Jack looked around the room. No one seemed to want to step forward to give him

something to work with as they studied the hologram. He supposed he couldn’t blame

them, but they had to get started if they wanted to finish.

“Let’s start with the border between the countries,” said Josie. “Where is Fort Hern?”

A small indicator marked like a tiny castle popped up.

“Didn’t you say one of your generals was going up there, Rick?,” asked Jack.

“Yes, but there is no way he could have covered that ground on horseback with

a battalion of troops marching in the time allowed,” said King Rickard.

“Enterprise,” said Jack. “Can you give us a real time picture of any troops moving on

the ground to Fort Hern from the south?”

Tiny soldiers were rendered in on the table top, marching north.

“Russ,” said Jack. “Do you have any forces in the area?”

“Don’t answer that question, Captain,” said Glunt, standing with a hand raised. “We

can’t let the enemy know the disposition of our forces.”

“Mister Glunt,” said Josie. “It doesn’t matter. In ten seconds, the Enterprise can mark

any lifeform in the area and put it on the table. Twenty seconds after that, they could

all be dead from here. I understand that you want to protect what you can, but don’t

get in the way. I don’t have the time to fool around, and if eliminating ninety percent

of your forces this close to the border will avert the threat and clear the quest, I would

rather do that than extract information from people that Jack is just going to throw

over the side as soon as he is tired of fooling around. This operation is going forward

and I would rather it go forward with a minimum loss of life, but if the reverse

happens, you had a chance to cooperate.”

“Sir, this is how we lost our personnel in the Keep,” said Haslet. “I would advise you

not to push too hard on this.”

“Captain Russ, answer the woman,” said Worldy. He had seen the loss of personnel

in the headquarters of the Army, and the reports from the Goblin Tree farm. He didn’t

want the same type damage inflicted on his border operations.

“We have a roving battalion north of Fort Hern, and three forts with cavalry and

infantry on hand,” said Russ. “I don’t know what the exact number of forces are for

the forts.”

“Captain Russ and I were discussing a false flag operation like the one that initially

caused me to clear out Fort Hern in the first place,” said Josie. “How possible would

that be to carry out with the right planning?”

“Easily,” said Hax. He looked at the other representatives at his end of the table. They

didn’t seem to like his answer. “The main issue is always going to be communication.

If an attack was staged, any survivors would say they saw a force from our army or

the Greciousians. There would be no way to tell the truth after the fact.”

“That’s right,” said Jack. “There’s no forensics here.”

“What do you mean?,” said Glunt.

“Forensics is a science like hunters tracking things,” said Jack. “You go out in the

field with an expert, he can tell you how many men, how many horses, maybe even

follow them to their destination. Forensics is the same type of thing. You look at the

area and you have things to be gathered and looked at to show you what could have

happened.

“Say someone was murdered, experts would go through the scene and look for

fingerprints, pieces of clothing that didn’t belong, the way the blood moved, even the

weather sometimes to try to help figure things out. And once they had someone, they

could compare what they found on him to what they had found at the scene. It takes

a lot of time for the testing.”

“So even if we had enough to track an attack back, we couldn’t prove which side did

anything if the group split up, or hit water, or changed boots and horses,” said

Worldy. “It would be our word that we didn’t do it versus people who saw the Blue

attacking them.”

“And it would be hard to take that word,” said Rickard. “But if we are cooperating,

how do we sort something that we are predicting instead of it already happening?”

“It’s in motion,” said Jack. “Enterprise, paint Russ’s roving battalion and the three

closest forts to Fort Hern.”

“What do you mean?,” asked Glunt. “What do you mean it’s in motion?”

That table painted figures to show where lifeforms had been picked up by the

scanners from high overhead. A slow moving force marched toward the fort to the

right of the reverse triangle.

“The Society doesn’t hand us a quest because it expects something to happen,” said

Jack. “They don’t seem to actually care about consequences all that much. They hand

us quests because someone decided this is the move I am making and I am making

it in a small amount of time. So the attack is already in motion somewhere. We just

don’t know where.”

“What happens if one of those forts fall?,” asked Vin. He stood at the back leaning

lazily against the wall. Jack hadn’t forgot he was there, but hadn’t expected him to

join in.

“What do you mean?,” asked Worldy.

“You have been thinking about an attack and blaming the other side, and Fort Hern

was cleared out of impersonators this week, I assume,” said Vin. “What if the people

on the other side haven’t got the message they won’t get any support from this side

of the border yet?”

“What if Fort Hern and one of the Shemmarian forts was supposedly attacked with

word getting back to the local commanders that the other side had crossed,” said Jack.

The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

“I like it, but we need to prove it.”

“The local commander on our side is Lord Rails,” said Rickard. “He has been

informed by fast messenger of what happened. I don’t have his reply back yet.”

“So there is no way that he would believe that the Shemmarians would attack his

empty fort?,” said Vin.

“If he does, he is more stupid than I would like,” said Rickard.

“One of us is going to have to go down and check things out,” said Jack. “Maybe the

battalion is the right battalion, maybe the fort is still in the right hands. We need to

make sure and move on.”

“Warner is gone,” said Kyle.

“Enterprise, show Mister Warner,” said Josie.

A tiny figure was rendered in walking to where the battalion was marching to the fort.

“Enterprise, be prepared to give him cover fire if he needs it,” said Jack. “He’s too

old to be taking these kinds of risks.”

“What can he do?,” asked Worldy.

“I don’t know,” said Jack. “Dynamite cast, Jo?”

“He’s got a heap of blasters, some shapeshifters, and at least one magician,” said

Josie. “He’s too close for us to call.”

“How good can you render this picture?,” asked Glunt.

“Enterprise,” said Jack. “Can you zoom in and let us look at individuals? Record them

if you don’t mind.”

“Affirmative,” said the machine.

The battalion resolved into men and women in blue coats over armor. They didn’t

wear helmets. A majority were marked with tiny names written across their skin.

“The Montrose,” said Rickard.

“I guess they didn’t like that open warrant you put out on their members,” said Jack.

“A war will sure distract you from that.”

“This is the organization involved in the Goblin Tree experiment?,” asked Worldy.

“They were procuring you women and girls to be used for your monster building,”

said Josie. “That was one of the reasons I asked your government to stop doing it.”

“One of the reasons?,” asked Glunt.

“Yes,” said Josie.

“Are they part of the military, or are they the false flag we’re looking for?,” asked

Jack. “If they are the flag, where do they go from here?”

“They cross the border,” said Haslett. “The word of the warrant has probably not

made it to them yet. They probably plan to hold up somewhere on the Greciousian

side and let the damage increase on its own. No local commander is going to allow

reported Greciousians slip away after a serious assault on one of our installations.”

“They’re readying weapons,” said Markus. “If they are allowed inside, they could

destroy any defense before it is brought to bear.”

“I don’t know what Mister Warner can do in this situation,” said Jack. “We might

need to do more than start shooting with the Enterprise.”

“We wait,” said Josie.

“What are we waiting for?,” asked Hax.

The gates started opening on the ground. Jack stood. He saw Josie reaching for her

watch. He did the same.

Mister Warner became the Dart as the horsemen started to gallop toward the fort. He

started cutting the enemy down from behind. Riderless horses stampeded after the

cavalry to make noise but they were harmless as long as no one got in their way.

Josie vanished from the conference room as soon as she pushed the button for

Zatanna. She appeared on the ramparts of the fort. The defenders were in disarray.

Jack used Phantom Detective to slip through the Enterprise’s hull. He became normal

just long enough to speed toward the ground. Then he became Gravity and headed

down as fast as he could.

Birds erupted from Josie as she stood on the rampart. Jack could feel the heads

popping as he descended. He landed beside her and broke the charge of horses by

lifting them off the ground and holding them for a second before turning them around

and putting them down.

Josie returned to normal as her power ran out. She took a moment to assess the

damage as Jack lifted her off the ground in a gravity bubble. He had enough power

to carry her clear of the explosions of bone and brain that had happened.

“We’ve talked about this overextending,” said Jack. He put her down on the outside

of the fort.

“I was doing fine,” said Josie. “Besides Mister Warner was here.”

“What are you two doing here?,” asked Mister Warner. “Who’s watching our

guests?”

“The security team I put in place to protect Rickard,” said Josie. “I need to gather

intelligence. You guys go back up and check to see if there is something we missed

since I didn’t get a quest clear.”

“So we saved the Fort, but it was the wrong fort?,” said Jack.

“Looks like it,” said Josie. “Go ahead. As soon as I get a book of knowledge from one

of these guys, I will be back up to help figure out what the rest of this was about.”

Jack became normal and waved at the soldiers at the gates. They seemed to be in

shock. He didn’t blame them. Their own troops had tried to kill them.

“Enterprise, keep an eye on Josie and shoot at anything that looks like a threat to

her until she comes back aboard,” said Jack into his com band.

“Affirmative,” was the reply.

Jack became Ikaris and flew up to the Enterprise. He landed on the top of the bridge,

and became Door Man to get inside. He dropped down on the deck and straightened

from the landing. He walked over to the elevator to head down to the conference

room.

Mister Warner was ahead of him, using Phantasmo to get through the hull in a

few seconds. He stood beside Kyle like he never left.

“We didn’t get a quest clearance even though the guys on horseback had readied

weapons and were about to attack the fort,” said Jack. “Any ideas why?”

“Maybe you didn’t get all of them,” said Kyle.

“A multiprong assault?,” said Jack. “Where do we start looking for the rest of it?”

“Probably somewhere else on the border,” said Rickard. “Josie used that bird attack

to kill all of the Montrose in the capitol when we first met after Caroline was

recovered.”

“She did the same for Major Hax,” said Russ.

“She didn’t do it for me,” said Hax. “She did it as a warning. I admit I didn’t take it

as seriously as I do now.”

“No one takes the awesome power of the Ear Ripper seriously,” said Jack. “Until the

one day they have no ears. But that isn’t helping us. So we need a fresh take on how

to proceed.”

“Whatever is planned has to happen soon,” said Rickard. “I have sent word that the

border has to be closed as much as possible. Any planned attack will have to plan

around that.”

“Or they planned to use that as the basis of their excuse to attack,” said Glunt.

“So how did they put that many men together for one fake attack?,” asked Jack.

“They hired adventurers?”

“I don’t think the guild is allowed to operate in Shemmaria,” said Budd. “They

want their actions kept to their own forces.”

“Doesn’t matter,” said Vin. “Every other country does allow the guild to operate

which means this force could have been assembled in other countries and brought

here to do whatever job they were supposed to do.”

“They were assembled in Solas,” said Josie as she walked into the room. “They were

promised gold to destroy the three outposts here. So we stopped them before they

could carry out their objective.”

“How do you know that?,” asked Glunt.

“I asked the horses some questions,” said Josie. She handed Glunt a book she had

put together. “A man named Orson was their contractor.”

“Where is this Orson?,” said Worldy.

“Solas,” said Glunt. He ran his finger down the page as he read. “He was at the border

when the battalion was launched. It doesn’t say if he is still there. He has to be an

agent.”

“Most of these soldiers handled the human traffic which is why they were marked,”

said Josie.

“Oh, they might have worked for you on your Goblin Tree thing,” said Jack. He

rubbed his scar over his eye. “Who knew they would bite the hand that fed them?”

“Is that some kind of trick question?,” said Vin.

“Not really,” said Jack. “I was thinking maybe we should pull back and see what they

would do next. It might take them days to realize the plan failed unless they had some

kind of spotter watching things.”

“Only part of the plan failed,” said Josie. “That’s why we still have the quest. We

need to do something to figure out the rest.”

“You need to talk to Orson,” said Kyle. “It seems the next step.”

“I think Kyle is right,” said Mister Warner. “I wonder who runs Orson?”