‎Chapter 20: Nothing can go wrong...

Jake fired another magazine from his Uzi into the undergrowth and then shouted frantically for a spare magazine. One of the students ran up, flailing uselessly, and tossed him a visibly heavy sports bag: "It's got everything we've got in it!"

A quick glance revealed a wild mixture of magazines, loose cartridges, batteries and various spare parts in clear plastic containers straight from the local gun shop. Jake tossed his Uzi into the pile in annoyance and pulled two pistols from forearm holsters instead, "I'd better switch to less firepower before I sort this out. Duck!"

A bright beam of light coming from the left quickly ate its way through the bushes and trees at head height. The two threw themselves to the ground, while above them branches and leaves burst into flames and burned up in the air: "You stay down!" With weapons in both hands, Jake deftly shifted position and carefully peered between the undergrowth for a moment before rolling to the side and immediately pressing himself back against the ground. Only then did he mentally process what he had perceived. He hadn't seen any of his opponents. Not a surprising result. Of course he hadn't seen any. After all, they were invisible. Leonardo, the little mastermind, had babbled something about manipulating light waves. In between the incomprehensible mumblings about light refraction, wavelengths, and something physical that Jake couldn't even place, he'd explained that their abilities in light refraction were also responsible for the laser-like beams. As if it would help him to know exactly how he was being sawed into glowing pieces. Whether the thing was using nuclear energy or reshaping magic or sunlight... He hesitated. Sunlight... He called to the student, who was still lying there with his face in the forest floor: "Get me some smoke grenades. As many as you can find. Get some from the university. And if any mages can conjure darkness, bring them here. And infrared night-vision goggles. Don't start running until I start firing."

The student nodded anxiously and bent his legs to sprint off. Jake hoped he would wait for his signal and not take off at the next sound. He looked as if a chirping grasshopper would be enough to set him off.

Another beam of light burned through a tree a few paces to their right. Jake had memorized the angle from which the first beam had come. He assessed the enemy's location a little more accurately, then threw himself sideways out of the bushes and opened fire from both weapons. Bullets smashed into bushes and trees and... An oval object the size of his torso flashed next to a tree. He immediately took further fire at the spot as he ducked sideways towards the safe cover of a large rock. The object flashed again under the impact. Then the shadow around his target darkened. He instinctively concluded that his opponent was now gathering light for a counterattack. He threw himself to the ground and rolled over sideways with his arms stretched out in front of him. In this way, he dived under the beam of light and was still able to continue firing without interruption until he disappeared behind the rock. The other student, meanwhile, had disappeared like a hare, hooked.

Two more ray trails showed him that the shooter was now on the move. He therefore retreated hastily, keeping as much cover as possible. Two steps, hook to the left. Roll off. Sprint through a stretch of open ground, crouching low. Flying roll, stand up and hook to the right. Forward past the surprised student... who was standing completely open and unprotected in the middle of the terrain. Jake slowed down, took cover behind a small rock and waved frantically for him to take cover as well: "Get down! The critters are somewhere right behind me!" He was taken aback: "Leo? Professor Majere said you were to supervise the work on the dimensional portal. What are you doing outside the secured perimeter?"

"The perimeter is no longer particularly well secured..." Leo looked completely relaxed,

However, with a subtle wave of his hand, he tells him to stay under cover: "...Two of the sentries are on their way to the clinic, the protective circle against magical creatures is completely ineffective and when I set up the support posts for the field emitter, it was sawn into manageable pieces. Just as well we hadn't unpacked any of the really important parts yet."

"And that's why you're running unprotected through the... and are you finally going to take cover?!"

As if on cue, the light that fell through the leaves of an oak tree two hundred meters away darkened. Jake assessed the distance to the student in a flash. Too far to run and drag him into cover. Instead, he opened fire. Three shots from each of the guns in his hand, then two clicking sounds rang out. He cursed inwardly, he had been too distracted to count his shots as usual. And he hadn't reloaded immediately after he had stopped. Where had his head been! Self-reproach didn't slow his movements, however, as he ejected the magazines with both hands simultaneously and then reloaded them one by one at lightning speed. He was still saving up for a custom-made ammunition belt in which two magazines were kept ready so that he could supply both weapons with new magazines at the same time. With barely a second to spare, he opened fire. Too late.

A bright flash of light emerged from the treetop. A glaring finger of death that went straight through Leonardo's upper body. The student disappeared in a pillar of flame... Jake blinked. Leonardo wasn't burned, he was literally gone . Without remains. He heard Leo's voice behind him: "Stay down. That was just an illusion. We were aiming for the bastard. Watch out..."

Several electric motors started up with a loud whine. Then there was the whirring of electric Gatlin machine guns. He thought for a moment about how disappointed he had been when he had first heard one of these machine guns live at a meeting of gun collectors during his vacation in America. It was later explained to him that in movies the sound had to be spiced up to make the weapon more impressive.

However, the effect itself was anything but disappointing. The trees that were unlucky enough to be standing nearby were sawed into shavings in a matter of seconds. A crossfire from three directions. Well set up. He spotted a glint the size of a human torso in the air a little way in front of the now bare and trimmed treetop. Vaguely oval, elongated and hard to make out. When it was hit by one of the volleys still systematically sweeping the room, it briefly became more visible. One part began to spread out and buzz... Like an insect with wings. A giant invisible cockchafer or... maybe a scarab. Whatever it was, it flew forward a few steps, then burst into shimmering sparks.

"Sensor evaluation completed. No energy concentrations in the immediate vicinity, no unusual light refraction phenomena, no unassigned radar reflections. Surroundings secure." Jake didn't recognize the mechanical computer voice, but he had no trouble recognizing Leonardo's voice as he stepped out from behind a tree and spoke into a headset: "All clear, thank you."

"Hi Jake, you can get up. It's safe here."

"That was a really good illusion. Totally fooled me."

"Yep. The best one I've managed so far. Completely material. Proper infrared signature, surface texture, heartbeat and everything. Otherwise they're completely ignored. Was the third attempt."

"And who is responsible for the firepower?"

"The guys from the Faculty of Tactical Overkill. The equipment they work with is comparatively primitive and unimaginative, but they have a lot of it. Lots of it!"

"What did Majere give you half an army for? When I saw you setting off, I thought you were going to conquer a small European country."

"He takes the matter with his daughter damn seriously. His instructions were to let nothing and nobody stop us. I think he thought we might have to evict a forest ranger, but what he sent with us was enough to keep the entire German army at bay. But never mind. In any case, it's good that we've already got all the gun nuts here. I can no longer get a connection with my cell phone. Something is interfering with the radio frequencies. Apart from the fact that we had almost no network here in the forest anyway."

"Why didn't Majere come along himself? I mean, if it's so important to him?"

"He's just gathering all the rest of the mages from the academy to cast a portal spell there together to transport him to Carcerus if necessary. I mean, no one seriously expected any obstacles to appear on our side. If the three of them don't show up here, he'll switch to their dimension and turn everything his daughter is holding up there into smoking shards. Then he'll either come back with the others or he'll leave a proper crater there. We'd just have to let him know and he'd surely come here as soon as possible. But we can't reach him without a cell phone. And none of the magic students here know any communication spells."

"How about messengers?"

"I immediately sent Michael and Jannes off in their car when I couldn't reach anyone."

"The twins who are currently writing their thesis on possible applications for plastic explosives?"

"Exactly."

"The two who got so badly lost on the way from the city to university that we found them three days later on a country road with an empty tank?"

Leo waved him off reassuringly: "You have a mobile navigation device with you this time. And it's an almost direct route from here to the university."

"Oh yeah? And how do sat navs work again?"

"They measure radio signals from satellites and... Oh crap! I'll send someone out again in a minute."

Jake grinned briefly, then became serious again: "Do you actually know what we're dealing with?"

"Maximum one meter to one and a half meters long. The basic shape on the radar is elongated oval with irregular bumps on the underside, possibly legs. Surface temperature constant 23.4 degrees Celsius on the infrared sensor. The movement patterns in the sonar suggest insect-like wings with high-frequency wing beats."

"So, what is it?"

"Honestly? I have no idea. The flashes appeared when we unloaded the first truck and I've just given you a complete summary of all the data we've collected since then."

"Great. An invisible giant scarab with laser weapons. No one knows where from... Leo? Are you ok? Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Scarabs! Like in the biology department! Cunylamia, how did we miss that?"

Archeron, the student who had been keeping a close eye on the surroundings, looked at Leonardo just as confused as Jake: "Who is Zunylamien? Who are you talking to?"

"Oh, nothing. Just a... Quote. From... a book..."

Stolen story; please report.

Jake shook his head: "I heard there's a course on lying for beginners in the marketing department. You should sign up. You're terribly untrustworthy."

"Not that important. Or... Anyway, there were a few scarabs made of pure energy in the university. They were found right in the lower floors of the university. And one in the middle of the campus. I should have recognized the description right away, but... Well... Invisible and we don't know what it is..."

Jake grinned, "I think with that description, you'll be forgiven for not recognizing the match."

Leonardo couldn't share his amusement: "Majere has put me in charge of the construction here. He was very specific about what would happen if I didn't get the portal built in time."

"I think I know how we can stop the bugs." Jake folded his arms proudly and waited.

"So, talk!"

"It gets dark around the creatures before the flashes of light. So they use the light from the surroundings. They probably collect and concentrate it somehow. If we could make it dark... Maybe with smoke bombs or darkness spells, then there's no more light for them to focus."

"Might help..." Leo pulled his PDA out of his pocket and scrolled through his list of scanned spells: "Dome of Darkness... Yup... Arch, do you know anyone who knows the..."

"Sure. Laris the shadow. In the third semester. We always call him the obscurantist . He once plunged the whole university into darkness last semester. The principal was... not pleased."

"Give him a call. We also need a few capable illusionists. And smoke bombs just in case. And large portable mirrors. Special mirrors for high-energy laser reflection. The theater club has some..."

Jake raised an eyebrow: "What does our drama club need... No, forget it. I don't even want to know. The main thing is that we get some."

*

The slight boy nervously stroked his short, blond hair. Here in the forest, the visibility was too short for his taste. Far too many trees and bushes. He didn't like the earthy smell of the ground where he was lying in cover either. He gripped the bulky weapon firmly with both hands again. The bell-shaped barrel prevented him from attaching sights, but if he had understood correctly, he didn't have to aim particularly accurately with the thing. On the contrary, he had been told not to fire in a direction where there were people. The "howler", as the guys from the Tactical Overkill faculty had called the thing, was supposed to vibrate a cone-shaped area with a high-energy sound wave so that it burst and was cooked at the same time. When he heard a faint crack in the undergrowth, he flinched, wheeled around, squeezed his eyes tightly shut and pulled the trigger fully. Nothing happened.

He carefully opened one eye and looked at his weapon. A small blue light was glowing. He took his finger off the trigger and the glow stopped. Oh yes... He hadn't disengaged the safety before firing. Perhaps it was for the best. As his gaze searched the shadows of the trees, he found only a small squirrel that seemed to look at him reproachfully. Piri whistled a quiet apology. The squirrel couldn't understand him literally, but understood his intention and scurried away contentedly.

He realized that he was no longer breathing and had even stopped his heartbeat in shock. He consciously breathed in and out a few times to get back into his usual rhythm. It took him a few attempts to get his heart beating again, but then it was more or less back to normal. It was almost all for nothing when he winced, remembering that he was still in a forest full of murderous, invisible creatures and had completely ignored his surroundings for a while. Had it really been necessary to write down his outstanding night vision in the skills section of the damned university questionnaire? The forest was almost plunged into complete darkness, but that wasn't a problem for him. He just hoped the ghost scarabs couldn't see in the dark, too. Given their ability to focus light into lasers, however, that was anything but far-fetched.

It's just stupid that he only remembered that now. He might have been able to talk his way out of it. Patrolling the darkened forest to find and chase away bystanders. How on earth had someone put that crazy inventor Darwinzki in charge? Two werewolves, a dozen students with night-vision goggles, two magicians with suitable spells and himself. According to their glorious guide's calculations, that should be enough for the area. At least after the access roads were all closed. Except that a forest somehow seemed bigger when you were standing in the middle of it. And much more confusing than Leonardo had probably assumed. The searchers had dispersed and lost sight of each other more quickly than had been planned. And now he was sneaking around here alone, where at any moment one of these creatures... He noticed a noise behind a thick, moss-covered tree trunk further ahead. Quietly, he crept around in a slight arc to peer behind it. Silently, he slowly pushed his head past a bush. The figure lay huddled in a hollow in the forest behind the tree trunk, well concealed and poorly camouflaged with a few branches. Too big for a human. At least for an ordinary human: "Asleif? Is that you?"

The figure flinched, the armored helmet of the extra-heavy armor swung around, as did the fat barrel of the futuristic weapon.

"Who's there? I don't see a heat signature!"

"I only have it after eating. It's a metabolism thing. It's me, Piri van Redmond. I told you to keep an eye on the southern edge of the forest. What are you doing here on the west side?"

"According to my GPS system, I'm exactly right. You're on the wrong corner."

"Crap. I probably should have at least brought a compass."

"You should have. Your sector is over there. Have fun."

"Wait a minute, how exactly are you looking for bystanders when you're holed up in a hole here."

The figure, who was over two meters tall, looked down at the ground a little sheepishly: "I am lying in wait for the enemy."

"Huddled here? Are your sensors that good in this armor?"

"Sure. Night vision, radar, infrared..."

"You're hiding here." Piri couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice. "You're better armored than a Leopard 2 tank, have cybernetic eyes and arms with enhanced strength, built-in sensors and who knows what else. I had imagined space marines to be more active somehow."

"Oh yeah? And what do you think will happen if I get hit? They shoot with lasers, so my armored suit won't be much use. If I had a laser-reflecting coating, it would be different. Well, then I'd glow like a Christmas tree in the slightest light, but I'd still prefer that. Lasers go through like butter. And do you have any idea what would happen if I got hurt?"

"It hurts you, then our magicians will heal you or one of the medics will patch you up."

"And who will repair my cybernetic body parts? There are no spare parts for technology that comes from a parallel Earth that is almost two hundred years more advanced. This stuff is all wired together. The graphics cards and computing capacity for my eyes, for example, are housed in my left arm. If it breaks, I'm not just one-armed, I'm blind. And I don't even want to know how that would affect my brain implants."

"Then why didn't you just refuse to take part?"

"I, Asleif Ranakson, soldier of the third company of the Imperial Space Guard, am supposed to admit to being afraid to look for walkers in a forest?"

"Okay, let's leave that. Let's change the subject. Tell me, is that your famous laser gun?"

"Sigmund model IV laser carbine, of course. I always have it with me."

"Lasers, i.e. concentrated beams of light? When it comes to opponents who can deflect light?"

The tall figure fell silent and looked at her weapon, "Oops."

Both turned around as a dark red light flashed next to them. The huge space guard threw himself into cover and fired a volley of bright laser flashes. Piri only took cover far enough to peer through the bushes. Unlike Asleif, who was lying face down in the dirt and firing blindly, he could see that the beams passed ineffectually through a small glowing sphere: "Asleif... Asleif! Stop the firing already! Did you actually have your helmet speakers blaring music during Leo's briefing or did you just sleep standing up? Don't look so offended. And get up! These are the red lights that indicate that the area is now secure and Leo no longer has any unidentified heat sources on the sensors. Now even normal students can see again to some extent and if one of these invisible creatures appears again, we can shoot at it without a second thought. Maybe we should see if there are any other students in the target area first..."

Asleif stood up, put the laser carbine in a holder on his back and pulled a fist-sized object from his belt. He grinned broadly at Piri: "Then there's nothing to stop us using real weapons now."

"Is that a grenade?"

"Field assault grenade. Generates a dozen energy blades for one second, which whirl around in a ten-step radius and shred pretty much everything."

"Don't even think about using that near me!"

Asleif took another good look around and then marched off, keeping a close eye on his surroundings and always staying close to trees and similar cover.

*

Absently, Leonardo downed a large cup of espresso and then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He had spent the last few hours assigning students to patrols, organizing the deployment of the sensors and the distribution of various weapons. He had also prepared the assembly of the portal and checked several calculations for the correct setting several times. He looked at his long to-do list and, with some difficulty, managed to open his eyes wide enough to actually read it. There was something else he should be doing... Or should he wait for someone or something?

A student, proudly wearing a silly pointy mage hat that swayed back and forth with every step, hurried past excitedly: "Hey Leo, I just got the latest reports. The obscurants are already in full force, most of the area is completely cut off from sunlight and the lamps and illusions we've set up don't provide nearly enough power to do anything dangerous with. No matter how great they are at focusing and amplifying sunlight. We've also scanned the last part of the forest. Absolutely no more suspicious locations to be found... Leo?"

Leo, whose eyes had closed briefly, jerked up again and nodded reflexively: "Yes, yes... Everything's ok. I just haven't slept enough lately. But I'm all there! Don't worry. So our perimeter is secure? Good. Then we should..." He hesitated and stared indecisively in front of him for a moment, then yawned extensively: "Then..."

"Should we build the portal?" prompted Archeron.

"That's right! Hey guys, start building the portal!"

Students looked up from their video games, cell phones and books in surprise. Scores were saved and conversations were hastily ended. Then the group slowly began to move. Boxes were opened and the sensitive and sometimes irreplaceable devices were taken out. The assembly of the portal began.