There we were looking out over a large drop down to red Martian dirt down below, a pile of guards picking themselves up barely a few steps away. Even if we were to fight them, they would be followed by more and more. Most disappointingly, we weren’t supposed to fight them. Sure, they were all from Extra and we wanted to remain on good terms with them after this whole mission but still.
“I’m not… good at climbing,” Midnight commented.
“Oh, we wouldn’t want to climb down this anyway,” I pointed out. “They’d have direct shots over the edge at us.”
“And they’ll have direct shots at us without the benefit of the edge here in a moment,” Kendrux commented.
“Yep,” I agreed. “Midnight, time for our new spell. It’s gonna have to be…” Whoa, we were right on the edge as I did the numbers. “A 12-9 split for Multicasting. I mean fly,” I clarified to clear up any ambiguity for Midnight. This was not the right time to make any mistakes.
I was already gathering mana, and our training together quickly had Midnight respond. The first targets were Zeb, Khithae, Swiss Arms, and Kendrux. I chose them because, frankly, Olim and Evans were less important.
We weren’t going to leave them, though. “Again,” I declared. “Also you four can fly now,” I said, pointing at them.
“How do I- oh,” Zeb said as she floated into the air. “I see, I’m dreaming. That makes sense.”
“Nope, you’re not dreaming.” I said as I ducked down, lasers blasting over my head as our greased buddies scrambled to their feet. Kendrux had reacted the most quickly, floating up and then flipping herself over the wall to gain cover. Swiss Arms stood beside the door, out of the line of fire. Zeb was kind of flailing.
A final surge of mana spread from Midnight and I towards the remaining two- while also filling us, of course. We could have even gotten one more person, but I wasn’t interested in letting any of the angry Martians fly after us.
I grabbed Zeb and Midnight as I took off, making sure that everyone was moving properly. “Come on!”
“Everyone stay close!” Swiss Arms said. “I’ll guard the rear!”
“Get below the edge!” Kendrux ordered, dragging down her two subordinates and bringing them towards my clump. Khithae fit in with us quite well.
Midnight was more than just slightly nervous as we looked down at a hundred foot drop. One that probably didn’t have nice safety measures in place to keep people from falling.
I heard the sounds of fire behind us, and saw beams streaking past our group. A quick glance over my shoulder showed Swiss Arms blockading the way to the rest of us with her body. And hopefully some sort of fancy gadgets. Also, she was… growing larger? The second casting of Shift Size shouldn’t have worn off just yet, though.
Ah, I got it. She was resisting. With the spell near its end, it would be pretty easy to shrug off the effects. For my part, I let go of the hold on the threads of magic I had there- though some spells weren’t easy to end intentionally before their time elapsed.
Yes, there was some sort of barrier there, but I couldn’t just look towards her. “The hills there!” I said. “They should provide cover!”
“And, we’ll need it,” Kendrux said. “They’ll scurry some proper ships in a few moments here.”
Zeb wriggled free of my grip, but kept flying along. “This is fun!” she commented. “We’re going into those hills there?”
“Yes, but-”
She began pumping her legs- half of which still looked like arms and all of which looked weird at the moment- and somehow she sped up instead of spinning out of control. I hadn’t exactly been holding back on how fast I was flying, and it was surprising to see her pull ahead. Hmm, maybe she was being more aerodynamic with her head on angle. I leaned forward, finding that my body lingered in the orientation just fine. I pulled a few feet ahead of the others by the time they noticed, but most of us kept up.
Swiss Arms was a bit behind, though not because she couldn’t figure it out. She was still blocking the majority of the attacks directed at us. Not all of them, unfortunately, as the enemy had begun to spread out and she could only cover the most direct angle. There had to be at least a dozen people shooting at us, though fortunately it seemed like we were out of the highest effective range of their blaster weapons.
The hills were further than I thought, which was both good and bad. Bad, because it took longer to get to them- but good because the random crags and valleys in them were more significant.
I was hit in the side, though my suit blocked most of the damage. Several others of us were grazed by incoming attacks. Midnight had his own combined defensive layers, and I was pretty sure Khithae and Zeb had something functional for the mission- I couldn’t see at the moment since most of us were still under illusory magic.
I had no idea about the Martian gangsters, but they were responsible for their own survival. Casting Fly on them was the last I could help out. The local mana levels weren’t that bad, but they certainly weren’t anything to write home about. Midnight and I had only regenerated a few points since we arrived in this world.
All of us chased after Zeb, bringing us to a deep rocky valley in the hills. The immediate fire we were under had dropped off, but we’d spotted some ships on the horizon before we dipped down.
“We need to find cover!” Swiss Arms shouted to the group.
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“We also need to land soon,” I said. Size Shift had worn off for most of us now, making the Bunvorixian and Celmothian smaller. Khithae and I grew back to our natural sizes. “Fly doesn’t last that long. That includes you, Zeb! Remember that this isn’t a dream!”
“What do you know, dream alien?” Zeb countered. “I think you just don’t want me to fly.”
“If I’m part of the dream, then I should know when you won’t be able to fly.”
“Oh, good point!” she said, circling around where we were landing a few times before setting down.
Midnight was clutched onto my shoulder. He might have preferred wrapping himself around a rock, but we had to move.
“We need to find a cave,” Kendrux said. “Or at least an overhang. Unless you have any magic for this?”
I shook my head.
Khithae concurred. “I don’t have any illusions or the like. Just tech stuff. I might be able to depower part of a ship but…”
“That wouldn’t exactly keep us hidden,” Kendrux agreed.
“You want a cave?” Zeb said. “This way!”
She scurried off without explanation, but since she seemed to have some idea what she was doing and we had nothing better, we chased after her. And around a corner or two, we found something.
“Look, a cave!” she said. With Disguise still going for a while, she looked extremely odd. I could presume she was shaking her tail, though.
What she called a cave looked more like a hole in the side of the hill to me. However… it did seem to go some way inside. The downside was that it was barely three feet high at its highest. Short enough that the Martians felt the need to duck their heads as they went in.
Swiss Arms tapped my shoulder. “Can you make it?”
“It’s only a little worse than Celmothian architecture,” I shrugged. I didn’t have the mana to change size again, but I could crawl in there. “I’ll go last.”
“How about I go last,” Swiss Arms said. “I can keep the back safe.”
Well, considering everyone had gone in front- with Khithae now being a very tall Martian-looking individual and crawling- I didn’t argue about it. Midnight hopped off my shoulder when I got down to the ground, going just ahead.
“It’s dark in here,” Zeb commented.
“That’s what happens when you go into a hole,” Olim commented. Probably.
“It opens wider up here,” Kendrux said. “I think there’s enough room for us all to fit?”
“I’m not sure,” I said, looking into the larger area. “Hey, Zeb, how did you find this place?”
“Oh, it was easy!” she commented. “I just followed the scent of something that smelled like it lived in dirt.”
“Ah,” I nodded. “That would explain the three foot tall burrowing mammal behind you guys.”
“... I hoped I was imagining that shape,” Kendrux admitted. Then the thing lunged at her. She blocked it with her forearm, and its rodent-like teeth sunk into it. Apparently the Martians could see well enough to detect the motion, at least. Her words slipped naturally to her native language as she shouted. “Rust Mole!” The word she shouted sort of translated, though I got the feeling that the words didn’t quite match the true meaning in Martian. “No blasters!”
Oh good. And I was worried I wouldn’t get to actually fight anything today.
Olim and Evans tried to wrestle the thing in the dark. They weren’t doing great. Zeb was sniffing around trying to find anything. Khithae kicked the thing in the head, apparently having quite good vision in the dark. That shoved the whole pile back far enough for me to crawling into the room.
For all that she was being mauled, Kendrux was taking the situation matter of factly. “Blasted rodent. Mage, you can see?”
“Yep,” I said. “Can’t really get in there though.”
“You two lugs! Up against the wall!”
Zeb seemed to think that applied to her as well, though she also didn’t seem to know where the wall was. Still, Olim and Evans pulled away, letting me get past them. I didn’t have a ton of experience wrestling mole-things, but I got behind it and wrapped my arms below its jaw, squeezing tight. The thing let go and started squealing.
“What are the chances there are more of these things?” I said as I wrestled it. It claws at my arms, but its teeth weren’t able to angle towards me and I kept it in a lock so it couldn’t spin around.
“Do you see any other tunnels?” Kendrux asked.
I tilted my head to try to see, but Khithae answered that. “Looks like it’s just this chamber.”
“Then we’re probably good.”
“Need any help?” Swiss Arms commented.
“No lasers!” Kendrux shouted.
The clear sound of blades being released came from beyond the mass of fur. “I have blades.”
“I don’t think,” I grunted. “That we need to kill it.” Its struggles were slowing, now.
“Well, I’m ready if necessary.”
It wasn’t, as the thing passed out a few moments later. Though, that was somewhat in question.
“Well now what do we do with it?” Kendrux asked. “It’s just gonna wake up.”
“Hmm…” I frowned. If only we had Ceira. She could talk to it. Speaking of which. “Why don’t we bind your wounds first and then figure that out.”
“And yours, I’m betting,” Kendrux replied.
“Eh, nothing’s deep,” I said. “Khithae, did you take the first aid course?”
“I can wipe wounds and use bandages, but don’t expect stitching.”
“I can stitch,” Swiss Arms said. “And relevantly, see in the dark.” She held up her hands, and her fingers split open to reveal needles.
“Well, great. Start with her. That’s a deep bite.”
Kendrux grunted. “That’s what happens if you tromp into a rust mole’s burrow. Should have recognized the opening, but I’m not exactly a wilderness gal.”
“So what happened?” Khithae asked. “With the mission. Did we fail?”
“Partially depends on what you found,” Kendrux deflected. She grunted slightly when Swiss Arms used a cotton swab drenched in an antibacterial agent. Which might have been alcohol, but clearly stung.
Swiss Arms answered while she was beginning to stitch up the Martian- from the inside out. “Well, the good news is we retrieved database information. Our extraction wasn’t exactly clean, though. As you can tell.”
“What happened?” Midnight asked. He was hanging out in my lap, and I was just glad that the roof here was high enough for me to mostly sit up.
“Well, my identity got compromised,” Kendrux said. “My face is too well known, I guess.”
“She means she ran into her ex,” Swiss Arms said. Kendrux’s curse was an acknowledgement as well as an expression of physical pain.
“... Did you try to tell them you were leaving?” I asked. “And had a good reason.”
“They immediately started screaming at each other,” Swiss Arms shook her head.
Well, considering that the infiltration probably shouldn’t have worked given most of us weren’t experts in that field, I didn’t think the results were that bad. Here we were, totally escaped and not at all dead. No wonder they got Spot out if that was the level of expected security.