“Pedro! It’s great to see you again,” Norman exclaimed, holding the man at arm's length after embracing him in a tight hug. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“…Um. Good to see you too,” the slightly flustered Pedro responded. “…The Admiral asked me to come.”
Norman rolled his eyes and gestured for Pedro to take a seat. “Obviously. But why are you here? You don’t strike me as the politicking type. And since you were found by my guards admiring the city, I assume you aren’t a prisoner of some sort?”
Pedro waved his hands frantically, trying to dispel Norman’s concern. “Oh no, nothing like that.” Then he sighed. “I took on a post as a councilor and sort of spiritual guide when I returned to California. My services and minor ability to heal and protect helped out quite a bit. Especially with the war going on.”
“You aren’t on the front are you?” Norman asked in concern.
Pedro shook his head. “While my skills would be of significant value at the front,” he cleared he throat, “especially against the undead… I haven’t told anyone about them. After being responsible for your people's deaths it would be too much. I can’t do that anymore. But I still wanted to help. Which is why I took a post in a recovery ward.”
Honestly, Norman wouldn’t have cared one bit if Pedro was torching the Council’s undead by the truckload. They weren’t his people. And they were little more than mindless reanimated bodies. He doubted Pedro saw it that way though so he chose not to mention it.
“I can understand your reluctance, but that doesn’t really explain why you’re here.”
Pedro smiled. “Life is a journey, Norman, sometimes it leads you to unexpected friends,” He spoke wistfully, gesturing toward Norman, “you are a perfect example. Do you remember a woman named Evelynn?”
Norman’s smile evaporated. “I see.”
“I don’t blame you for what you had to do, Norman. War can bring out the worst in people.”
It was all becoming clear now why Pedro, who had saved him from what would likely have been certain death at the hands of the Brotherhood, would be involved here. He wouldn’t hold it against the man, but he still needed answers.
“So, you were treating Evelynn and the Admiral needed information?”
“Yes. He flew us to his ship and once I realized Eve was talking about you, well I filled the Admiral in on what I knew.”
Norman lifted an eyebrow, “Eve?”
It was hard to tell in the light and with Pedro’s darker skin tone, but he could swear he saw the man’s cheeks go red.
“Yes, well, we’ve spent a lot of time together. As I said, life can lead you to unexpected friends…”
“… or lovers.” Norman finished for the man.
“Yes,” Pedro replied simply.
“Well, I’m happy for you Pedro.” He was going to add that he thought Evelynn was a spirited woman, but he thought that would be in bad taste considering how he came about that information. Instead, he changed the subject. “So, the Admiral, tell me about him.”
“Not much to tell. The man seemed competent and caring the one time I met with him. As for the trip here, he was rather quiet and stoic. It’s not like they confide in me. I’m just a tagalong because of my attachment to you.” The man seemed exasperated by that.
“Sorry to dig like this, but it’s important.”
“It’s fine.”
“I only have one more question. Did the Admiral’s actions today seem out of character for him?”
“I suppose so. But then again I don’t think anyone expected those Council folks to arrive.”
“You and me both,” Norman muttered.
“I wish we could sit down and have a nice dinner and chat, but I can’t be seen taking sides in this argument.” Norman reached into his suit pocket and produced a slip of folded paper that he handed Pedro.
The man accepted the paper with a questioning look before opening it. On it was just a set of numbers and a date.
“What’s this?”
Norman smiled. “It’s for the Admiral. If you would be so kind as to deliver that to him.” Norman stood. “You can tell him this as well. With the Council here, I can’t in good conscience agree to help or assist him in any way, shape, or form.” Pedro seemed to sag slightly at these words. Which would help sell this little charade.
It was true that Norman couldn’t be seen helping them in the open, but with Grobert’s ability, nothing was stopping them from setting up a fork of teleporters into the SCA. That brought up another question and he turned back to Pedro. “What does the Admiral call the area they control?”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
“…Huh, oh. Everyone just calls it the American Commonwealth.”
“Really?”
Pedro shrugged. “The name became popular a long time after I left. When people began to realize life wasn’t going to return to normal and the American government wasn’t going to come to save them. Nobody really adds the American part anymore. It’s too sore a reminder of what was lost I think.”
Norman thanked Pedro for the information and had the Death Knights walk him back to the Ministry.
After finishing a few other tasks, Norman headed back toward the Ministry himself. Eugene had left before his meeting with Pedro so he would meet him and the other members of his cabinet there.
He was halfway across the square that housed the Ministry building when an explosion rocked the area. Norman was thrown into a nearby grassy berm by the concussive force of the blast. He groaned in pain and tried to stand, forgetting just how much it sucked getting hurt in his human form.
Nolix and Lohr were quick to rush over and help him. They must have been far enough away not to be harmed by the blast. Then again, they were also fully armored, Norman was not.
“Sir, are you ok?” Nolix asked worriedly as he reached into a satchel at his waist to retrieve a potion.
“Wha- What the hell happened?” Norman asked woozily as his guards helped him upright.
He accepted the offered bottle as Lohr spoke up. “It’s an attack of gomer, Sir.”
As the potion went to work to fix Norman’s concussion, he focussed on where the man was pointing. A large black sphere at least forty feet around was lodged inside one wall of the Ministry, and from an opening in the side poured a dozen of the Gorfan’s genetically modified assassins. Only these were even larger and seemed to have weapons grafted onto their bodies that fired small green orbs.
As the projectiles zipped through the air and impacted the workers, Norman could hear a distinct sizzling sound. So either acid or some sort of plasma. Whatever it was, it was extremely effective against the undead. The twenty-odd greykin workers that had rushed to defend the Ministry were cut down with a single shot each. And even after death, their bodies continued to liquefy.
Three of the enemy soldiers skittered towards them and Norman quickly remembered he was only wearing a suit. He activated his armor at the same time he cast Bone Shield. Three of the projectiles impacted the shield, nearly sending it off course, but Norman quickly corrected it and prepared another spell.
While he was doing that, Nolix gave an angry bellow and hurled his spear at superhuman speed. The projectile caught the first gomer by surprise, tearing straight through the creature's midsection without slowing. It also managed to carve two of the tentacles off the gomer behind it.
The first one dropped but the other two increased their speed and peppered the trio with a hail of the green projectiles. Not to be outdone, Lohr pulled a dirty stream of water from a nearby fountain and hurled it at the uninjured attacker. Norman knew from Nolix’s report of the creatures that they were mostly immune to watery pressure. But Lohr had done quite a bit to improve his water magic in the last few months. The stream of water condensed down to a pinprick and sliced the gomer in two like a knife through hot butter.
The last one paused and fiddled with something on its weapon. This gave Norman just the time he needed to cast Death Ray on it. The creature fell over dead but not before Norman heard an ominous beep.
There was no time to react as the weapon attached to the creature’s limb exploded in a cloud of yellow vapor, covering an area thirty feet across before it ignited into another explosion. For the second time in less than ten minutes, Norman was thrown through the air. This time he clipped his shoulder against the nearby fountain’s stone wall and was jerked to a painful halt.
The armor had done its work and kept him alive, but there was a painful clicking when he attempted to move his arm. He stood up shakily and brushed himself off, looking for his two guards as the potion mended the damaged shoulder.
He let out a string of curses as he spotted the lower half of Nolix’s body, the green goo continuing to melt away at the remains. There was no sign of Lohr, but the man had been closer to the explosion than Nolix. So not only were these things genetic abominations, but they also acted as suicide troops. That didn’t bode well for the tight confines of the Ministry building.
Norman quickly surveyed the area, spotting pockets of fighting all over the place. So far the only dead gomer were the three his team had dispatched. But people were holding their own and preventing the creatures from escaping into the city to cause more chaos. He saw more guards and Death Knights racing across the square to assist the beleaguered construction workers. Norman would have smiled at his people’s tenacity in the face of death, but he was too enraged.
He was just about to wave the guards over when a shadow caught his eye. He looked up just in time to see another huge black orb slam into the side of the building, only feet from where the first landed. This orb went straight through the outer wall and vanished inside. The building groaned ominously from the impact, but it held. The gron engineers knew how to build sturdy structures.
“What the fuck!” Norman raged as he glanced back in the direction the shadow had come from. A weird ripple high in the sky settled. And for most, that was all they would see but Norman saw through the magic. His pendant allowed him to pierce the veil of invisibility cloaking a large flying ship of some sort. He could see a hive of activity aboard the vessel even from down here. It was clear they were loading a third black orb and he could see a fourth situated on the ship. If each of those balls contained a dozen of these gomers, his forces may not be able to hold out.
Some of the guards stationed at the wall must have noticed the ship because magic was being fired from that direction. Only it either fell short or impacted that weird ripple that seemed to cloak and shield the vessel.
“John!” Norman yelled, looking around but not spotting the wraith that had reported to him about the Admiral less than an hour ago. He was about to give up and go look for Eugene when the wraith came flying over.
“Sorry, Sir. I was helping to eliminate some of the Gorfan’s soldiers.”
“You don’t need to apologize. You see the ship up there?” Norman pointed.
“No, but I can see where the magic is being fired at.”
“Good enough. Kill everything on board and secure the vessel.”
John saluted and floated off as fast as he could, his features elongating from his human form into his attack form. It would expose his spies, but he was past caring at this point.
Norman wiped a bit of blood from his lip as he strode toward the Ministry with renewed purpose. He didn’t know how the Gorfan had learned of this meeting, but he had a good idea who to blame. Every time Norman tried diplomacy or playing nice it blew up in his face. He was done playing nice. He would get his answers one way or another. If it had to come from his enemies' corpses, then so be it.