longer than we’d expected, the Seers quickly picked up an interesting new creature, though the instructions from Roxanne were to leave it well alone until we’d had our fun with the regular Orcs, sticking mostly to the North American continent, as if it were where our base was situated.

Finally though, we got the go-ahead to start probing near what we considered to be the main Orc base, situated in the foothills of what on our Earth would be considered to be the Himalayas.

“Interesting,” Clara stated out loud. “I’m detecting several video cameras, or rather visual recording devices, as they certainly don’t look like any sort of camera we’d use.”

“Orc manufacture? As in biotech?” I asked.

“No, John. Fully technological as in electronic, just not the way we’d do things.”

“Can we gimmick them?” Xi asked.

“Yes, they use these channels to view and detect, all we have to do is lock off the electromagnetic spectrum on these levels,” Clara indicated mentally.

“Easy enough, but keep scanning just in case they change the setting. We take nothing for granted, remember?” I noted.

“Yes, John,” came a chorus of replies.

“Someone has really gone to a lot of trouble to set this up,” Kate murmured as we passed yet another bank of detection equipment, all set up to cover varying parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, though most were easily fooled.

“Yes, it has trap written all over it,” I agreed.

“They are patrolling too, not just relying on their technology,” Clara added.

“Yes, and that creature is the bait, though I don’t think they realise we don’t have to be within sight of it to study it,” Xi said into the thoughtful silence.

“Which is why we’ll aim for here.” I pointed out a blind valley that did not go within sight of the Orc base, but did pass the other side of a ridge from it and wasn’t heavily patrolled, unlike the brow of the ridge.

“That should do nicely, John. Particularly as they can’t descend from the brow into the valley, save with one of their sleds.”

“And if they do that, Dunon will have them for breakfast,” Clara chuckled grimly.

“Yes, they haven’t figured out how we bring a sled down as far as we know,” I agreed.

We set up our camp in the ruins of a squid ... village, although we weren’t too sure what it was, save being about the right size.

Whilst the medic Mages began their work, Elpida, Clara, Kate, Ilzik and I began carefully patrolling the village to get a feel for the structures and plot escape paths if necessary. Careful scans soon located a cellar and a false wall that led to what appeared to be a mostly natural cave/tunnel that led through the mountain away from the Orc camp. Leaving Kate and Clara to keep an eye out for trouble, the rest of us set off exploring.

“Could be very handy,” I mused as we followed and scanned the interior until we came out well away from the valley the medic Mages were observing from as well as being outside the area patrolled by the Orcs.

“We could station a permanent observation team in the village,” Ilzik suggested.

“As well as your people,” I nodded, seeing a perfect opportunity to cause a minor nuisance to the Orcs.

“So long as we don’t provoke an extreme reaction, yes.”

“True, let’s see what the medic Mages have found.”

“It’s an observer,” Xi stated. “All those cameras and devices link into it and it guides the various Orcs and their creatures on the best path to attack or defeat an attacker.”

“It can’t just rely on electronics surely?” I asked.

“No, but it’s set up more to look for squid life signs than human or Fae.”

“Can we tap into it?”

“Possibly, though we’ll need a lot more time and study as pretty much all Orc attack forces are highly protected from both mental and physical dominance.”

“Is it bait though?”

“Yes, definitely. It’s interesting enough from a distance, but, nowhere near as fascinating up close as a psionic eviscerator.”

“True, but I suspect to the Orcs it’s a strategic asset, it’s keeping their base quite safe ... or at least they think,” I chuckled.

‘Report!‘ Crnnch demanded of the Omniscient over his internal communicator.

‘There has been no attempt to breach security in the last 37 cycles, ‘ came the reply.

‘Is it possible they can fool your systems?‘

‘Anything is possible, Adept, but certainly no Yr’ch biotech could.‘

Crnnch thought hard. He was fairly sure the Yr’ch were more advanced than whoever was investigating them, however their known abilities did not fall into standard Yr’ch disciplines.

‘What of psionic investigation?‘

“I am shielded against such and although we know of several psi-type creatures and the camouflages they use in the bending of light, my systems are arrayed in such a manner as to defeat any attempt to use such against myself.‘

‘What of passive scans?‘

‘They would need to be near enough to me and this would imply they knew exactly where I am, Adept. So it is unlikely.‘

“Detecting that higher Orc,” Xi announced.

“What’s he up to?” I asked.

“I think he’s talking to that security creature, but as they use tight-band low-powered radio transmissions, we can’t pick them up unless they are facing us from a much closer proximity.”

“Well, let’s get what we can off him,” I nodded.

“Already on it, John.”

“We have an Orc patrol closing,” Ilzik announced.

“Go dark,” I ordered, essentially meaning that the squad and medics glamoured up and froze in place for as long as the Orcs chose to be in our vicinity. Even if the glamour was breached, our armour gave us an extra layer of security in its chameleonesque characteristics too.