The Sac'a'rith (18 page)

I started with the group that I had moved into the hall already, and using my assault rifle I made quick work of all their heads. Then I went into Engineering and finished the job, moving the bodies into the hall as I completed the work. When I was finished there was blood floating around everywhere, but at least the bodies were gone.

“Narcion, all the bodies have been taken care of. We are ready to turn the power back on,” I told him.

“Good work, brother. Go ahead and power up the station,” he said.

Crivreen went to work. I was not sure what exactly he was doing, and I wasn’t free to watch. I figured without the small army in here to attack us, the wraiths were sure to make their move soon. I kept up my Sight, constantly scanning the room.

“Here we go. Oh, you might want to get closer to the floor,” said Crivreen as the lights came up and I started to feel myself gaining weight.

I straightened out my legs as gravity slowly took hold of me. Everything that had been floating slowly drifted down. I could see Crivreen cringe as the floating blood splattered on the floor. Around us was the sound of the station coming to life, of equipment firing up and air handlers coming on.

“In about twenty to thirty minutes the air handlers will have recycled the atmosphere and it will be safe to take our helmets off,” said Crivreen to everyone.

“Great work, Crivreen! Don’t take off your helmets, but do make sure you top up your air and battery supplies while you can,” responded Narcion.

“So, Crivreen, what did you do before you got arrested?” I asked.

“I had a decent job as chief engineer on a trade hauler in a respectable fleet. All of that is gone now. With a criminal record they will never re-employ me,” he said.

“If Narcion had not hired you, what was your plan?” I asked. I was trying to keep him talking and distract him from the carnage in the hallway. I could tell he was still uneasy about it.

“Oh, I don’t know. I was thinking I might try to make my way out to where the wizards are. I might be able to trade my skills for a ride along one of the trade routes, assuming I could find a fleet that did not know me.”

“And then what?” I asked.

“Try to find a wizard to teach me how to use my powers,” he said.

“Seems like a good plan,” I said.

“Yeah, it would never have worked, though,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, I have no money. Everything I owned was taken when I was arrested. I could not afford to travel far enough away to find a trade caravan and apply for passage,” he said.

“After a few years working for Narcion, you will have plenty of money to make that trip,” I said.

“I … ” he started, but then was cut off by an alarm. He rushed over to a terminal and then said into the intercom, “Well, I know now why they shut it down.”

“What’s wrong?” asked Narcion.

“The core is unstable. The temperature is continuing to rise. If it does not stop, we risk losing containment, and that could be catastrophic,” he said.

“Can you stop it?” asked Narcion.

“If I had enough time to diagnose the problem and repair it, yes. But there isn’t enough time,” he said.

“How much time do we have?” asked Narcion.

“At best two hours, but I would not feel comfortable going much beyond thirty minutes,” said Crivreen.

“That will have to do. In thirty minutes shut down the system and head back to the cruiser. We will meet there and re-evaluate our situation. Until then try your best to figure out what is causing the problem,” said Narcion.

The next thirty minutes passed slowly for me. Crivreen was working as fast as he could around me, trying to diagnose the problem with the core, while I just sat there and watched for wraiths. It bothered me that they were not attacking yet. They needed living creatures to feed on to survive. The sight of us just sitting here like this must have been like leaving out gourmet food in front of a man who is starving.

“All right, I’m shutting it down,” said Crivreen.

The lights went out quickly and the various other machines shut down, but I was still standing on the floor. “How come we aren’t floating?”

“It will take a little while for the field to dissipate. Come on, let’s get out of here,” he said as he headed out of the room. After we were both out he disconnected his battery, which caused the door to slam shut behind us.

It did not take us long to retrace our steps the way we had come. As before, we teleported one at a time through the airlock and then drifted back to the ship across open space. I was relieved to be back on the cruiser, where gravity and air functioned correctly.

“Zah’rak, come with me to the bridge. Felix, Crivreen, keep a look out. As we pull away we may draw some attention,” said Narcion.

“We are leaving?” asked Felix.

“No, just putting some distance between us and the station while I work out our next move.”

Once Narcion and I were on the bridge he asked me to pull out to two hundred kilometers from the station while he worked at something on the console.

“Right, Zah’rak: we need to figure this out,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I copied the station’s entire database down to the ship’s computer during that brief window of power we had. This going from one station to another and removing the wraiths is not helping us to find out who is behind this. I am hoping there is something in these records that will help us,” he said.

On the main screen data was flying by as he searched records. The speed at which he worked was beyond that which any human could normally achieve. A thought occurred to me. “Narcion, if this is the government’s database, won’t it have the real attack times and locations in there?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Then we should be able to see if there is a pattern to the attacks, shouldn’t we?” I asked.

“Good idea. I have not found a pattern up to now, but I have had inadequate information to work from. They only call me after they’ve given up, and I think sometimes they just let the station go.” He worked at the terminal, and I saw images flash by too fast to read. I was trying to think of a way to help when he said, “Got it!”

“Got what?” I asked.

“You were right, there is a pattern. With the complete set of attacks and timings, the pattern is quite obvious,” he said.

“Great! Let’s go to the next station in the pattern and wait for the attacker to show,” I said.

“Good idea, but we won’t make it in time. It is too far,” he said.

“We’ve got company,” said Crivreen over the intercom. “Two wraiths flying towards us.”

“I expected as much. Felix, can you trap them in a shield?” asked Narcion.

“Not unless I can get direct line-of-sight and they stay put long enough for me to cast,” he said.

“Okay, then keep an eye on them and we’ll all move to the main cargo bay; that will give us room to fight,” said Narcion.

While they were talking, I had leaned back and closed my eyes. Using my Sight, I looked back and saw them coming. I could feel emotions emanating from them. I got closer to see what else I could learn. Soon it was as if I was seeing through their eyes. Hunger pains racked my body. “So hungry. I must eat … ”

“Careful, brother. You’re getting too deep,” said Narcion from somewhere far away.

I shook myself free of the vision and said, “They are coming and are blinded by hunger. They will be desperate.”

“Put your helmet on, and let’s move,” he said.

We ran down and met Felix and Crivreen in the main cargo bay. Once there, we formed ourselves into a defensive position in the center of the room and waited. “Now, remember only your spells will work, and don’t let them touch you.”

I don’t know how long we waited, but it seemed like years. When they finally came, they came in fast. The lead wraith flew right towards Crivreen, who was frozen with fear. I jumped in front of him and the wraith hit my armor with the claw swipe meant for Crivreen.

As it contacted my armor green sparks went flying, and there was a pulse of green light where its hand connected that looked like power bleeding off into several streams away from the blow. The wraith pulled back in obvious surprise. I did not hesitate to take advantage of its confusion and quickly slashed out with my knives, killing it. Behind me I heard the other wraith scream and spun to see Narcion finishing it off.

“That was easier than I expected,” I said.

“Your armor seems to have worked well,” said Narcion.

“Yes! It was the coolest thing. He jumped in front of me and its attack just bounced off his armor, throwing sparks,” Crivreen said.

“We will have to monitor the condition of your armor, at least until we know better how much damage it can take and still function,” said Narcion.

“Sorry, Zah’rak; I don’t know what happened there! I just couldn’t move,” said Crivreen. He looked both embarrassed and annoyed.

“It’s fine. It is the fear weapon I warned you about. It can be paralyzing if you’re not ready for it,” said Narcion. “We will work on that some more, but right now I need to get back to the bridge and figure out a better plan. You two, keep up the watch. We are too far from the station for me to tell if there are more wraiths on it or not.”

Narcion and I returned to the bridge where he consulted the information again. “It looks like whoever is behind this is simply moving from station to station in positional order around the sector.”

“And they never return to a station they have hit once,” I said.

“Right; so that means they must get what they need right away, but what could that be?” he asked.

I thought about it for a while and asked, “Can we see the initial attack on this station?”

“No, that is the first thing I looked for. All records of that day are missing. We have data from the day before and the day after, so I suspect it was deliberately purged,” he said.

“I would not have thought a wraith could do that,” I remarked.

“It would be hard for an incorporeal being to type on a computer, I suspect,” he mused.

“What about other stations? Any information on them?” I asked.

“That is a good thought, brother, but this station only has aggregate information about other stations,” he said.

While I was not quite sure what that meant, I took it to mean that he could not get the information on the attacks on any of the stations. “You know, when my less-than-respectable friends would hit a place, they would grab what they could and go as fast as possible. After that they would often leave some people behind to trash the place in order to cover up the theft, which had the added benefit of giving them someone to frame.”

“What are you implying?” he asked.

“Well, let’s say I wanted something from these stations, but I wanted to throw people off the trail. So I hit the station fast and hard, got what I wanted, and left the wraiths behind to throw off pursuit,” I said.

Narcion looked stunned. “I would not have thought of that!”

“Yeah, well, I guess it pays to have lived with the criminal element my whole life.” I could not help but be a bit proud that I had finally figured something out faster than he did. I figured it might not happen again, but for that movement I had pulled it off.

“That makes more sense than anything else I have come up with, but it really means we need to get to that station before the attack and see if we can catch them in the act,” he said.

“Too bad we don’t have real wizards out here that could whisk us there in an instant,” I mused.

“True, but there might be another way,” he said. He put a call in to his government contact.

“Hello, Narcion. I trust all is going well?” answered the contact.

“Yes, but I have some things to report. First, the power system on the station is damaged. I will send along a report from my engineer, but the long and short of it is that it will need major work before it’s turned back on.”

“Wonderful! Any more good news?” he asked.

“We have eliminated five wraiths, but I will have to do another sweep before I can say if there are any more. That being said, I am going to recommend we abandon this station for the present,” said Narcion.

“Why?” he asked.

“We think we have figured out that the next station to be hit will be Bonair. I suggest we evacuate that station and fill it with robotic defenders,” stated Narcion.

“How do you know this?” he asked.

Narcion pulled up the list of stations he had and overlaid it on the screen. “I got this list from the station’s computers, and I believe I have worked out the pattern designed by whoever is behind these attacks.”

“I thought you said the station had no power?” he asked.

Narcion chuckled. “You still don’t trust me? As you will know from the station’s report to your central command, we did successfully get power for a short period of time. That will all be in my engineer’s report. Now, as I was saying: we evacuate the station, fill it with robot defenders, and I take my team and hide on the station. This way we have a chance at catching the attackers in the act.”

He leaned back in his chair and seemed to think about that for a while. “You’ll never make it there in time.”

“By myself, no, but I know you have a fleet within a jump of this station ready to move in. I could link up with that fleet, and I am sure they could make the trip much faster,” said Narcion.

Since how far a ship could jump in a single step was dependent on how big a gravity bubble it could create, large fleets with many jump drives would link their ships together to create one massive gravity bubble. That would allow the fleet as a whole to travel great distances much faster than any individual ship in the fleet could ever hope to.

“That would leave that station undefended,” he said.

“Leave a couple of ships behind to stand watch. It would only be for long enough to make the round trip. Besides, if there are any wraiths left on the station you could just let any attacker take it and leave them to the wraiths,” said Narcion.

“The very act of evacuating the station could mean the attackers choose a different station. It might be best just to drop you in there and not say anything,” he said.