Resurgence of Ancient Darkness Read online

  “Then what?”

  “They must know, as we do, that something is not right in this realm. There are more powers at play than just them and us. Considerably more,” he said.

  “So many?” asked the steel-eyed man.

  “Yes. Neither of us has organized a large enough presence to hold much of this galaxy under any kind of control; so powers are moving in to seize their share while they still can.”

  “What kind of powers?”

  “That is what I expect our old friend Shadow is going to try and find out,” said the old man.

  The steel-eyed man stood silently, considering that for a while, and then said, “With Alpha Academy locking down their borders, our recruiting has slowed.”

  “There are plenty of magi all over the galaxy who are lusting for the power and training we can provide. Cast your net wider, and we can get the numbers we need.”

  “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “Now what is this?” asked the old man. He manipulated the image and zoomed in on a small planet orbiting a yellow star. The planet appeared to be an average habitable world with a mixture of different kinds of environmental zones. There was nothing in orbit around it, and from space nothing could be seen to indicate the presence of any intelligent life on it.

  Then the old man zoomed in more and more until he was looking at a stone table in a secluded meadow. The table was very intricately carved. Each of its six legs portrayed a different beast, the table supported on their backs. The table itself was covered in a myriad strange and bizarre carvings. Seven massive thrones sat around the table, and a pool of some viscous silver fluid occupied the majority of the circular table.

  The chairs were empty, and no living thing was anywhere near the table. No insects crawled on to it, no birds flew over it, and no small animals took shelter under it. It was as if all living creatures were avoiding it.

  The old man studied the table for a bit and said, “I want to know more about that. That is where they will go.”

  “But how will they know to go there?” asked the steel-eyed man.

  “I will direct them, as we did last time.” He stood and walked back to his window and asked, “How are our prospects for getting a magus on the Nevermore II?”

  “Not good. Gafar screened them all very carefully before allowing them on,” said the steel-eyed man.

  “Gafar is not that good. Surely there is someone we can reach?” asked the old man.

  “Spectra remains our best prospect, but there is a problem,” he said.

  The old man turned and looked right into his eyes. He matched the steely-eyed man’s piercing gaze and seemed to drill right back through it so much so that the other man backed down. “What?”

  “Shea, sir,” said the steel-eyed man as he took a step back.

  “Ah, yes,” said the old man. “But she can be useful to us also.” He walked back to his window and looked out across the grass. “The times are changing, and we will have to adapt our tactics to match them.”

  “Surely you do not think we can turn Shea to our side?” asked the steel-eyed man.

  “No,” said the old man. “She is completely unreachable in that regard, but that does not mean she cannot be helpful to us. We will have to plan this carefully. They already know too much about us.”

  “Nothing we can do about that now,” said the steely-eyed man.

  “We need to distract them,” he said.

  Chapter Eleven

  “Shadow, Dusty and the Shadow Fox are clear,” said Flame from her position at navigation.

  “Then set our course and jump,” I said. Dusty was on his way to take care of that unknown station. I knew it would be an easy target for them, as our advanced probes had already told us that it was uninhabited and had no operational defenses. I did not pass this on to Dusty, as I wanted to give him the chance to learn to deal with many unknowns at once. This would be a great, and basically safe, first mission for him.

  “Jumping now,” said Flame just before the calming azure of jump space wrapped around me. I was really starting to enjoy my trips into the weave, even when forced in by a starship’s jump drives instead of going there under my own power.

  Master Mathorn had explained to me that spellweavers have a special bond with the weave and that we can always find safety and strength in it. I did not fully understand that yet, but I could feel the welcoming nature of the weave whenever I entered it. The power flowed around me and through me, comforting and relaxing me like a gentle swim in a warm lake.

  This helped me to finally understand the difference between jump drives and weave-walking. Jump drives used gravity to force one out of the flow of time while pushing them in to the weave. A spellweaver, like myself, could travel directly into the weave without leaving time, nor needing to worry about gravitational wells.

  Once we were clear, I asked, “Flame, how long till the next jump?”

  “At least three hours. We have to swing wide of this star first,” she said.

  “Okay, then request my command staff to assemble in the conference room for mission briefing,” I said.

  I waited for Flame to be ready to join me, and then we headed towards the conference room. As we walked I marveled again at the ship I had been given to command. The Nevermore II was a Raven Mark III that was the next evolutionary step after Grandmaster Vydor’s design of the original Nevermore. We designed it to be a mobile command center capable of long-term, deep-space operations.

  As with the Shadow Fox, we had installed the illuminescence-based power grid, which allowed us much greater range and flexibility than a traditional Raven class craft would have. It also allowed us to use the new partial telepathic controls for all the critical systems on the ship. This would give us a response edge in combat. The drawback to these systems was that only magi could use them. The only known exception to that were the Dark Knights. They were a special breed of Zalionian, but I did not know what it was about them that allowed them to operate these controls.

  “Shadow, are you sure Dusty is ready for that mission?” asked Flame. “Maybe we should stay close, just in case …”

  “Flame, dear, he will be fine. He is a grown man, you know,” I said with a smile. “Also he has Spectra and Shea with him.”

  “Yeah,” said Flame. “It’s just odd after spending so much time with them to send them off like that.”

  I knew what she meant. Dusty had been under me, first as a student and later as an officer, for many years now. He was a good friend and constant companion, but he was also a second rank Battle Wizard and had proven himself to be more than ready for command. “Flame, he will be back once his mission out there is completed. At this moment, we have our own mission to worry about.”

  “So what’s up?” she asked.

  I chuckled. “Always the patient one.”

  She glared at me and poked me in the side. “I know you well enough to guess, you know.”

  “That I am very sure is true,” I said, and then our conversation drifted on to more mundane topics.

  As we entered the conference room I looked right at Dusty and Spectra’s empty spots at the table. Spectra was still a mystery to me, but her knowledge of this region of space would be sorely missed on our current mission. Seated next to their chairs was Phoenix. Next to him was a Zalionian named Karlith, who oversaw the Dark Knights on board who provided security and combat training for our wizards.

  Next around the table was the empty seat reserved for the captain for our third Dark Conure, as yet unappointed. We had the ship on board, but no crew so far. Finally, the last spot at the table was filled by an older human named Stalker. Stalker was a very low-level wizard, barely out of the student phase. I had specifically requested that he be appointed to my Dragon Guard because of his long military experience. I was cautioned against promoting him so quickly, as it could corrupt the training of the prospect phase, but I was not concerned about that. Several members of the Dr
agon Guard had jumped levels quickly; it was the nature of what was required to build up our forces rapidly. His value as an advisor far outweighed his lack of formal training in magic.

  Flame and I took our seats at the table, and I raised my hand to silence the small talk. Once I had everyone’s attention I said, “As you know, I recently led a mission to this area in the Dust Dragon, and with the help of the Aleeryon Navy we defeated the major pirate guild that controlled this region. For a short while after that it was peaceful out here, and trade was flowing again.

  “That peace is currently being threatened by a new group of criminals. This group appears to be much smaller, using only a single fast-attack class ship. Their primary attack pattern is to park their ship cloaked somewhere near a jump exit and wait. When a ship comes through small enough for them to take, they rush out of hiding and board the victim’s craft. Once on board they kill anyone who gets in their way as they loot anything of resale value. As soon as they have taken most of what is on board, they flee the scene of the attack at maximum velocity. So far, their hit-and-run plan has been flawless. They are always gone before help can come and never come out of hiding if there is any chance they will be caught.”

  “Cowards,” said Karlith with a curse.

  “Perhaps, but clever cowards,” said Stalker.

  “Master Shadow, I take it our job is to find and eliminate them?” asked Phoenix.

  “Yes. I requested this mission because I expect it to be just challenging enough for us to dig our teeth into, but yet small enough not to overwhelm our mostly inexperienced crew.”

  “The big question, then, is how do we find them?” asked Flame.

  “Master, can we see a map of their known activities?” asked Stalker.

  “Of course,” I said as I powered up the viewing screen and brought up the map. I was trying to let them work through all the questions as a team and not offer any help. I wanted them to start looking to each other and begin to build the groupthink that we would need when we started our primary mission.

  “Those attacks are all over the place,” said Phoenix.

  “True, but they have to be operating out of a base somewhere. That’s the best place to catch them,” said Stalker.

  For a while, they discussed the various possibilities of bases near the perceived center of the attack patterns, and they were slowly coming up with a consensus when Phoenix said, “Wait a minute. We have outliers here.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Stalker.

  “It’s just like when I was a kid helping Dad study maps of his electorate. Not all of his data was good, and we always started by looking for outliers.” He then walked over to the terminal and highlighted several data points and said, “These are outliers. If we remove them from the pattern, we can see what the data really shows.” He worked the controls a bit more and soon came up with a new map of the pirate attacks that had a clear center point. He pointed to it and said, “There. That’s their base.”

  “But what about the points you removed?” asked Flame.

  “Of course!” said Stalker. “These pirates expected someone to do exactly what we are doing, so they deliberately disguised their attack pattern to make it much harder to find them.”

  “Yeah,” said Phoenix who had a big smile on his face. He was basking in the moment, characteristic of his attention-loving nature.

  “Perhaps,” said Karlith. “That system is listed as uninhabitable and lacking any useful resources. Not a bad place to hide.”

  “It has several rocky worlds,” started Stalker. “If they are there, they are likely to be dug in. It could be tough to get them out.”

  “Master Shadow, let me take the Dust Dragon and see what is there,” requested Phoenix.

  “That is not a bad idea, but not until we are much closer. When we reach the system, you will fly ahead under cloak and find out what we are facing. We will approach much more slowly. That way, we can avoid both of us being caught in a trap at the same time.”

  After that, we talked some more about what we thought we could expect and analyzed the known information about the pirates’ ship and their strategies.

  Chapter Twelve

  “Phoenix, are you ready?” I asked over the comm system.

  “Yes, Master,” he responded.

  “Excellent. Then launch, and remember to keep a low profile until we know what we are up against,” I said.

  “Yes, Master,” he said.

  After two weeks of travel we finally reached the system where we believed the pirates were hiding. There were three rocky worlds and several gas giants. One of the rocky worlds had a reasonable surface temperature and roughly one standard G of gravity. I felt that made it the most likely place for them to set up their base.

  Stalker argued that that made it the least likely spot to find them; he suggested instead that they might be hiding near one of the gas giants. This was a good second option, as a gas giant would give them access to some of the more important gases, like hydrogen, needed to survive out here.

  “Probes away, Master,” said my science officer.

  The plan was that the Dust Dragon and Nevermore II would stay hidden, and the probes would check all six planets for signs of occupation. The probes were tiny and speedy enough to cover most of the system faster than our ships could even reach the first target.

  “Now we wait,” I said. Waiting was Dusty’s game and I was never good at it. It was a constant bad mark that followed me through my naval career. I was constantly considered to be too reactive, never slowing down and thinking things through. The problem was not that I did not think things through; at least I did not think so. I believed the problem to be that I could see more and think faster than most people could. That made waiting on my navy superiors hard. Over the years, I had improved my ability to wait, but still preferred action to inaction. I chuckled as I realized that that was what everyone said about Flame when she had become a wizard. We seemed to be more alike than different after all.

  It was hours later when Stalker finally said, “Master, we got something.”

  “About time,” I said.

  “Master, it appears to be a mining platform around the fifth planet. It is currently idle, but I would guess it is used for gathering various gases from the planet when they are needed.”

  “Keep a probe on it for the moment. If we do not see them anywhere else, we might catch them heading to that platform to resupply,” I said. “Anything from the other probes yet?”

  “No, Master, but it will not be much longer now.”

  As we waited, I wondered how Dusty was doing. I knew he could not contact us without risking his cover, but it was still difficult waiting to hear how his first mission was progressing.

  True to his word, it was not much later when Stalker said, “Master, reports are coming in now, and it looks like their base is on the third planet.”

  “Excellent. Flame, set a course but do not execute it yet. Stalker, what can the probes see?”

  “Master, it looks like the base is almost completely underground. Without risking detection we cannot scan deep to see what is there, but it does look like the surface spaceport is empty. The base is well defended by numerous anti-spacecraft batteries on the surface. All appear to be online and fully operational.”

  “We do not want to get close enough to trip any alarms. Can we tell what their range is?” I asked.

  “Master, they appear to be Imperial Navy surplus, so I would say at most a light minute. The world appears to have no atmosphere, which is unusual for a body of its mass. This could potentially increase their targeting accuracy and range, but that is just a guess.”

  “Flame, adjust our course so that we do not get closer than five minutes to the planet, then. Relay this information to the Dust Dragon, and let’s move in under full cloak,” I said.

  “Sure thing, Shadow,” she replied.

  “Stalker, based on what we now know about t
he system, see if you can predict the most likely jump exit points for them and send some of the probes out there to give us early warning.” They were in a stealth vessel, so they would need to cloak the moment they came out of jump space. We would have a very short window to detect them, and the probes would increase our chances of catching them in that short period. “I think it is safe to assume that after a successful run they would head back to their base, so you can use that to narrow the possibilities a bit,” I said.

  “Master, should we finish sweeping the rest of the planets first?” he asked.

  It was unlikely that there was anything else to be found, but there was wisdom in his suggestion. “Yes, that is a good idea.”

  It would be a while before anything more developed at this point, so I had all my key staff take a break early. I wanted to make sure we had a well-rested crew when the pirates were discovered. They had a proven track record of being deadly in combat, and we could not afford to underestimate them.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Several days had passed since we entered the system, and Flame and I were enjoying a wonderful, intimate meal in our private quarters when I felt a surge of energy that I immediately recognized as a starship jumping into local space. My head shot up, and Flame asked, “What’s wrong?”

  “They are here,” I said.

  “Go! I’ll clean up and join you,” she said.

  I rushed up to the bridge as “Master Shadow to the bridge!” came over the ship’s comm system.

  “Already en route,” I replied.

  As I rushed through the halls I reached out with my awareness and tried to get a fix on the position of the pirate ship, but it was too far away to be found without a high degree of concentration. This I could not achieve while avoiding collision with crewmen heading to their stations.

  “Report,” I said as I reached the bridge.

  “Master, as expected they jumped in and cloaked right away. Based on their last known location, and assuming they head straight to their base, they should be here in a few hours,” said Stalker.