The attitude in Fort Bog Iron's garage was grim as the crew met for their mission to the Astralbian camp. Even Kwa-Kwa's signature smile was subdued as Raivyn and the scouts applied dark face paint and checked over their gear one final time.
The rest of Talon Squad showed up to send them off.
D’Jarric placed a hand on Raivyn’s shoulder. “Providence shine on your journey,” he said, his face serious but cheerful. Doc wished her good luck, and she got an unsolicited hug from Reclan. She returned the hug, patting Reclan’s back in a semi-panicked fashion that was more akin to crying uncle than to returning affection. Vanbrook stood at a bit of distance, still shaky and swollen, but certainly looking much better than he had a day ago. He gave her a grim smile and a nod. She gave him a curt nod in return and turned to get into the ATUC.
Knowing the mountainside path would be closely watched, Raivyn navigated through the woods. Winding through the trees made the trip take much longer, but they had planned it so that they could get within a mile of the Astralbian position by nightfall and make the rest of the trip on foot.
Hittania’s sun, or daystar, as spacers called them, was setting in the west when they came to a halt. Through the darkened green tree tops the twin moons were rising, beginning their nightly dance through the heavens.
“I could live in a place like this,” said Raivyn, absent-mindedly.
“Well,” said Kwa-Kwa ponderously. “Maybe once we kick out the Astralbians you can quit the Navy and stake out a claim. They’re always looking for settlers for new planets. The sooner we take back the cylinder, the sooner you can start researching real estate. Let’s get this done.” With a wink, the Krauqian scout leapt off into the shadows of the woods.
“Alright, folks,” said Rahk, slinging a long-barrelled but lightweight rifle onto his shoulder, “Tawln, you’re keeping watch at the ATUC. We’re silent from here on out. Once we hit the tree line, Ghet and I disappear to keep watch while Raivyn goes in with Kwa.”
***
Raivyn prided herself on being able to move quickly and quietly, but she found herself struggling to keep up and keep quiet as the scout team moved like dark lightning through the trees. When the clearing came into sight Rahk and Ghet disappeared as planned. Raivyn and Kwa-Kwa hunkered in the shadow of a tree.
“You’re up, Raivyn,” said Kwa-Kwa. Raivyn nodded. The plan was to dodge from shadow to shadow around the guards, but Raivyn was going to place a perception bubble around them as they went. While the bubble would not render them invisible, it would make them hard to spot, creating a kind of contented, forgetful haziness in the perception of anyone who tried to look directly at them.
Seasoned, well-trained soldiers and psychics could sometimes pierce through a perception bubble, but it had served Raivyn well in the past. It would take a lot out of Raivyn to keep it up as much as they would need it, but she was armed with a popper and a raygun so she would never be defenseless.
They made it to the mother tree with minimal effort. As the twins promised, the security was only a skeleton crew. Their first difficulty appeared when they peered around the side of the tree and saw two soldiers standing guard by it. They could probably kill them quietly, but their absence would likely be noticed before they had completed their mission.
Looking to the sky, Raivyn saw a flock of red cranes flying over the clearing. As they were deep in the shadows, Raivyn dropped the perception bubble and reached out to the cranes. She gave them the strong impression that there was lots of good food down in the clearing, causing them all to dive and land gracelessly a stone’s throw from the door, causing a ruckus and distracting the guards. Reactivating the stealth bubble, she and Kwa-Kwa slipped behind the guards. Raivyn was able to open the door with a touch, and the two burglars walked swiftly inside, weapons drawn.
The entrance hall was grand, with a high ceiling. Stairs on either side curved up to a raised walkway on the far wall with many doors along it. It was also empty, no doubt due to the New Moon rituals. Raivyn could hear a kind of mournful, chanting melody coming from somewhere above them.
Following the twins’ directions, Raivyn and Kwa-Kwa made their way up through the winding tunnels of the star tree towards Raelik’s quarters. Peering around a doorway, they saw two guards standing by the Raelik’s doors. Keeping the perception bubble up, the pair approached quietly, hugging the wall.
One of the guards looked in their direction, a look of concentration on his face. His eyes pierced the bubble and he was about to cry out when Kwa-Kwa leapt, popper outstretched, and took him down.
The second guard reached for a device on the wall that must have been an alarm of some kind, but Raivyn knocked him to the ground. They wrestled for a moment before Raivyn was able to strike him with her popper. The brief skirmish gave way to silence once again.
Raivyn opened the door. She had lost track of how many times she’d communed with the ship, and she hoped no tree priests were sensing the foreign presence. They gathered the clothes and death crystals the guards had left behind and piled them inside the room by the door.
Raelik’s quarters were fairly spartan, by human standards. There were tapestries hanging from one wall and a large membranous screen on the other. Astralbians did not eat or sleep, so there was no bed or table. A simple desk provided a workspace.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Shrump’s cylinder sat on the desk. Kwa-Kwa smiled at Raivyn as she picked it up and stowed it in her backpack. Now they had to make their way back down to where the great eye was being grown, destroy it, and make their exit.
They made their way to the middle level of the tree, finding the open door to the eye’s chamber just as the twins had described it. Within the chamber, a tree priest was down inside the inner socket of the eye, mostly obscured from view, but the tell-tale silver headdress of a tree priest was fully visible. He was studying the vine-like optic nerves that fed the growing eye. The perception bubble reactivated, Raivyn and Kwa-Kwa approached from behind.
“Who’s there?” he asked suddenly, looking around, “I knew I felt someone speaking with the tree… where are y-” Kwa-Kwa cut him off, permanently.
She immediately crouched down and began placing explosives on the nerves of the eye.
***
Elsewhere in the tree, Jacrill had grown uneasy. His psychic powers were limited, but he had kept a hand pressed against the wooden walls of the tree throughout his watch, staying connected so that he could sense outsiders. He was eager to prove to Lord Raelik that he could be trusted. He kept thinking he felt a foreign presence, only for it to slip away entirely. Now, he noticed a sudden change. Not the coming of a new presence, but the disappearance of an old one. The tree priest who had been tending the eye had vanished. Jacrill opened his eyes, looking to the soldiers who stood with him.
“We’re going to the great eye. Now.” He strode quickly to the door, not waiting for any acknowledgment of his orders, his nerves jangling as he ran.
***
At the great eye, Kwa-Kwa had placed the explosives out of sight along the underside of the vines and was looking around.
“I’m wondering if I should just go ahead and plant the extra explosives somewhere on the ship,” she whispered.
“You brought extra explosives?” asked Raivyn.
The Krauqian looked at her with a questioning smile, as if that was a silly question. “I bring extra explosives everywhere.”
Raivyn arched an eyebrow but didn’t want to press her further during a covert operation. Just then, an Astralbian knight charged into the room, five soldiers in tow.
“Seize her!” shouted the knight, pointing at her. Her, thought Raivyn, not them. She cast a perception bubble around Kwa-Kwa while sending her a telepathic message.
Stay hidden. Finish the mission. Get the cylinder back to the Wingspan.
With her psychic energy focused on the bubble, she pulled her raygun and fired. The shots went wide. She was a powerful psychic and a deadly melee combatant, but her skills with a firearm left much to be desired. She’d passed the basic training requirements, but never felt as comfortable with a gun as she did with her mind.
The guards closed the distance easily, only losing one of their number to a raygun bolt in the charge. A guard reached out to grab her, but she smacked his arm aside, slamming her popper into his chest. Exhausted from the use of her powers, Raivyn’s defenses quickly weakened. A guard tackled her to the ground, and another’s boot was on her wrist before she could maneuver her popper in for another kill. The guard tore the popper from her wrist, breaking the band that held it in place and throwing it across the room. She kicked desperately, but a collar, like the one the twins had used on Traelby, was placed around her neck. It shocked her immediately, as she was still maintaining the perception bubble around Kwa-Kwa.
Jacrill looked at the eye. It appeared undamaged. However, the tree priest’s garments and death crystal lay still on the floor. He grimaced, but attended to the matter at hand first.
As soon as Jacrill turned, Raivyn let the perception bubble drop.
“Have you ever seen the cellar of a star tree, worm?” he asked Raivyn with a sneer. “I daresay you won’t like it.”
Raivyn left quietly, not wanting to give away Kwa-Kwa’s position. She’d make her presence known soon enough. No sooner had the group left the chamber than an explosion rang through the tree. Raivyn tried to struggle free in the chaos, but caught the pommel of a sword with her head for her trouble. She slumped to the floor, unconscious. One guard watched over her while the others all ran to the eye’s chamber.
The eye was gone. It had been blown out by the explosion, leaving a sappy, gorey hole in the tree. In the empty socket stood a frog-like creature that smiled at Jacrill before leaping to the ground, dozens of feet below.
“After her!” screamed Jacrill in a shrill, panicked voice. The two soldiers ran to the empty socket and started firing on the fleeing figure. They were both shot in quick succession by a sniper from the woodline. Jacrill ran from the room, screaming orders as he went.
Kwa-Kwa ran, pistol in hand, for the woodline. If she could get there she’d be safe. Rahk’s shots rang out as he picked off anyone who came into his line of sight. There was a buzzing sound and Kwa-Kwa knew they were in trouble now. The shots from Rahk’s rifle came with much greater frequency now as he tried to kill as many void wasps as possible.
When Kwa-Kwa hit the wood line she kept the same breakneck pace. Rahk and Ghet joined her and they fled towards the ATUC.
“Raivyn?” asked Rahk. Kwa-Kwa shook her head.
Kwa-Kwa and Rahk slowed a little when they realized Ghet wasn’t keeping up. They turned to give him some cover, firing at the wasps that wove their way through the trees, but they were too quick and there were too many.
Ghet gasped as a wasp caught up to him and pierced his back with its stinger. Rahk put a bullet through the offending wasp’s forehead, but that was the best he could do for his fallen comrade. The wound was immediately fatal, even without the venom it delivered directly to his heart.
Kwa-Kwa and Rahk took off like bullets through the forest. At some point the wasps doubled back. They had been loosed like dogs with no riders, and they lost their defensive instincts as they wandered further from their nests. They’d no doubt be back, with riders this time, but Kwa-Kwa hoped to be long gone by then.
“Where are the others?” cried Tawln as Kwa-Kwa and Rahk neared the ATUC.
“Raivyn’s been captured, Ghet is dead,” said Kwa-Kwa. “We need to get back to the Wingspan now!”
Tawln asked no more questions and hit the accelerator.