Hostiles (The Galactic Mage series) (18 page)

“We can’t keep up with that,” Roberto said, his fury cooling some over the course of the pursuit, “and we’ll lose it if we jump.”

“So now you’re going to quit, Commander? That’s disappointing.”

“What are we supposed to do? It’s jumping through time or whatever the hell that crap is. And it’s getting faster.”

“We can warp space time too.” Captain Asad was furiously tapping in commands on his controls as he spoke, his dark eyes narrow and his mouth the very shape of focus, pursed and pressing forth aggressively.

Roberto leaned over and looked into the settings Captain Asad had underway. A moment later he leaned back and grinned. “That’s fucking genius.”

Soon the shuttle was echoing the movements of the Hostile, matching its magical hops with fluttering pulses of warped space. To an onlooker, of which there were none, it would have seemed as if the pair of objects were alternately blinking eyes racing through the solar system at a quarter the speed of light.

They continued the pursuit in that fashion for several minutes, but despite the rough portions of the orb, the lasers couldn’t cut into it deeply enough to finish it off. Missiles were obviously of no use, and soon it seemed that they might have obligated themselves to a futile chase that could take them farther than either of their respective needs would allow.

“Can’t hit them,” Roberto announced pointlessly as another streak of red laser fire vanished into the galaxy. “And I damn sure don’t want to risk trying to get ahead of it.”

“That would be reckless,” agreed the captain. “And now we’re getting too close to the sun.”

Roberto could tell Captain Asad didn’t want to order a halt to the pursuit. He was showing Roberto unheard-of respect in that, but he was also not going to wait much longer for Roberto to come to the same conclusion himself, for legitimate reasons this time, not simply frustration. Its legitimate reasons for running was a curiosity that suddenly gave Roberto an idea. “Do you think that’s its plan? To suck us into chasing it into the sun, like a suicide run meant to take us out?”

“I wouldn’t put it past them. We saw enough of them using their own sun to destroy missiles when we fought them at Goldilocks.” The captain tapped in a query to the computer and spent a moment reading the calculations it returned. “Except it’s going to fly past the sun on its current heading. It looks like it’s going to just miss Mercury too.”

“Well, it’s definitely not trying to lead us to its home world so that Blue Fire can finish us off—or if it is, it’s going the wrong way. Which means it’s either damaged or stupid or, maybe, even more likely, it’s just trying to drag us out of the fight since it can’t beat us outright. In which case, mission accomplished.” Roberto leaned closer to his monitor and made a face at the fleeing Hostile, but the force of his emotions had finally come under his control. For the most part. “I guess I should give up now, shouldn’t I?”

Captain Asad made a point of staring into his monitor. Another rare courtesy.

They chased it for a few long moments more, both men silent.

“It’s fucking bullshit, Captain,” Roberto said when he finally began to slow the ship, realizing as he spoke that this confrontation was probably the only reason the captain had indulged him at all. Might as well not do this in front of the rest of the crew, Roberto realized. He suddenly felt foolish. Young. Gullible. Captain Asad rarely missed a trick. If it was one. Whether it was or wasn’t, it ratcheted Roberto’s feelings back up a notch. “You know that trial was a goddamn joke. And worse, it was a betrayal. No matter what you think of her, she was part of your crew. And you helped set her up.”

“She set herself up, Commander. She betrayed
us
, all of us. And I had orders to bring her in.”

“Those orders only came because of what you said about her in your report.”

“What bit of evidence in that court martial wasn’t true, Commander? What tiny spec of it? Give me one fact that was not absolutely spot-on accurate?”

Roberto glared, and his mind raced for one, for anything, any comment made by anyone. But there wasn’t one. It was all factual. It just wasn’t accurate.

He mashed the laser controls and sent seven beams in a series striping harmlessly into the space already vacated by the Hostile they no longer pursued. “Fuck,” was all he said as he slumped and stared vacantly into his controls.

Captain Asad punched in the command to begin swinging them around, steering them wide of Mercury. The shuttle’s shields could withstand temperatures near the sun to a point, but beyond that it wouldn’t last long. They were very close to arriving at that point. It was time to go back.

The shuttle had slowed nearly to a stop, and the Hostile they’d been chasing was only a flickering dot on the sensor screen now. In the sensor grid, its image had almost merged with the bright disc of Mercury as it flew over the planet’s northern pole, and Roberto sighed. He couldn’t even kill one goddamn Hostile as retribution for Orli’s life. He stared down into his console and felt the tears burning in his eyes. He’d let her down again, even in this.

“Hmmm,” hummed the captain with concern rising in his voice.

Roberto didn’t care what the captain had to say just then.

“Commander, we have to go.” That was stern urgency. A creeping dread apparent in the way he said it, which this time caused Roberto to blink and looked up at the man. Roberto’s gaze darted briefly to his monitor, but he saw that Captain Asad was staring out the starboard window instead. He followed the line of the Captain’s gaze.

Just visible around the western rim of Mercury was a great red orb, several hundred miles in diameter by Roberto’s estimate and looking every bit like Mercury had grown itself a moon.

At first Roberto tried to tell himself it was a trick of light, that what he was seeing was the Hostile they’d been chasing coming back at them and looking odd due to the nearness of the sun. But the tiny speck of red that had been their quarry could still be seen, separate and slightly above, as it approached the giant round mass. Soon after, it got too close and could only be tracked on sensors, and in moments after that, it disappeared entirely, vanishing into the surface, the little orb absorbed by the giant one as easily as the sun might absorb the Earth. Roberto’s hopes for strange light play or odd perspectives vanished. There really was a monstrously huge Hostile out there.

“Holy shit,” Roberto said, his words nearly choked in the grasp of bewilderment. In the span of seconds, the shuttle was streaking back toward the
Aspect
, both men anxiously working their controls for speed.

Chapter 14

T
he branch snapped so loudly it startled Altin, spinning him around, prepared to hurl the hissing shaft of ice he’d conjured and had kept hovering near his shoulder since arriving deep in Great Forest. The corpulent Doctor Leopold, trailing in Altin’s wake, sent him a sheepish look, directing Altin’s gaze with his own down to the dried-out old tree branch his heavy foot had trod upon. The limb, half as thick as Altin’s wrist, might have easily endured the weight of the young magician’s tread, but the prodigious mass of Doctor Leopold counted two men at least—assuming they were hardy fellows and fond of fatty meats and ale—and so, where Altin might have snapped a twig here or there, the doctor had been snapping branches often over the duration of their hike, usually with enough volume to alert any creature that might be listening for a full measure round.

“Tidalwrath’s fits, Doctor, you’ll have every last wolf, spider and troll in the woods down upon us with that racket. Watch where you put your feet. I can’t fend off every predator in Great Forest, you know.”

The doctor’s face was blotchy and red, and his breath came in a panting wheeze that began as a rattle in his chest and emerged in a high whistle through his nose. He clutched a dripping handkerchief in one hand, mopping at his throat and face in a futile attempt to stem the flow of sweat that ran from his pores as if he were some great sweat-filled wineskin and a legion of tiny archers had shot him through.

“You’re the one who suggested this wretched business,” sniped the doctor as he approached a fallen oak that Altin had just scurried over easily. The portly physician stared at the waist high obstacle as if it were a cliff rising a thousand spans above, shaking his head and letting go a long, exasperated breath. “I came to help save the girl, but who will save
me
?”

“You also came so that the next time you are out here, you will be able to get over that tree,” corrected Altin. “Now come. We don’t have time for this. And watch where you are walking.”

“How am I supposed to get over that? I am not a squirrel, you know.”

Altin dismissed the ice lance and, with a thought, teleported the doctor to the other side of the obstacle, bringing him beside him in the span of an instant. It was the fourth time in only an hour that he’d had to resort to such things.

“You should have just done that when you found the witch,” the doctor said. “Could have saved us both a great deal of misery if I didn’t have to be here until then.”

Altin paid the man’s complaints no mind and started back in the direction that Doctor Leopold’s last divination had suggested that they go in their quest for the Z-classed diviner, Ocelot. Anything like a path had been long abandoned, and they’d been making their way through near darkness for almost half a day. Adding to their difficulties, the terrain had gotten increasingly steeper over the last hour as well, and Altin was afraid he might have to do precisely as the doctor asked if it got much worse. The man simply wasn’t able to navigate the worsening incline with all its brambles and rocks. And the slippery footing of ever-damp leaves and slick needles on the slope made it hard going at times even for Altin, who had the vigor and agility of youth to aid him.

Altin recast the ice lance and started climbing again, once more heading purposefully upward. He came upon a broad stretch of rock rising from the ground like a massive single stair, high and wide, vanishing into the trees on either side. Moss covered it like dark green down, making it too slick to climb, and after giving them a rigorous pair of pulls, he determined that the scrawny vines crawling up its altitude would not hold his weight, much less the doctor’s. A wide crack ran straight through it, however, and he thought he could see the slope continuing beyond on the other side. He thought about trying to squeeze through, but even if he could make it, he knew his counterpart could not. Pointing that out would only further irritate the man, so Altin moved laterally until he found a place to go around. He grumbled as he did so, aware that it cost him, and Orli, several moments in just doing that simple thing, but also aware that he couldn’t just keep casting for every tiny thing, or when he needed his strength most, he might be too tired. It was a fine line of haste and conservation that he walked. Every second ticked off another moment of danger for her, for beloved Orli lost to him somewhere on distant planet Earth. Every spell ground down a bit more of his endurance, even with his ring. He’d already been awake for well over a whole day.

He waited for the doctor to catch up again, reaching out a hand to help haul him up the knee-high ledge that the blocking stone step had become. The doctor slipped on it anyway, before Altin could catch his hand, and he fell backwards, tumbling down the slope several spans before finally coming to rest, his momentum stopped by the fortuitous presence of a blackberry bush. Or at least, the marginally fortuitous presence of one.

“Sons of Hestra and the infernal rot of ten thousand harpies,” swore the doctor as he wallowed and flailed in the groping bramble of the blackberry bush’s entangling vines. “I’m besieged, for Mercy’s sake. Ow, ow, ow.” With his head downslope and his capacious posterior pointed uphill, his broad backside flashed with his thrashing, the white fabric of his pants blinking through the dimness like a signaler’s flag. His stubby legs thrust into the air like the broken, twitching antennae of an insect trapped in a web, and the doctor threatened Altin with numerous forms of violence if he did not come immediately to his rescue.

On another day, Altin might have laughed, but today, he had no time for it. Irritated, he made to teleport the doctor out of his predicament, but, unfortunately, the doctor’s rage and consternation precluded him from being treated so. Teleportation spells come with certain realities, and one of them is that the object being teleported not be in a frenzied emotional state. So Altin had to climb back down to where the doctor was and pull him out the old-fashioned way, by hand.

The vicious thorns of the blackberry bush did their fair share to punish Altin for his kindness, and by the time the doctor was back on his feet, both of them were bleeding profusely, though the doctor far more so than the Galactic Mage.

“I’ve had enough,” the doctor announced with absolute finality. “I won’t go a step farther.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a peach, which Altin thought he might be about to eat, but instead, the doctor peeled off a long section of its fuzzy skin. He closed his eyes and began to sing, and after a few moments, the abrasions on his face and arms were gone. He pulled off another strip of peach skin and repeated the exercise, this time for the benefit of Altin’s hands and forearms. When he was done, he took a bite out of the peach as if it were an enemy and set a stubborn look upon his countenance. “Not one more step, young man. This exercise is ridiculous and barbaric. There are reasons our people tamed horses and gryphons, much less learned to weave flight into carpets and other things.”