Wizard Rebellion (Intergalactic Wizard Scout Chronicles Book 5) Page 44

  I’m sorry, Mother, he thought. Go and be with your son. You’ll have many years of happiness. I won’t let ‘the One’ control you any longer.

  Gaston pulled and twisted. His mother’s reserve partially collapsed on itself. He heard a scream. When he looked, his mother had fallen on top of her husband.

  Tam moved forward and stood over the downed wizard scouts. She swung her bastard sword in a large arc to keep the vampires at bay.

  “What’s happening?” asked Telsa.

  Gaston decided to lie. “The vampires have damaged Thomas and Janice’s Power reserves somehow. Get them back to Shepard. He can help them. He’ll be able to summon your battle suits now. He can get you phase weapons. I’ll hold the vampires here.”

  “We won’t leave a wizard scout behind,” said Trinity

  Gaston turned to the only one who might listen to reason.

  “Jerad, get them back to Shepard. My battle suit’s resistant to attacks from the void. I’ll hold them until you get to Shepard. Then I’ll follow.”

  Pulling his sword out of a vampire’s chest, Jerad shouted over his shoulder. “How will you join us? You’ll be trapped here.”

  I won’t be joining you, thought Gaston.

  “I’m a shifter,” Gaston told Jerad. “Once you’re all clear, I’ll shift into the void and make my escape. I’ll probably make it to Shepard before you.”

  When Jerad looked indecisive, Gaston shouted in his best TAC officer voice. “Go! Now! Otherwise, we’re all dead.”

  Jerad reached down and grabbed the limp form of Janice and threw her over his shoulder.

  “Tam, Telsa, lead the way back to Rick.”

  Whether it was Jerad’s natural charisma or his previous leadership authority over them that did the trick, Gaston didn’t know. What he did know was that the others stopped arguing and rushed to obey.

  Chancee picked up the unconscious Thomas and threw him over her shoulder. The ranger grunted under the weight of the battle suit but was still able to take a final swing at a vampire before turning to leave. She ran down the tunnel following Tam and Telsa.

  The last of the group to leave was Jerad.

  “I’ll see you in hell, Gaston.”

  Smiling in spite of himself, Gaston said, “Not if I see you first. Now get.”

  Jerad got.

  Three vampires came out of the wall at Gaston. They were in the void, but couldn’t get past the energized titanium in the material of his battle suit. The vampires fell back before the fury of his counterattack.

  “They’re scared of the demon essence in your phase rod,” said Wanda. “That’s the only reason you haven’t been overwhelmed. I calculate your luck won’t last much longer. Another hundred vampires will be here in five seconds.”

  Gaston glanced at the white spots on his heads-up display. At least my friends have made it past the choke point, he thought. They’re going to make it to Shepard. I don’t like the man, but he’s a good wizard scout. If anyone can save my friends, it will be Shepard.

  “You called them your friends,” said Wanda. “Gaston, I’m proud of you. You’ve never called anyone a friend before.”

  Gaston kicked himself for thinking the thought in his shared space. He didn’t like letting his guard down. He knew he only had seconds to live, but it didn’t matter.

  A virtual flood of vampires came out of the floor. As they shifted out of the void, they grabbed at Gaston’s legs. He slammed his phase rod into two before the others dragged him to the floor. A dozen of the fiends pinned him down as they began ripping at his armor. His battle suit was tough, but he doubted the material could hold up against the combined strength of the vampires for long.

  I love you, Diane, Gaston thought as he gave his final goodbye.

  Power enveloped Gaston. His body started to tingle. He heard a deep, raspy voice.

  “I claim this one as mine,” said the voice. “Do what you want with the others, but this one goes with me.”

  The world around Gaston began to shift in and out of focus. Then everything went black.

  Chapter 61 – Escape and Rescue

  ____________________

  Telsa noticed the white dot representing Gaston on her heads-up display disappear at the same moment she reached General Fenmar. The old dwarf was about twenty meters from the entrance, exchanging blows with an armored vampire.

  With no time to spare, Telsa drew Power from her reserve and sent it out as a single blast at the vampire. She was a projector. The blast of energy splattered the vampire into a thousand pieces against the tunnel wall. Almost immediately, she sensed the pieces trying to reform themselves into a single whole again. Spotting a large piece of heart with a blackened, viral glob covering it, she stabbed her magic longsword into the center of the disgusting mass. The glob of black goo burst into flames before disappearing completely. The pieces of vampire flesh stopped trying to reform.

  “Where’s Rick,” Telsa asked.

  The dwarf pointed toward the entrance before engaging another vampire who was emerging from the tunnel wall.

  Looking toward the entrance, all Telsa saw was a cloud of fog. Even through her armor, the air felt hot.

  Steam, Telsa thought.

  Removing her goggles, Telsa replaced them with her Dragar helmet. Once her face was protected from the steam, she moved forward until she stood beside Richard. He was spraying a high-pressure stream of water out of his canteen at any vampire foolish enough to try and get through the entrance.

  “They’re starting to come through the walls,” Telsa said. “Can you summon our battle suits and weapons? A whole lot of phase weapons would be nice.”

  Before Telsa knew what Richard was doing, he reached over and stuck the canteen in her hand. “Use this to keep them at bay while I summon your gear,” he said.

  Looking dubiously at the canteen, Telsa asked, “Will it work once you let go?”

  “If I keep feeding it Power it will.”

  The force of the jet of water was almost too much for the assistors in her confiscated Dragar armor to handle. Before Telsa could say anything else, her friend was gone. She turned her attention to the entrance and concentrated on spraying boiling water at any vampire heads that appeared.

  In less than thirty seconds, Telsa sensed another presence at her side. The presence was Tam. Her friend was dressed in a battle suit. She held a Deloris model phase pistol in each hand. Tam holstered one of the pistols and took the canteen out of Telsa’s hand.

  Tam pointed over her shoulder. “Your turn. Rick’s got your gear waiting.”

  Asking no questions, Telsa headed back down the tunnel. Just before she cleared the cloud of steam, she heard the unmistakable ‘brrrrr’ of an automatic phase rifle going off. The bright flash of dozens of rounds of phase energy shone up through the fog as they sped down the tunnel in the direction of the vampires.

  Telsa spotted her battle suit and utility belt on the stone floor next to the still unconscious forms of Thomas and Janice. She immediately began ripping off her Dragar armor and replacing it with her more familiar M6 battle suit.

  “It’s about time you showed up,” said her battle computer, Raj. “I was beginning to think this fight would be over before you decided to get involved.”

  “I missed you too,” Telsa said as she picked up a 10mm phase rifle. She also grabbed a bandoleer of six extra magazines.

  She sensed Trinity, Jerad, and Richard holding the back of the tunnel along with the two dwarves and Chancee. Making a command decision, Telsa returned to the entrance to support Tam.

  As Tam came into view, Telsa noticed three vampires emerging up from the stone floor behind her friend. Telsa put a burst of phase rounds in each of the vampire’s hearts. Even though the vampires were still in the void, the phase rounds tore their hearts to shreds. Telsa sensed their life forces blink out on her passive scan.

  “It’s getting worse,” Telsa said as she took up a position next to Tam. She began adding the firepower of the pha
se rifle to the stream of boiling water.

  “Yeah, tell me about it,” replied Tam. “The bad news is, the main force hasn’t even gotten here yet.”

  Telsa noticed the thousands of yellow, red, and orange dots converging on their position. When she’d attended the University before applying for wizard scout training, she’d often been told she was the smartest student there. However, one look at the mass of incoming life forms told her she didn’t have to be smart to know her death was imminent. They had no place to run.

  * * *

  “I don’t care what our orders were,” Matthew said as he banked the fighter-shuttle into a hard, diving-turn toward the mountain. “Our friends are in trouble. I’m not going to stay up here doing nothing while they’re down there dying.”

  “We don’t know that anyone’s died,” pointed out Marstis. “I’ll admit the odds are low. There must be a thousand vampires at the entrance.”

  When the fighter leveled off, Matthew punched the windscreen’s zoom to maximum.

  “Look,” Matthew said. “The door’s broken open. What’s that stream of water coming out of the entrance? It looks like some type of geyser.”

  “No idea,” said Marstis.

  The ship’s intercom crackled. The voice of a tense-sounding Jerad came over the intercom. “Matthew. We’re in trouble. How soon can you get here? We’re at the entrance.”

  “I’m on short final now,” Matthew said. “I’ll be landing at the entrance in ten seconds. Be ready.”

  “No,” ordered Jerad. “Make a strafing run. If you can blow a path through the vampires, we’ll try to make our escape. There’s no way you can land.”

  “Watch me,” Matthew said.

  Looking over at Marstis, he noticed the gnome fiddling with the gunner’s computer display. He saw a crosshair on the display directly over the entrance to the secret tunnel.

  “Are you sure that thing will work?” Matthew asked knowing full well it was too late to ask questions now.

  “We’ll soon see,” said Marstis. “A signaling bomblet’s intended to mark targets for starships outside a planet’s atmosphere. Tell your friends to cover their eyes. This thing will burn out the optic nerves of anyone getting even a partial glimpse of its light.”

  Matthew gave a warning to Jerad. “Tell everyone to close their eyes. We’re releasing a signaling bomblet in five seconds.”

  * * *

  Jerad didn’t have time to verbally warn the others. He only hoped his battle computer could do it.

  “Stephen, tell the other battle computers to go to max filters. Now!”

  No sooner had he thought the command than the filter of his own battle helmet turned solid black. Using his passive scan, Jerad picked out the life forms of Emerald and Chancee. He dove and knocked them to the ground as he covered their eyes with his hands. A moment later, the ground shook. A blast of hot air came rushing through the entrance to the tunnel.

  The filter on his battle helmet changed back to normal night-vision mode.

  “Matthew’s on short final,” said Stephen. “The vampires are temporarily blinded, but that won’t last long. Get moving soldier.”

  Jerad threw both Emerald and Chancee over his shoulders. He ignored their protests. He sensed other wizard scouts grabbing the limp forms of Janice and Thomas. Jerad noticed Richard running up, dragging General Fenmar behind him. The general’s eyes were closed, and he was flailing around with his hands.

  By the time Jerad made it to the entrance, the shuttle was already on the ground. The end of the ramp was only two meters from the shattered doorway. He had a quick glimpse of dozens of vampires stumbling around the shuttle with their arms outstretched as if trying to find a point of reference. Then Jerad was inside.

  Once he made a quick count, Jerad yelled, “We’re all in. Go!”

  Matthew wasted no time. The fighter-shuttle leaped off the ground in a steep climb even before the ramp finished closing. Once they were safely airborne, Matthew turned in his seat. The grin on the teenager’s face disappeared.

  “We’re short someone,” said Matthew. “Who?”

  Jerad locked eyes with Matthew. “Gaston didn’t make it. I know he worked for your mother. I’m sorry.”

  * * *

  When the shuttle leveled off, Richard’s mind finally began to take stock of the situation. Myers was gone. He wasn’t sure how he felt about that. He knew his brother wasn’t dead. He could still feel a small bit of Myers’s life force through the link to his father. The low-intensity of the life force was similar to the feeling he got from Stella’s link to his Power reserve. She was in the future. Based upon the similarity of the intensity, Richard figured if he had to guess, ‘the One’ had probably returned his brother to the future.

  “Does it matter?” asked Nickelo. “I know you haven’t asked for my recommendation, but if you did, I’d suggest you start getting things organized. Your parents’ Power reserves have been damaged. They’re still deteriorating. Plus the dwarf general is blind. He won’t do you any good without his eyesight. You need to decide what you’re going to do. Matthew’s going to be asking for a destination soon.”

  Richard looked around the inside of the fighter-shuttle. His friends were talking excitedly among themselves. Jerad was being bombarded with questions. Matthew was turned around in the pilot’s seat demanding to know what had happened to his mother’s chief of security.

  Richard came to a decision. He needed to take charge. Once resolved, he stood. “Enough!”

  All talking stopped. Everyone turned to face Richard. Even Fenmar, blind though he was, cocked an ear in Richard’s direction.

  “One way or the other,” Richard said, “we’re near the end of our mission. Here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to give some orders, and you’re going to make them happen.”

  When no arguments were forthcoming, Richard continued.

  “Matthew, set a course for the Oracle’s; max velocity. Contact Tia. Tell her to go there as well to pick up some cargo that’ll be waiting for her.”

  When Matthew didn’t immediately respond, Richard turned to the whole group and said, “Just so you all know, Myers isn’t dead. I can still sense him. He’s just not in our current time.”

  Matthew opened his mouth. Before the teenager could ask questions, Richard held up his hand. “You’ve got your orders, Matt. Make it happen.”

  With a reluctant nod, the young man turned to his control console. The shuttle accelerated forward.

  “We walked into a trap,” Richard told the others. “I’m sure you’ve all figured that out already. What you don’t know is that the Mountain’s Heart wasn’t even at Drepdenor. It’s been moved to the spaceport. It’s loaded onto one of those black destroyers even now. The Dragar starship is going to use a time-gate to take the gem to the future in the physical dimension. We’ve got to stop that from happening.”

  “How—” started Jerad.

  “How?” Richard repeated. “By everyone doing what I tell them. We’re going to attack the spaceport and cause so much confusion it’ll give us time to destroy the gem. We’re going to attack it now. We’ve got to hit the spaceport within the next thirty minutes, or everything’s lost.”

  “That’s crazy,” said Emerald. “It’ll take weeks to assemble our army. General Fenmar hasn’t even completed all the sets of magic armor and weapons yet. Even getting Master Garis and his mages assembled and shuttling them to the spaceport will take time.”

  “We don’t have the time,” Richard said growing a little heated. He didn’t like it when people pointed out flaws in his plans but offered none of their own. “We’re attacking now.” Turning to his former tent-mate, he said, “Jerad, I need you to come up with a way to delay that destroyer from launching. I’ve got to heal Thomas, Janice, and Fenmar while I’ve got the opportunity.”

  Jerad spread his hands. “Rick, you’re asking the impossible. We haven’t even got heavy cats. Wizard scouts are recon. We’re not shock troopers. Beside
s, we don’t have the bottles of DNA gas yet. You’re asking us to commit suicide for no reason.”

  Richard shook his head. “Something’s only impossible if you think it is. Besides, you’re going to get whatever equipment you need. My dimensional pack’s working again. If an item of equipment is in one of the warehouses on Storage, you can have it. As for the bottles of DNA gas, they’ll be at the Oracle’s by the time we get there.”

  Jerad frowned. “How do you know?”

  Richard gave a wry smile. “Because if the bottles of DNA gas aren’t waiting for us when we arrive, we’re screwed.”

  Chapter 62 – The Black Hole

  ____________________

  The air in the largest open area of the space station’s shuttle bay shimmered. A loud pop echoed off the bay’s metallic walls. The shimmering was replaced by an enormous silver dragon. For a split second, all two hundred workers and soldiers in the shuttle bay froze and stared at the thirty-meter long dragon. The beast roared. When it did, all hell broke loose.

  Jeena jumped off Bright Wing’s neck and hit the metal deck in a roll. Her environmental suit was awkward, but it wasn’t so unwieldy that she was willing to take it off just to gain a little agility. If what she hoped the dragon could do was correct, the integrity of the space station’s hull was in serious doubt.

  By the time Jeena was up and running, Stella was by her side firing at anything crossing their paths. They’d practiced the same route so often in the holo-square that they just naturally ran in the right direction.

  A jet of frost passed to Jeena’s left side and struck a squad of Crosioians taking firing positions behind a stack of metal crates. When the jet of air made contact, both the crates and the soldiers were immediately covered in a thick layer of ice. None of the soldiers fired their weapons.

  Two Crosioians knelt in the opening of a hallway. They raised their pistols. Jeena drew Power from her reserve and sent a ball of magic at the soldiers. Just as the soldiers began firing, the magic turned into a shield of shimmering energy. The shield continued moving forward and slammed the bat-creatures into the wall behind them. The two Crosioians bounced off the side of the hallway leaving a red-stained goo dripping down the wall as they fell to the floor.