“They just can’t stay away long.” Rooks shook her head as she looked at her screen. “We’ve seen some of these ships before. We damaged them in the last fight. They repair fast.”
“More ships too,” a Scaldin man called back over the com.
Rooks remembered he was Ivo, an officer that Alban had served under on the Ischyros before he got the ship himself. The two were decent friends, even more so than Rooks and Castles.
Forty ships. The Volanter had brought forty ships, and her group had twenty-nine large vessels to work with. Iruedim and Scaldigir were outmatched. It was a good thing they had a different strategy.
Fauchard, Guisarme, and Bardiche pressed forward, with Voulge, Corbin, and Ranseur just behind. The Scaldin ships hung back as if too distressed to help their new friends against such a large foe. Some Scaldin ships even slid further back into the formation, and of course, those five Scaldin ships guarded the wormhole, even though the Volanter threatened space far from it.
In reality, the Scaldin weren’t scared, but it fit their character and their newness as Iruedim’s ally to hang back as if rethinking their involvement.
Inez hovered at Rooks side. “Should I begin my own spell?”
“No,” Rooks said. “All other mages, ready a spell, set it off immediately after the traps execute.” Rooks glanced at Inez. “I’ve been thinking about our com device. I believe I asked you to modify it?”
Inez nodded. “It’s done. I damaged the circle enough to make the connection shaky, but it still works. I almost broke it. Kind of wish I had Ed…” Inez averted her eyes. “What do you want me to do with it?”
“It would be ideal if we could send orders to some of the smaller ships and trick them into thinking those orders came from their own people.” Rooks gestured to the door. “Supervise the com device. Get a team to transport it here.”
Inez started for the door. “I guess you’re going to give the false orders.”
“If a good opportunity arises.” Rooks turned away. She didn’t know yet what kind of false orders she would plant. Perhaps, she would do nothing and save the device for a later time. She thought she only had one chance to use it, and it had to be the best.
Rooks watched the windshield. Volanter ships sailed closer. Their pale green hulls blended together and made the enemy seem like an amorphous mass. Rooks glanced at her screen. It showed the enemy advance and each distinct ship. Half of the Volanter fleet moved ahead. The rest stayed back.
“Alright, we’ve got about half of them advancing on us. Let’s fall back and see if we can’t trigger our little traps. Remember to get out of the blast zone as quickly as possible.” Rooks watched her screen.
Her ships slid back, falling into places beside the Scaldin. Her ships continued to retreat, and the Scaldin ships surged forward. They led the battle now and kept up that aggression, as if to make up for their earlier cowardice. The Scaldin advanced and stayed just out of perfect alignment, keeping their formation too far off the mark, the point at which the traps would trigger. The Volanter slid into the spaces left by Rooks’ vessels. More Volanter backed them up, effectively surrounding a handful of Rooks’ fleet.
Then, the Volanter slowed, but they did not fall back fast enough. Rooks watched her screen to see the Scaldin ships line up in a perfect row, with Volanter still between some pairs. On screen, ripples rolled from the Scaldin ships, showing the explosions that she did not yet feel. A moment later the Fauchard rocked.
“That worked very nicely,” Rooks congratulated an Inez who had not yet returned.
The trapped hull plates had been Inez’s idea, if not all her work.
A line of spells showed on Rooks screen. More ripples and explosions moved across her view. The real thing was too bright to watch, especially given that the Volanter began counter spells of their own. At least, no one would try the shockwave bunched up as they were.
Rooks frowned. “We wounded them, but how bad?”
Before someone answered, the twenty wounded ships began a hasty retreat. Someone on the lower level of Rooks’ bridge rattled off a quick list of damages. Rooks smiled. The list was far too compressed to convey the level of damage sustained by the Volanter. Rooks didn’t allow herself any more celebration.
Twenty Volanter ships still waited on the outskirts of the battle, but it was the little riders that made Rooks most concerned.
“How many windows did we board up?” Rooks crossed her arms and aimed her question askance.
The fact that Pan liked to pop into Volanter ships and wreak havoc couldn’t be lost on the Volanter. Rooks thought they might turn that little tactic on her ships.
“Every window that has not been boarded up has a mage or a summons guarding it,” an officer reported.
Rooks nodded. She’d loaded her ships beyond carrying capacity, with tons of extra mages. She reminded herself that she couldn’t walk a hall without running into ten. No Volanter would make it through unaccosted, if they decided to be as bold as Pan. And, it seemed like most didn’t have the luxury of relying on the aggression of a familiar.
Pan petted her familiar’s neck and opened a portal to space. The Ischyros’ bridge went silent, a small change from the quiet that came before. The Ischyros rested far from the fight, just ahead of Iruedim’s wormhole, helping to protect but really to flee back to Scaldigir should things become dire.
“Now, destroy as much as you like, but if the Iruedians start losing, come right back,” Alban warned.
“That’s going to happen at some point.” Pan climbed onto her dragon’s back, right behind its neck. She sat astride and the fur felt wholesome against her hands. “We can’t beat forty ships.”
Alban looked somewhere behind Pan. “Sotir?”
“I ran the scenarios earlier. If they’d come before we were ready, we would have lost, but they came in the window I thought they would. We have a decent chance.” Sotir rubbed his head. “I’ll try to get some real time readings. Hopefully, I’ll be more useful this time around, further from the battle.”
“Goodbye.” Pan stared at Sotir when she said it, feeling like a hero wishing her lover farewell.
Sotir smiled. “I’ll see you again.”
“Get going,” Alban said.
Pan nodded once and laid down on her dragon. The scales folded around her, and her familiar flew out the portal into space.
Pan had a long way to go before she would reach the battle. Below, she saw Iruedim, with shimmering magical spheres by the dozens, hovering just outside its atmosphere.
It was a nice view, but Pan’s thoughts moved immediately to her deal with Eva. Eva had called it off. Eva no longer wanted a Volanter computer. She abandoned all plans of keeping Lurren’s technology ahead of other countries – at least by way of Volanter tech. Pan got the message in the early hours of the morning. The abrupt change woke Pan up instantly.
Too bad too. Pan was starting to like the deal. She thought of all the things she might ask Eva for. Pan could ask for one of the small robots that Eva shepherded, though that would be a dark thing to do, to steal one of Eva’s family, no matter how cute Pan found them. Pan could ask for some other piece of technology. Eva lived in a workshop, and surely, Pan could find something to take home.
The deal was off. So, Pan would get nothing.
“I should take a computer anyway, say I had already done it. Then, she would have to honor the deal. What do you think?” she asked the dragon.
The dragon snorted. Talk of the deal made its sides quake.
Pan patted its fur. “There. There. We’ll change the subject. How about we kill something? That will make you feel better.”
Pan stared at the battle ahead. Magical firelight spread through the Scaldin ranks, smoking the Volanter ships in between. Rooks’ fleet had lured quite a few, but more Volanter hung back.
“We should take care of those far ones,” Pan told her familiar, hearing that strange timber to her voice. “And, not to lose the element of surprise...”
We’re going to portal – far.
Pan drew the portal ahead of her dragon, and the dragon snaked inside. Pan dropped the portal fast, hiding the magic that lit the sky.
Pan’s familiar wove between magical projectiles in the large Volanter fleet. All the ships around her remained undamaged as they had not risked pursuit of the Iruedians.
The dragon cruised by a window, and Pan got a spotty view of the interior, despite the dragon’s smooth ride.
“Oh, they painted over them. Well, most of them.” Pan shook her head. “Well, we’re not invited inside, I guess. Let’s go around to the back. I’ve been studying Volanter ships, and I have a better idea how their engines work.”
The dragon fell and rolled beneath the ship, skimming the lower hull as it headed for the back.
Pan had to admit her plan might be doomed. Bigger circles glowed brighter and painted their intentions in the sky. If Pan tried to move entire ships into each other or tried to portal the butt off a vessel, she might just earn a counter. Still, she would try. Going inside the ships was always a risk, and today, she was too tempted to waste time looking for that computer.
The back of the ship came into view, and her familiar flew below the engine, which seemed to spew some faintly colored gas out of several ports.
She could put a portal around the entire back end and certainly destroy the ship’s ability to move forward, but why announce herself?
“I wonder what happens if we plug them?”
Pan didn’t have anything convenient to plug starship engines with, and this far from Iruedim, she had no slag, no satellites, or space rocks.
“Maybe, I’ll just squeeze them shut.”
Pan envisioned her telekinetic circle. It popped into being around a dozen of the ports. With a final flash of the runes, the ports squeezed, until they weren’t holes but straight lines of metal.
Nothing happened.
“Guess I should do the rest.”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Pan repeated the cast and pinched the rest of the ports closed.
Still, nothing happened.
“Well, that’s disappointing.”
The dragon growled. She felt rather than heard it.
“Give it some time. It might be brilliant. We’ll do it to that other ship over there, and then, head inside when it inevitably does nothing. There must be a window or two they haven’t painted.”
Meladee stood by the Halfmoon’s dash, peering out the windshield to get the best possible view. She had never summoned a creature to space before, but she shook out her fingers in preparation for her first.
Benham flew their little Halfmoon, painted jet black, close to the battle.
“I can’t believe you want to do this.” His fingers moved slow over the dash, easing them towards an already damaged ship.
“Look, we’ve got nowhere else to go. Rooks said she had too many people on her ships.” Meladee shrugged. “Those ships are huge. I don’t want to see what too many people looks like.” Meladee propped herself on the dash and leaned forward to get a better view of the window. “Besides, I’ve got this idea I want to try. We’re pretty well camouflaged. We can risk it. Then, we’ll go back to Iruedim and hide.” Meladee stared out Halfmoon’s window. “I made this circle small but super detailed, so hopefully, no one will notice.
“With us under here, no one will see us.” Benham sighed. “That Scaldin commander wouldn’t have seen us if we didn’t say something. Okay, get it done.” Benham held the ship steady at the center of a Volanter behemoth.
Meladee stared straight up at the ship. She called her magic circle into being on the Volanter’s underside. It had four rings and more runes than any summoning circle had a right to claim, all crammed together into a tiny arrangement.
The circle glowed, flaring from the center ring to the outer. It popped, and disgorged its beast. A stream of flesh pushed outwards, like a pimple being squeezed. Tentacles snaked at high speeds around the Volanter vessel.
Benham backed the Halfmoon up, and Meladee got to watch as her version of Ul’thetos hugged the Volanter ship. Its tentacles didn’t reach the whole way around, except for three or four. But, the whole mess glommed onto the Volanter ship and covered a portion of its hull. The tentacles tensed, and the Volanter ship started to buckle. Meladee thought the ship would wrinkle at its center, collapse, and take on the shape of an hourglass. That didn’t happen. The ship got a few dents – substantial ones – but then, riders came for her beast.
“Damn,” Benham whispered. He backed the Halfmoon away.
None of the riders gave chase, but they were too close for comfort.
“We can’t sneak all the way home. We might lead some back through the trap system,” Benham said. “I’m going to hide with that Scaldin ship.”
Meladee waved him on. “Yeah, yeah. Do it.” She kept her eyes on her creation and the Volanter riders.
Six riders battled the Ul’thetos, and it swiped at them, with several of its longest tentacles. Halfmoon jolted, and Meladee’s view narrowed, as Benham tucked them between two turrets. Still, she had enough of a view to watch her Ul’thetos die.
“Holy shit. I wanted to squish the whole ship, like a tin can, but I’ll take this.” Meladee made a sound of disgust and stared at her failure.
Then, a portion of the Volanter ship crumbled. It flaked and drifted into space. Bodies popped out. The riders swarmed over the space and tried to pick up a few of the bodies.
Meladee pointed. “They’re probably pissed.”
“I don’t think they know where we are.” Benham’s hands hurried for the switch that would shade their view and hide them better.
Just as he flipped the switch, their com beeped. Benham and Meladee jumped.
“Hitching a ride again?” the ship’s captain asked.
“Sorry. Uh…”
“Ivo,” the man supplied.
Benham nodded once, though Ivo couldn’t see it. “We don’t have a choice. We have to hide or risk leading some Volanter down to Iruedim. We’ve got crappy tech shields and an okay magic one.”
Meladee almost swatted his arm, but she had to admit her shields weren’t as great as her summons. She crossed her arms instead.
“Stay with us for a few minutes then. Though, you may want to secure yourselves. We’re about to advance and put pressure on their retreat. On our way over, you might target that Volanter ship on the end of the enemy’s starboard line. It can’t retreat, but it refuses to die. Why don’t you help it?”
“Okay.” Meladee squinted through the tinted screen and found the target.
Scorch marks and breaches marked the hull. The ship’s center looked a little thinner than its comrades’. Meladee thought her Ul’thetos could manage a 360 hug. She pointed at the ship.
Benham nodded at Meladee. He saw it too. “You told us to secure ourselves, right? You don’t want us to fly over?”
Ivo answered, “Correct. Secure yourselves. I assume that ship is within your mage’s influence?”
Benham pressed a button, and Halfmoon jolted again. “We’re secure now.” Benham shot a questioning gaze at Meladee.
She made a face, but she said, “I think I can reach it.”
Benham pressed the com. “Alright. We can do it.”
“We’ll get a little closer as we advance, in case that helps. Ivo out.”
Meladee thought it might help to get closer. She tested a firecracker spell, throwing it as far as she could see. Her magic felt a little thin, and the runes glowed weak.
“What are you doing?” Benham’s eyes shifted between that spot of light and Meladee.
She relinquished the spell, and the faint light faded. “Just a test. I think I’m going to wait just a bit.” Meladee watched the far-off ship.
Smoothly, their advance began, and it was a slow advance.
Meladee kept her eyes on that ship, but she swiveled side to side. “Gonna be a while.”
Benham braced himself against the console. He smiled and gave a single shake of his head. “I’m glad this Ivo can’t hear you, or you’d be bound to get on his annoyed side, just like with Rooks.”
“Hey.” Meladee would have given Benham a playful swat. Instead, she focused on the far-off ship. Her viewpoint drifted closer. “Next test.”
Meladee imagined the firecracker spell. Her version was a three-ringed abomination of redundant runes. It was the only way she got it to work well. She chose it because it was a chaotic, but effective, mess. If she accidentally cast, she wanted it to be special.
As she watched her test, the runes and rings glowed strong enough.
Meladee sat forward. Her view got a little closer. She dropped the firecracker spell, just as it began to spit sparks. Instead, she called her tiny circle of Ul’thetos summoning. She saw a small spot of light and imagined the ring hard, since she couldn’t see the tiny creation’s details.
The far-off spot of light flared, and again, Ul’thetos streamed out, looking like an explosion of pus. Ul’thetos’ arms ringed the ship in full.
Meladee cheered and hopped out of her seat.
Her Ul’thetos squeezed the ship, and the Volanter vessel popped in two.
Benham cheered as well.
The com beeped. A moment later, Ivo said, “I commend you. If you want to attack anything else on our way, please feel free to do so.”
Meladee felt that her eyes were alight. She could see that same light reflected in Benham’s. Meladee still stood before her chair.
“Are you going to cast something else?” Benham gestured to a new, closer Volanter target.
“Yes, I am.” Meladee sat down. She narrowed her eyes and concentrated on a new circle. It rotated, until she had it right. The spell phased in, then out. It left a patch of decay, slowly spreading. “I call this tooth decay.”
“Agaric?”
“Yeah. But, I’ve really mellowed it out.” Meladee conjured another of the spots. “Cavities.” She pointed as the new spot began to spread.
“Takes some time.”
“But, it’s insidious,” Meladee said.
Soon, she spotted a hole in the enemy hull. That was when her spell stopped, having finished its course of decay. The larger ship’s advance also stopped, quite a bit shy of the enemy but close enough for Meladee to get a good look at her handiwork. Since they held position, she would get to stare at it longer still. She just wished the hole had gotten a little wider.
“I’m going to send them a present.”
Benham gripped the edge of the console. “Just don’t draw too much attention to us.”
“They probably think we’re in this big ship.” Meladee glanced at Benham. “Right?”
Benham spread his hands. “I don’t know. Probably.”
Meladee breathed in and out. “Let’s just put something in the hole.” Meladee conjured her firecracker circle around the jagged hole she’d made.
It flared in red and showed her messy spellwork, not her best creation. A rider flew alongside the ship and noted the new spell. The rider circled back. The spell burst and sparked, and light traveled away, into the hole. A moment later, the lower hull started to come apart in large, jagged flakes.
“Whoa,” Benham breathed.
“Yeah…it’s like a scab.” Meladee didn’t know why, but that was all she could think of – flaking scabs.
The com beeped. “I think this little symbiosis is quite beneficial to my larger efforts. You’ll find yourselves a bit farther from Iruedim. Why not remain until the battle’s end?”
Meladee tapped the com. “Uh…sure,” she answered in a daze. She always wanted to be a more effective mage, but she was surprised to see that wish in action.
Eva hooked the engine panel back into place. She banged the side of the Lurrien vessel and ran around to its cockpit. She gave the vessel a thumb’s up.
Then, she ran back to give it some take off space. Though, she remained on Lurren’s southeast landing site and watched. The ship’s engines hummed. Then, they roared, and the ship lifted into the air. The noise was loud enough to damage organic ears, but Eva needed no protection.
“All set, Eva. Come on back,” Sten called from the side of the landing pad.
Eva turned and trotted off the landing pad, just a circle of cement. She whirled back in time to see the shuttle gone and to feel the last of its breeze push against her.
“Repairs weren’t too bad,” Sten said.
“No, but they’ll keep getting damaged.” Eva shaded her artificial eyes and watched as the shuttle zipped out of sight.
Sten’s shoulder slumped. “Let’s wait out the rest in the station. In fact, we’ve done our duty. We could hand over our responsibilities…”
“Listen to yourself,” Eva spat. “Hand over our responsibilities? No. We’re not leaving.”
“We’ve repaired ten ships already. Others have tapped out.”
“Ten ships is nothing.” Eva strode to the station. She would, at least, grant his wish to wait there.
“Eva, we have no reason to stay, and I’m frankly worried about what other experiments Tiny Tin might perform on the little robots, without supervision.” Sten climbed onto the concrete step that elevated the station.
Inside, Eva could see an organic Lurrien and an android. They spoke into coms and helped to coordinate the Lurrien addition to the fleet. Eva thought she heard them say something about incoming repairs. She glanced behind her and saw two other androids run to the landing pad.
Eva stopped on the concrete step. Her eyes darted to a bench against the wall. Sten sat. She joined him.
The wind blew, and Eva felt a chill in the air. She didn’t wear her coat as she didn’t have Meladee there to tell her the very sight of her bare shoulders made organics feel cold. But, Eva felt cold now, not on the surface of her skin but somewhere beneath it. She crossed her arms.
“Tiny Tin’s passion is repair work,” she said. “And I never experimented with nanites until you showed up. His interest is naturally piqued. If he helps with the experiments, they’ll only advance further, and you know I have little time for them.”
Sten folded his hands in his lap. He watched the broken ship land. “Eva…What will we do when we’ve rebuilt Lurren? What do you think would be the best use of our time?”
Eva stared at the ground and studied the abstract patterns in the new concrete. “We’re in the middle of a battle, Sten. Now is not the time to discuss the future.”
“I’m asking because I want to know what to expect.” Sten craned his neck and watched the sky. “I thought I saw a flash of light, but during the morning, we shouldn’t see anything, unless it’s very close.”
“Might be spellcraft.”
It occurred to Eva that they could die that day. If the Volanter won and seized Iruedim, the Scaldin would flee and forget rendering aid. The organic Iruedians would serve the Volanter. Eva and the other synthetics would not. They could serve no purpose to the Volanter. They were not natural. They were an affront to nature from the viewpoint of a Volanter. They could not breed. They could not perform magic. If the worst happened, Eva and Sten would be destroyed.
“I think we may actually be too concerned about the future,” Eva continued. “Our lives stretch on into forever, but only so long as someone allows it.” Eva glanced at Sten.
Sten stared back. With a straight face, he said, “I will offer to water the plants if it will keep the Volanter from killing me.”
Eva leaned back on the bench and crossed her arms. She smiled slightly. “I won’t offer to do a thing for them. I’m surprised you would.”
Sten shifted. “Well, if I manage to survive, I can always be there to help the other Iruedians, like you eventually managed for Lurren.”
Eva looked up, surprised to see the Lurrien ship already lifting off. Its undercarriage glowed, not from a function but from a sense of aesthetic. Someone, some time ago, thought that ship needed a rainbow of lights, with purple dominating. It was stupid and wasteful and probably got that ship into a lot of trouble in the current battle, lighting up its position in the sky. But, it was pretty.
“I concede that you have a point,” she said. “Alright. I’ll water the plants – if the Volanter defeat us. If the Volanter do not…” Eva slid along the bench to make room for the approaching engineers. The motion put her close to Sten.
“How about we explore some of the more organic aspects our creators bestowed upon us?” Sten scooted closer to her, leaving room on his other side for the second engineer.
“I was thinking we would build Lurren, and then we would make it better.” Eva turned her head to look at him. “We do that, until nothing is left. Then, we discuss this again.”
“In that case, why aren’t we duplicating ourselves? We could do twice as much, twice as fast.” Sten waved off her objection before she said it. “I know. You don’t want to self-copy. But, what if we made new androids. We have the nanites. We could do so much with them. Every life needs some forward trajectory.” Sten gestured, speaking with passion. “What we both need is something to look forward to.”
Eva considered his words. Though, she worried about building new androids. They would know a different Lurren than the one she formed in. They wouldn’t know what they missed. That could be good, but that could be bad. She wanted to reclaim some of the things Lurren lost. A new android would not feel that drive. A new android would make something new and possibly outside the vision. Some might even take a liking to Leonidus.
“Must you always have some new idea to stress my circuits?” Eva counted them off on her fingers. “First, the brain box. Then, you suggest something having to do with our organic sides. Now, you say this about making more androids. This…” Eva gestured to Sten. “…is what I mean when I say you lack focus.”
Sten seemed to consider the criticism. He stared into space or, perhaps, at the approaching androids. “I can’t help it. I have so many ideas.”
Eva discerned a restlessness in him, and that wasn’t good. She needed him to stay focused on the task at hand – rebuilding Lurren. They would not, could not rest, until that was done. And, then, they could work on their forever. Eva thought it should involve more time with the organic beings that would carry her best friends into the future. That was her something to look forward to.