Beyond Antares Dimensional Gates Read online

  Shan’am turned and walked into his living room, leaving the door open so O’Shiply could follow. Shan’am could not prevent a grin from spreading across his taut face, though he did not allow the inspector to see it. Showing joy at the death of a highly respected Isorian commander was bad form. But he was not grinning about Commander Molan’s death. Shan’am was grinning for what the feather represented.

  Brilliant!

  “What can I do about it, Inspector?” Shan’am asked, taking a seat on his couch and leaning back casually. He gripped the feather in a tight fist. “How am I involved in this matter?”

  “Come now, Mick,” O’Shiply said, taking a seat as well. “Don’t insult me. The Magpie was your student.”

  “Was, Inspector. That is the operative word here. But he has been missing for twenty years and presumed dead. A green feather is no proof.”

  “It isn’t a real feather, Mick. Check it again. It’s comprised of an unknown porous mono-filament, as light as a feather, but strong and waterproof. Perhaps indestructible against any Isorian weapons. We’ll do tests. But what we do know is that…” O’Shiply seemed unwilling to utter the next phrase “… it hampers IMTel recognition. It’s dead to us, Mick, like a dried branch on a tree. Our nanotech cannot penetrate it, cannot divine its secrets. Perhaps it’s some unknown Tsan Kiri technology that we’ve never experienced before. Perhaps it’s some alien tech discovered in the hinterland of the Antares net by Freeborn merchants. Perhaps it’s Boromite or Ghar. We do not know. But one thing is absolute: the bird that it belonged to emits a shield that cannot be penetrated by IMTel, which means that The Magpie can kill unfettered, unchecked with his low-tech, but very powerful, mag rifle. He’s back, Mick. He’s on silent running… and he’s hunting.”

  And where a lone magpie appears, death always follows. Shan’am did not bother to speak the legend aloud, for O’Shiply surely knew it and did not need to be reminded.

  Shan’am opened his hand and inspected the feather once more. Indeed, it was not real, but oh what a nice piece of engineering. As far as the basic senses could detect, there was nothing about this feather that did not feel real. He tried himself to get the IMTel nanotech swirling about him to study it. Nothing. O’Shiply was right. It was dead.

  “I will ask you again, Inspector. What do you want from me?”

  “He’s your man. You know him better than anyone. We want you to find him… and kill him before he strikes again.”

  Shan’am huffed and got up. He went to a window and stared out onto his lake. “One does not simply ‘find’ The Magpie, Inspector. A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since his last appearance. If he’s stumbled upon cloaking technology that renders IMTel sensors irrelevant, what is one old man, with creaky joints and a weak heart, going to do?”

  O’Shiply stood and came to him at the window. “He’s not on Borgo for laughs, Mick. He’s there to change the balance of power in that struggle. If he’s on Borgo, you know what it means. Commander Miryum Stuzan is next.”

  Her name sparked a rise in Shan’am’s blood pressure. “He would not dare kill her.”

  “Are you sure? She is the next logical target. She is in line of succession after Commander Molan. She is on Borgo, deep behind enemy lines, in a desperate fight. She cannot be extracted—the situation is too desperate right now—and IMTel cannot protect her from him if he so chooses to strike. We cannot afford to lose another officer to an assassin, especially from someone who used to be our own. The loss of Commander Molan has put us in a dangerous spot with the Algoryn on Borgo. One more officer put down, and our army will fall. Borgo will fall, and then this place, Shalgorn, your home, will follow.”

  He had little concern about his own life, but there were millions living on Shalgorn. Did he dare risk their lives, their peace and freedom, from vengeful Algoryn fleets? Did he risk playing with Commander Stuzan’s life? He had done it once before.

  Shan’am turned and faced O’Shiply with his most rigid pose. “Very well, Inspector. I will do as you ask. It’ll be my last mission, and in the end, you’ll have either The Magpie’s dead corpse… or mine.”

  Borgo Planetside, Kalean Sector, Hot Zone

  Commander Miryum Stuzan accessed IMTel and reviewed the tactical overlays of her Isorian invasion force. The virtual battlefield came alive in her mind, and she was able to pick out each unit, and its officers, from the dots and triangles and x’s arrayed along the various topographical elements glowing green and brown and blue on her display: Kahloc KV heavy battle drones there; x-howitzer support teams there; NuHu Senatexis with supporting phase squads there. The finest of the 5th Isorian Guard, all engaged and fighting. Fighting for their lives.

  Algoryn units were everywhere, swarming, pressing on the Isorian perimeter. It was impossible to break out, impossible to flee. HQ had offered to air-lift her out of the hot zone so that she might coordinate the effort safely from low altitude. She had refused. Too many officers had died already, the latest being Commander Kem Molan, her superior. Morale was low, and how much lower would it go if she, now commander of all Isorian forces planetside, fled to safety while her men died in scores? No. She would not retreat. She would stay. Assassin’s threat be damned!

  She closed the battlefield overlay and walked out of her headquarters, into sun and open air. Foolish move, her aides would say. At least stay enclosed, isolated, so that The Magpie could not reach you. She snickered. What a foolish name! A little bird of little import. More crow than anything. Nothing to fear. HQ was overreacting. It was nothing more than some Algoryn out there causing trouble, trying to end the siege by picking off a few officers. But she was far behind enemy lines, and there were multiple IMTel perimeters set up around their position. Nothing, not even a feather, could draw near without being detected. Nothing.

  An aide handed her a tablet showing the relative positions and current strengths of their left flank. She scribbled changes with her finger. “No, I want Commander Frech to move his remaining phase squads there. The Algoryn are weakest there. Tell him to push and push hard. I want a breach in the enemy line by nightfall.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The aide scampered off, and Miryum Stuzan was alone again. She paused to take a breath. She listened to the distant sounds of battle, of gun and drone fire. Men and women were dying beyond her protection of trees and cliff rock. She felt the guilt of not being there, of not standing side by side with them in the trenches. She preferred it that way, though she had agreed to her promotion, and so she could not blame anyone but herself. She was a commander now, and that required a certain sacrifice that she had agreed to take. She would not leave the battlefield to hover above it like some coward, but she had no choice about being here in this safer facility.

  She sighed and turned to return to her bunker, and there is was. A white-and-black bodied bird with fast fluttering iridescent green wings, hovering like a hummingbird, but bigger, like a crow. It squawked, once, twice, and then dropped to waist-level. Miryum Stuzan smiled, forgot herself, and reached out to touch it.

  A plasma round ripped through her uniform and grazed her shoulder. She fell forward, just in time to hear a second round zip past her head and lodge itself in the front door of her bunker. She clutched her bleeding shoulder, but stayed low, on the ground, and forced herself to watch, through the pain, the bird squawk once more and then fly toward the forest.

  She waited there on the ground until her aide rushed in to help her up. The wound on her shoulder stung like hell, but the nanotech in her body was already staunching the blood. She collected herself, wiped off the grime of the dirty, wet ground, and slowly approached her bunker door.

  She studied the needle lodged in it. A high-velocity mag round. She turned her shoulder and studied the wound. A sniper’s shot as well, but clearly from an Isorian phase rifle.

  Two shots, from two different directions, from two different guns. She’d been hit by one, but she was alive. Alive…

  Miryum Stuzan shook h
er head. “What the hell is going on?”

  * * * *

  Mick Shan’am smiled beneath his canopy of wet leaves and mulch. Perfect shot. Right across the arm. A flesh wound only, but enough to cause her to duck. Enough to cause The Magpie’s shot to miss.

  I’ve still got it.

  He did not linger, however, to celebrate. He moved, quicker than a man as old as he might under normal circumstances. He was being hunted now, and The Magpie was too good, too competent, to not have already figured out where the errant shot had come from. The Magpie would be on the move, and so must he.

  He crouched low and ran as fast as his old legs could carry him. This part of Borgo was not so heavily wooded. It was a mixture of woods, glades, rocky hills, and river valleys that reminded Shan’am of his home planet. He felt comfortable moving through it all, ducking and dodging this tree, this outcropping of sharp stone, this uprooted rotting log. And for some reason, he did not feel the constant nagging of the IMTel, warning him about his heart, about his health and well-being. Something was jamming it all. The bird, Shan’am thought as he paused in his flight against a large tree. That damnable bird is blocking everything.

  “Not fair, my boy,” Shan’am whispered, as if The Magpie was close enough to overhear. It was the bird that he had seen hovering close to Commander Stuzan. A Magpie itself. It must be projecting a dampening field that could even penetrate on the cellular level. Clever, indeed, for how could any Isorian commander–or any Isorian for that matter–function without being constantly connected to the collective whole? It was a clever device and dangerous in its own right. Both had to be stopped.

  The bark on the tree above his head exploded in a shower of wood particles. Shan’am ducked, leaped, and rolled down a gully. His heart was racing, pounding against his chest. In a way, it felt good, and he allowed himself to feel good again, though his mission was deadly and sorrowful. I have been sent here to kill my prized student. It was not something to revel in.

  But the shot into the tree above his head was a warning. The Magpie was giving him a chance to flee, to leave the area. As Shan’am came to rest at the bottom of the gully, he smiled. Perhaps the young man was not so far gone after all. Perhaps he could be reasoned with; perhaps he could be talked down.

  Shan’am picked himself up, wiped the dirt and grime off his coat. He adjusted the strap on his phase rifle that held the weapon tightly against his back. He breathed deep to catch his breath, to let his pounding heart settle. Then he spoke loudly and in a commanding voice. “Come out, come out, you foolish bird!”

  His voice echoed through the wood. He waited. Nothing. He was about to repeat himself, when a bird, with white-and-black body and beautiful green wings, landed in a tree near his head. It sat there, fluttering its wings and squawking as if it were real.

  “If you are going to kill me, do it quickly,” he shouted. “Otherwise, come out, and let us talk.”

  “This is as close as I will come, old man.” The rough voice came through the magpie’s beak. “I advise you to leave, and now, before you get hurt.”

  “Why are you doing this, Jacque Stuzen?” Shan’am asked, using The Magpie’s real name. He put his hand on his hip, close to the hidden pistol. “Why are you killing Isorian commanders? Why here?”

  “Why not here? Why not anywhere Isorian aggression leaves tens of thousands dead?”

  “So you are working for the Algoryn now, is that it?” Shan’am couldn’t help but chuckle. “I’d like to point out, Jacque Stuzen, that the Algoryn do the same. All the Antares empires do the same.”

  “I don’t work for the Algoryn, or anyone else. I serve myself.”

  Shan’am glanced up the gully, squinted to try to see if anything had changed in the topography, any clump of branches had moved or been displaced, any patch of dried leaves had quivered. The Magpie might be moving into position for the kill shot. But nothing seemed disturbed, nothing out of place. I may be an old man, Jacque, but my eyes are still better than yours. “And does serving yourself require killing your sister?”

  There was a pause. It looked as if the bird would take flight. It rustled its wings, hopped onto another branch, then The Magpie said, “She stopped being my sister when she ordered me to kill those children on Novas Prime.”

  “They were not children. Not anymore. They were Ghar thralls, with the intent to kill. They were nothing more than suicide bombs, Jacque. Killing them saved thousands of Isorian lives.”

  “So says the official record, but you and I have read the classified report. Those children were savable; their Ghar implants not so deep, not so permanent. But you and Miryum took the easy route, didn’t you? When I asked you to challenge the order, you refused and told me to do my duty to my commander, that war is not clean and safe, and that we must do things sometimes as snipers for the good of the whole.”

  “Things were going very badly for the Senatex in that war,” Shan’am said, edging his hand closer to the pistol at his side. “We did not have time to make moral judgments. We needed to defeat the Ghar.”

  “We lost anyway!” The Magpie’s rough voice echoed through the bird’s beak. “We lost Novas Prime… and we lost those children. And I lost you that day as well, my teacher, my mentor. And my sister. I realized that the Senatex cared more for victory than it did its citizenry, and I decided that I was not willing to fight that kind of war any longer.”

  “So now you’ve returned to settle old scores, is that it? Set things straight?”

  The Magpie chuckled. “I’m simply following your teachings. To be a good assassin, one must find balance in all things, isn’t that what you said? Find the balance in your weapon; find the balance in your life. Only then can you kill with the moral certitude required for a good sniper. You allowed that balance to be destroyed on Novas Prime. And that balance is being destroyed here as well, with Commander Kem Molan’s action against that Isorian town, killing them all for fear that they would turn to the Algoryn and provide succor and assistance to the enemy. The war is going so badly here for the Isorians, old man, and old habits are hard to break. I’m here to bring balance to the situation. And that means my sister must die before she makes the same mistake she did on Novas Prime… and so must you.”

  “You’ll have to find me first,” Shan’am said. He grabbed his pistol and fired at the bird as it tried to take flight. One shot, a kill shot, right through its little mechanical heart.

  It hovered in the air, flapping its wings, trying to gain altitude. But Shan’am’s shot had gone straight through its internal structure. It tried once more to fly, and then it dropped to the ground and rolled away.

  Shan’am followed it down the gully and stomped it into the mud. Then he ran.

  Top speed, though these days, that was less then nominal. But his old legs took him up and down a patchwork of gullies until he finally dropped and slid down an embankment into a river. A fast-moving river, which he let carry him downstream.

  He floated face up, warily eyeing the bank for any sign of The Magpie. He bobbed up and down in the water, his face occasionally dropping below the surface. He held his breath on those moments. He did not worry about the rifle on his back or the pistol on his hip. They were both waterproof.

  He drifted a mile perhaps, letting the rough white water take him down, down until he found an outcropping of rock and rotting timber tucked in on the opposite shoreline. A nice, quiet patch of water. A little murky, perhaps, but perfect otherwise. He waved his hands through the water and propelled himself out of the rapids and into that quieter place.

  At the bottom of the river he found the lip of a rotting log and hooked his feet beneath it so as to keep from drifting upward. He took a few deep breaths and held the last one. Then, using his legs, he pulled himself beneath the surface, until he was completely submerged. Then he unslung his rifle, set the stock against his shoulder, and put his eye against the sight. The soft nano-material there cupped his eye and kept it sealed and waterproof. He refocused the sight
and expanded its view pattern. Sixty-five degrees with one-one thousandths zoom capability. He would not require such focus, hopefully, but with The Magpie, one could never be sure. The Magpie knew the tactic of firing from below water just as much as Shan’am, was even better at it than he. The key, however, was to know where the sniper was. In the midst of so many weeds, the barrel of the rifle would look like an errant branch. If The Magpie wasn’t extremely careful, he would never see it.

  As he kept the scope trained on the bank, Shan’am wondered how long he could hold his breath. In his day, ten minutes was nothing. Now, he wasn’t so sure. Those few deep breaths before he submerged were helpful, but his lungs already screamed for air, his internal O2 saturation display dropping precipitously, his heart monitor going crazy. His chest hurt. The pulse in his temples beat a rhythm he could hear through the dull rumble of the river water moving rapidly thirty feet away. But none of it mattered. In ten minutes, he’d resurface, if he were alive, take a breath, and go down again.

  A glint of light shown on the opposite bank. Shan’am took a shot, hit the glint square in the center. Then silence.

  There was the glint again, but this time he paused, held his fire, squinted so that the scope refocused on the source of the glint.

  A piece of damaged mirror, wedged into the crook of a tree branch, catching the light from… what? Shan’am kept his focus on the mirror. White light reflected again, but not from the sun, at least not at the angle the mirror lay against the tree. No, it was coming from behind him, from another shard of mirror, from…

  He dropped the rifle and spun just as the pole came through the water and struck a glancing blow against his head. Shan’am wavered, propelled himself backwards from the blow, fumbled with the pistol in its holster at his waist. He found it and drew it above the surface. He aimed it at a man standing on a log ten paces away. He unloaded the full clip, each plasma round finding its mark in the man’s chest, but seemingly doing no damage. Shan’am squeezed the trigger until there was nothing but air. The man, helmeted and unrecognizable, raised his arm, and from a barrel strapped to his forearm, fired a dart.