"So we all agree that this is better than waiting to get overrun and slaughtered?" Drenar asks quietly. After their recent endeavor to incite a case of friendly fire to great effect, the Talons soldiers had quickly gotten organized. Valosterla had been utterly livid, and had pointed out that they could try the ducts.
That attempt to do the same thing as they did ended badly, and Nick insisted on closing the ducts and welding them shut. Now Val’s men were periodically shooting holes into the ductwork and walls on the off-chance they were about to be ambushed. It brought a grim smile to Kyle’s face to know they’d made them utterly paranoid. These scumbags have already murdered coworkers, and grievously wounded a friend, laying on a makeshift stretcher while he works on their escape plan.
“I want to stay and fight!” James protests. “You are always throwing me away from harm, Drenar!”
“James, what we are about to attempt could very well end in your death, and the deaths of dozens. This is so unfathomably dangerous, that even I’m hesitant about doing this.” Drenar is wearing that steadfast determination well–even though he thinks he’s slightly crazy. Now that he’s had a moment to analyze, they’re all a few steps shy of utterly traumatized. Joey is still trying to bury her thoughts deep down, and he can hear small ‘leaks’ of worry from her.
Her psionics are changing. He had suspected it for a while when he thought he caught her listening in a time or two, to gauge his reaction to some of her theories during work. And there’s nothing he wants more than to assure her that change isn’t bad.
But she’s dead set on getting this insane plan up and running as she takes a torch and burns a path of molten silvering material. The nascent rune will form the network to expand the teleportal field to get everyone not defending Asqualia to safety. James however, seems to think this idea could be lethal. He's not wrong. Any major miscalculation will prove lethal.
"Drenar, your batshit insane plan relies on jery rigging a one-time-use teleportal to transport grossly above its mass limit. And you leave it in the hands of two mad scientists!" He would be annoyed with James tacit assessment, but he's too busy trying to make the math work. And he can make it work, barely. "Look man, not saying this is the worst plan, but couldn't we hold out?"
“I can do this.” Kyle finds that moment to look up from careful calculations and tracing the silvering element in a hastily cleared-out section of the lab with concrete flooring. Joey is holding her hands dead-steady, with Zameren using a curing element behind her to stabilize the rune circle they’re tracing out. “One-time-teleports are almost the same technology as a primary hub, but the difference is scale and durability. One-time-pads burn out after use due to the intense energy burst. They also do an instant teleport and transport a pocket of fixed size. Major teleportal platforms open an aperture between two points and keep a stable connection. They also have an immense amount of safety built-in.”
“Safeties our foes seem to have gotten a good bead on,” Levine muses. He’s checking the math on the mana primer he’s measuring out, along with Joey. “Kyle, this is going to take two full canisters. This could still kill anyone transporting–”
“We either get them out and they survive, or they die here. We are outnumbered and outgunned, even with dragons,” Kyle states with remarkable focus. The math is checking out, the diameter is correct, but his hands are shaking. His body is betraying what his mind is unwilling to do, breaking down in panic. James steadies his hand and pulls out a roll of twine someone had left on a desk, possibly for packaging. He ties it to a fixed point in the middle and tapes it down firmly
“Try that. Like an arc compass,” James says firmly. “If I’m not joining the others on a suicide mission, then I’m ensuring I don’t get disintegrated by a shaky hand.”
Kyle takes a deep breath, and traces the marker along the radius, then uses his straight edge to trace the rest in record time. “Thanks.”
“Focus on the lives of everyone in this room, Kyle. They are counting on you. And Lavernius died with the belief you can do this. Say what you will about his prior actions, but he stood for the staff here in his last moments.” He hates hearing that calm logic of James, but it’s what he needs to hear to keep going. Rational, careful calculations is the only way this is going to work. “Joey, we need to speed up.”
“Going as fast as I can, James. We don’t let this cure, it’ll crack, and then the rune circle breaks under load. It needs to be right, or everyone dies.” She is a hundred percent right, they can't rush this part. He gazes at the rest of his new strange allies.
Nick is arming for war, as is Drenar, who looks even more beaten up than ever, and is preparing a bandolier of fire orbs that Joey had hastily put together using her alchemical skills. “Uh, gotta ask, how’s it feel, to uh…” he trails off. Drenar looks up briefly from loading up his autobow.
“Kyle, don’t take it the wrong way, but I am trying to bury my actions as far down into my brain as I can. When the amount of enemies that aren’t getting up catches up to me, I’m done. I’ll never be okay again.” There’s an edge to his words that indicates this kid really needs a break right now, and one isn’t coming anytime soon. Volkir’s head is projecting off his armband while he loads another magazine–ammo is low now, and the sabotaged weapons didn’t help the situation either. “Volkir, I need a no-bullshit assessment, if Val gets this journal set of yours, how boned are we?”
“We’re boned.”
“Great. Burn them–”
“Little problem. If they think the prize is damaged goods, they’ll level the facility immediately, and there might be a way to turn this device off properly with the right rune sequence. Forever. Otherwise, we're kicking a can down the road,” Volkir interjects. “One of their engineers is tinkering with the power core, trying to bring it offline. He’s good, but he’s no Derek. Speaking of which, is he there with you?”
“Shot in the stomach. He’s barely stable,” Zameren states. He grits his teeth and loads another magazine before handing it to Nick. “How's that–oh. They don’t know about the enchantment that keeps the water above us retained. That could be…bad.”
“Them drowning themselves would be the best news I had all day, apart from causing a friendly fire incident,” Nick says with a grim smile. “Angela, what’s the feed showing?”
“I’m a little rusty on this, but–ah crap, King just brain-domed a golem. It’s like that creep knows we’re watching, even with the optic camo.” She points to the static of one of the monitors, and then another one that shows King walking up in a light armor set and furrowing his brow. He points a pistol at the golem and smiles.
“As if that trick would work twice.” He fires the pistol and the image goes to static, and Angela taps the console impatiently and rubs at her arm.
“Is there a reason he’s playing this like he hasn’t cut a deal?” Drenar growls.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
“Drenar…there’s more going on.” It’s Julia that gets his attention, and she’s been notably silent for a bit, watching that man on camera. “Lavernius died with the belief that the Luminaires are the answer. To the Talons, and the Conclave.” Kyle can’t even wrap his head around this because he’s too busy trying not to serial murder eighty-something survivors with a single bad input command.
“No matter what that creep's intent is, I think King is some kind of psionic or clairvoyant. He’s too uncanny with how he knows so much,” she states with fervor. He can’t focus on it, because the primary rune is complete, and he pulls out the navigation board and plugs it into the access panel of the teleportal. Luckily the connection isn’t an issue, and he rapidly accesses the command prompts and the BIOS settings. Reprogramming this thing to do something it’s not meant to do, for a hacked-together expanded field, is risky.
Using three dragons to act as biological capacitors, is even more risky. “Drenar, Angela, Julia, gather up! I need to explain this. Joey, tell them why we need this, I need to keep coding.”
“Okay, simply put, we’re using your body's scales as superconductors to expand the field of effect of the teleportation. This is something we should never try again.” They all nod at each other practically in unison–how did they seem so in sync, anyway? “We’re exceptionally lucky that you guys are from the right species because you can all channel elemental plasma–the typical energy you find powering arcane conduits and other magitech.” Joey gives a textbook assessment, like usual.
“This is…gonna hurt, isn’t it?” Julia grimaces.
“Oh, a little…maybe?” She hands Julia a canister of mixed blue and green fluid, and she downs it without protest. She gags but toughs it out and swallows uncomfortably.
“It’s like my cooking, but worse. Drenar, you’re in charge of making Joey’s alchemical concoctions more palatable, or I will never forgive you,” she warns him in a mocking tone, even as she almost looks like she’s going to vomit. “That’s uh…got quite a kick, by the way.”
“Pick two: cost, taste, and effect,” Joey replies calmly. Drenar downs his and manages to keep it down, and cricks his neck. Kyle is not envious, Joey used to use him to taste test some of her alchemical potions, and he’d…had to have his stomach pumped. Once. She made up for it later, at least. “Now, I’ve marked three spots for you guys to stand. Once we start, you cannot let go, and you have to remain immobile. This potion should keep you from cooking your insides.”
“Tastes like…a warhead dipped in a nine-volt battery,” Angela gags. “It’s awful.”
“I like my three new favorite dragons alive and breathing before attempting hare-brained, terrible ideas that no sane mage would ever attempt,” she says in an almost playful manner. Whatever keeps her focused, he supposes while deleting out safety protocols. Those will get in the way and shut it down before it hits peak charge. Along with the standard calculations for mass. “Kyle, can we dump the primer in?”
“Do it. We’re lucky that it’s still near full charge, it’s going to take every bit of juice we’ve got,” Kyle states while focusing on numbers and calculations he makes on his armband. “Joey, what’s the count? I need everyone in the expanded field of effect. I need a rough mass estimate, and round up ten percent.”
“Eighty-two. Nick, you’re sure your teleportal can hold this many?” she asked while he loaded up the last of his ammunition into a rifle. The autobow was now out, but he still had conventional firearms left, with a few magazines of magical munitions.
“It’s going to make a hell of a mess, but the field of effect should push everything away to accommodate everyone. I prepped it in case I needed to transport heavy armor again. It’s really just over-engineered.” Kyle stares at him.
“You transported a tank?”
“Once.” Kyle stops continues to stare at him. Does he have any idea what kind of gross overload capacity that is?! No of course not, this living action hero couldn't possibly fathom the complexities of teleporting matter through sixth dimensional space and not scatter things to infinite oblivion.
“Holy shit. Joey wasn’t kidding, you two did steal a tank!” Kyle accuses. Levine tries to hide a smile but fails. “Okay forget that, it’s got capacity. But we need to get Reeves to proper medical care or he’s done for, along with two others.”
“You stole a tank? Nick, even from you, that sounds like a tall tale,” Claire states distantly, and she’s got her eyes trained on the security feed while Angela prepares. She's typing in commands and Kyle can see she’s worried. “They’re burning through that secondary bulkhead. Guess they got tired of playing around. The alchemical torch will be through in a few minutes, then they’re at the blast door, here. That creepy psycho with the red hair is there too, pacing around and–oh.”
“What’s up?” Drenar asks while walking over to the bank of consoles. There’s a sound of a sickening slice, a scream, and then manic singing, and it torments Kyle’s ears. Drenar visibly recoils.
“Dare I ask what just happened?” James asks while checking numbers over Kyle’s shoulder. “Dude if you do this in pounds, you will make people into an amorphous blob. Kilos, please.” He hastily corrects it–Val is distorting reality just by existing right about now. Drenar looks visibly shaken when he reports back.
“Val just noped one of her guys with her giant crimson sword. And…oh dear Fates…the human body is not meant to split in that direction. And she’s gonna blunt her blade,” Drenar mutters. “This animated movie musical villainess is crooning over the deed, too. She’s on my list, yep. Never getting off of it.”
“Way to make small talk about our adversaries killing each other, Drenar,” Kyle snaps. There’s a massive thud in the distance and an explosion. “Claire, did they destroy the south bulkhead?!”
“Security to the south side, displace and hold them at the dorms!” Levine barks while grabbing his rifle and Nick transforms to his hinterland green form. All their available firepower is now being pulled to hold the line, along with the irregulars, and Claire stands by the console.
“The bulkhead breached. You know the phrase. ‘The murders will continue until morale improves’ or something creepy.” She grabs an autobow and points to Drenar and the others. “We’ll cover your backs, getting the civilians out is our number one priority, and keep yourselves alive. Piers, Zameren, with me!”
“Not alone you're not! Angela, Julia, buy time, but we can’t get killed! Give ground if we have to, there’s one last barricade door we can pull, and that’s it!” Drenar is in motion and reaching out for his dragon form, the same as the other two.
Suddenly, Kyle feels like his impossible task is now relatively easy, compared to what the others have to do. Rewriting the code is easy, the math is easy. He’s rock solid, he’s a freaking quarter dwarf, built of tougher stuff than trembling hands and delayed nightmares.
He’s gonna save his friends.