The end of part one.  Onward!
http://www.bloodgod.com/smgray/index.html for this and all related
materials.

Any and all criticism or comments appreciated, of course.  If you read
it, drop me a line.

I have less and less to say in these little intros, don't I?

Django Wexler (khaine)
khaine@mindless.com

"Quiet!  Here come the ninjas."


Chapter Six
    Ami

    Blink.

    It didn't seem to help.  I wiped away the trickle of blood from my
eye with one sleeve, and my vision started to clear.  Recent memory
seemed to be jumbled, but I could remember a screaming descent into the
atmosphere at an angle far steeper then the one strictly advised.  The
force of the power dive, even inside the ship, had been incredible.  I
remember Kyn snarling with rage and punching the air, and the lights
flickering as the shields responded and power dropped.  And then...

    Pushing myself to a sitting position was no mean feat, but I managed
it somehow.  I was still in the main cabin, such as it was.  Something
had ripped a huge rent in the ship lengthwise, big enough to walk
through.  What was left of my control equipment was dark and silent;
Kyn's VR helmet lay discarded and broken in one corner.

    I guessed that we'd hit the ground at around two hundred miles an
hour.  The ship was tough, especially with the contragravity field up,
but at that speed in an atmosphere I probably should have been goo on
the walls.  Which meant that once again I owed my life to my powers
kicking in at the last possible second.  It always sort of felt like
cheating.

    After giving myself a quick once-over and finding no injuries aside
from an assortment of bruises and scratches, I got up and stumbled
towards my quarters.  This was complicated by the fact that the ship was
now lying on its back, so I was effectively walking along the ceiling.
Most of my stuff had been trashed by the landing, of course, but I
prized my emergency supplies out from under the wreckage of my bed.
These were conveniently gathered into a large black backpack.  After a
brief rummage, I pulled out the silver-gray headband I'd been looking
for.

    I couldn't help feeling a little tension as I slipped it on and
waited for it to go through its start-up routine.  Finally the thing
beeped, and the familiar voice sounding in my ear took the edge off my
nervousness.

    "My *ship*!  What did you do to my beautiful ship?!?"

    "Not exactly a perfect landing, I'll admit."  I zipped up the
backpack and shrugged it on.

    "Not *perfect*.  Not perfect, she says.  You ripped up half a city
block!"

    "No I didn't.  I was aiming for a park."

    "Hmph."  Zel somehow gave the impression of sulking without a
visible body.  "You *would* have ripped up a block.  If you'd landed on
one."

    "Right."  I finished checking my equipment and started clambering
out the door. The main airlock was upside-down and wouldn't work anyway,
without power, so I just headed for the giant hole in the hull.  "Are
you okay?"

    "Lost some data, nothing major."

    "Make sure you're snug in the portable."

    "Already done.  I had to leave some stuff behind, though."

    "Not much to do about that.  What about the ship?  Anything we can
salvage?"

    "Well, the contragravity core folded.  So that means we've got a
bunch of broken tubes and some scrap -- no power."

    I grimaced, though that was only to be expected.  With nothing to
control its spin, the ultra-massive cylinder that generated the
starship's power had collapsed into a tiny black hole, fast enough to
rip itself out of this universe entirely.  That accounted for the loud
thumping and loss of power halfway through our descent.

    Climbing out was also kind of tricky, since the edges of the hole
and the whole exterior of the ship were cooling from a white-heat.  I
took a moment to pull on a pair of black gloves, to save my skin, and
gingerly stepped through.

    "Where's our feline friend?"

    I waved, vaguely.  "Around, I assume."

    "She wasn't hurt in the crash?"

    "She's indestructible."

    "Ah well.  Hope springs eternal."

    "Oneesama!"

    I blinked in the sunlight and waved.  Kyn was shouting from a ways
off.  As I'd intended, or more accurately blindly hoped, we'd come down
in a little park.  The park had gotten the worst of it and was looking
rather badly mauled; the ship's descent had torn a furrow along half its
length, smashed the ornamental bridge to splinters, and dredged a new
channel for the stream.  Broken trees lined its path, some of them still
on fire.

    Kyn waved from atop one of the piles of dirt the crash had pushed
up.  "Oneesama!"

    "I see you, Kyn."  I waited for my eyes to adjust, suddenly feeling
a bit weary.  Nearly being killed -- you'd think I would have gotten
used to it by now -- takes a lot out of you.  "Are you alright?"

    "Hai!  I fell out of the ship, and then I had a nap, and then I woke
up and everything was on fire!"  Her tail twitched excitedly.  "Fires
are cute!  I chased them around for a while, and then they went out, so
I sat here and waited for you."

    "Good work."  I paused.  The cat-girl was still standing on top of
the new embankment, across the furrow ripped into the ground during my
landing.  "Any reason you're not coming over here to join me?"

    "Hai!  There's some guys here who want to talk to you.  They said
they'd shoot me if I moved!"

    "Some people," said Zel, "would have the decency to leave off the
cheerful squeak at the end of that."

    

    I climbed to the top of the other embankment as the 'guys' came into
view.

    There were four of them, dressed in full black armor.  Hardsuits,
from the look of it, pieces of mirrored black metal with cloth at the
joints.  The helmets were one-way dark mirrors.  Each had a stubby but
dangerous-looking rifle, which they carried in a competent manner that
suggested some kind of military affiliation.

    One of them said something, quiet enough that I couldn't make it
out.

    "They want you to come over here, Oneesama!"  Kyn shouted across the
gap.  "Slowly.  Or they'll shoot me."

    "Can you ask them why they can't talk to me from there?  Politely."

    "It's okay, Oneesama.  I always wondered what is was like to get
shot!"  Kyn turned and talked to the trooper standing immediately behind
her.  I used the opportunity to whisper to Zel.

    "Ideas?"

    "Well, at a guess, these are probably the same people who tried to
blast us out of space."

    "I figured that."

    "So I think an aggressive response is justified."

    I was running out of patience.  "And..."

    "I'm thinking.  This portable doesn't have the processing power I'm
used to."

    "Carrying your main processor around would be a bit inconvenient.
Come up with something."

    "I assume you want the fuzzball to get out in one piece?"

    I sighed.  "That would be nice, yes."

    "Then give me a second."

    "We probably don't have a second.  I'm going over there."

    "Ami!"

    "Carefully."  I raised my voice.  "Tell them I'm coming over!"

    "Hai!"

    I started picking my way down the slope, discreetly checking that my
pistol was still in its accustomed place at my side.  I don't
particularly like carrying a gun, but I've made it a habit after some
bad experiences.  Some people can be difficult to reason with, and often
the threat of force is more effective then its actual execution.

    When I was almost at the still-steaming bottom of the furrow, I
flipped my vision to the magical plane, on the off-chance that there was
something there.  I blinked in surprise -- the trooper was lit up like a
Christmas tree, absolutely lousy with magic.  It was woven into all his
equipment, suffusing the heavy dark armor and a bright line down the
center of his rifle.  But drowning all that out was a heavy mesh of
black threads, wrapped tightly around the core of his being, woven so
deeply that they were practically part of him.

    I wanted to study it a bit more, but the soldiers chose that
inopportune moment to open fire.

    My defenses snapped up almost of their own accord, by long-ingrained
reflex.  I sensed the build-up of power long before the weapon actually
fired, and so when the laser beams burned their super-heated trails
through the air they struck the invisible sphere around me and slid off
it, strobing against the magical forces.  I felt the kick even through
the shield -- those rifles had a *lot* of power behind them -- and
boiling air washed over me.  I ignored both, pulling my own weapon out
and returning fire as I started to run up the furrow, away from the ship
and towards some trees I could use for cover.

    My first shot went wild, kicking up a spray of dirt by their feet,
but the second caught the lead trooper in the chest.  It bowled him
over, but he got up almost immediately, a circular patch of dark armor
cooling from cherry-red.  I realized, a bit late, that a weapon intended
for knocking normal humans down was somewhat inadequate against fully
armored soldiers.

    "Kyn!  Get to the trees!"

    Luckily for me, the trio was ignoring their erstwhile hostage as she
dropped on to all fours and sprinted across the grass.  The lasers
slashed out again, blowing chips out of the wood and again bending away
from me.  I ducked behind a tree and tried to stay low -- at this rate,
a tree wouldn't last very long.

    Kyn finished her run with a roll and ended up upside down against a
tree behind me, smiling hugely.

    "Whee!"

    "Stay down, would you?"  I snapped off another couple of shots, more
from reflex than anything else, and tried to think.  The soldiers
weren't firing much, content to keep us pinned down.

    "Zel.  They must have seen that they probably can't touch me with
lasers.  So..."

    "Probably calling for backup."  The computer's voice was grim.  "My
tactical recommendation is to run the hell away."

    "Good idea.  Let me get us a little distraction.  Kyn, when I say,
run that way and don't stop till I tell you."

    "Hai hai!"

    I dipped briefly into magical vision again, this time reaching out
across the park.  Despite everything I've learned, old tricks remain the
easiest -- this took practically no effort at all.  Water was
everywhere, of course, and just the right little nudge and it
practically leapt into the air, shreds of mist rapidly forming into a
heavy fogbank.

    There were some advantages to being a wizard, too.  Another nudge,
and the fog extracted heat from the ground until it was practically
blood-hot, good enough to foil the modern optics that black armor surely
included.  Then I pulled back, surprised to find myself sweating in the
sudden bloom of warmth, and pushed off from the tree.

    "Now, Kyn!"

    The cat-girl kept pace with me easily, chattering all the while.
"You know what'd be funny, Oneesama?  If you never told me to stop at
all and I kept running all the way to the ocean and then I'd have to
swim, I guess, and maybe the fishes would help me and I could ride on a
shark and eat up all the swimmers and then I'd land somewhere else and
I'd have to keep running because that's what you told me to do!"  She
sucked in a deep breath.  "Wouldn't that be funny?  Oneesama?"

    "Right turn, Kyn."
    "Hai!"

    With a few blocks between us and the crash site, I slowed down a
bit.  The cat-girl didn't, jogging in circles around me until I caught
my breath.

    "You can stop now, Kyn."

    "Hai!"  She skidded to a halt, putting on what was, for her, a
reflective expression.  "Who were those guys?  Were they bad guys?"

    I was staring down a familiar street.  Down what was *left* of a
familiar street.

    "I'm starting to think so..."



Interlude One

    The black metal door hissed up into the ceiling, faster than the eye
could follow.  Kaia, her two personal guards following her like
black-armored shadows, took a deep breath and stepped into the
Commander's office.

    "Reporting, as you requested, Commander."

    The place wasn't furnished as richly as she'd expected.  Kaia had
served under three different Commanders in her career thus far, enough
to know that how the supreme leader of a fleet managed was almost
completely up to his personal taste.  Some ran their fleets like a
private fiefdom, soldiers bowing and scraping and piling on the
honorifics with every acknowledgement.  Kaia didn't approve of that -
what was the point?  Getting adulation from a Legionnaire was like being
called 'My Lord' by a teapot.  She much preferred those officers who
carried out their orders with absolute precision.

    [When I become a Commander], she thought, [there'll be no waste.]
The academies brought young officers up to prize efficiency,
reliability, and stability.  The lesson had sunk home deeper with some
than with others.

    She hadn't decided what category Commander Ashghar fell into yet.
He was an interesting case, no doubt about that, and she'd been
privately pleased to be assigned to his fleet.  Within the infinite
reach of the Sa'an Empire's ever-expanding borders, it was hard for an
individual officer to make a mark.  So many young Commanders, granted a
fleet of their own and determined to be noticed, ended up simply
subduing world after quiet world.  No wonder so many of them turned to
other sources for their amusement - a generation of easy victories was
enough to drive any real military man half-mad.  High Command tried to
rotate Commanders through difficult tasks, and recalled the worst
offenders.

    But this one was different.  Ashghar the Invincible.  He'd made a
mark.

    [And now he's out here, crushing resistance on some nameless planet
fifty universes away from where the action is.]  All the best Sa'an line
commanders were still fighting a race of self-replicating
killer-machines they'd accidentally awoken almost fifty years ago.  They
were winning, of course, but it was slow work, forcing the
self-assembling robots back step by bloody step before they could do any
more damage.  [A Commander with Ashghar's brilliance should be there.
So what's wrong with this picture?]

    Kaia waited, still at attention, for her Commander to turn around
and acknowledge her presence.  She tried her best to suppress her
slightly mutinous thoughts.  [That's what makes this job so
interesting.]  Ashghar turned, with an enigmatic half-smile.  [And so
dangerous.]

    "Vice-Commander.  I'm sorry if I kept you waiting."

    "I'm at your disposal, Commander."

    He nodded, and motioned to one of the chairs facing his desk.  "Sit
down, please."

    She complied, and the Commander took up his own chair and
turned to face her, staying silent for the moment.  She looked him over,
carefully.  Ashghar was older than she was, probably considerably older
unless he was letting his hair go grey on purpose.  His face had a
wooden look to it, like something carved out of a tree, but there was a
dark and dangerous intelligence under his eyes.  He dressed in an
officer's casual uniform, as was his right, but the unrelieved black was
broken by the tiniest bit of decoration around the shoulders, a little
silver swirl.

    He broke the silence first.

    "You're wondering why I called you here, of course."

    "The Commander wanted to speak to me."  She inclined her head, just
slightly, and wondered why he was beating around the bush.

    "Familiarize yourself with operation four-seven-nine-fifteen and
tell me what you think."

    Kaia nodded and sent the request for information winging into the
Grid.  Details trickled into her mind an instant later.  Her expression
did not change, but only because of her careful vigilance.

    "Done, sir."

    Ashghar leaned forward.  "Tell me what you think."

    Kaia had been an officer long enough to know that Commanders meant
two different things when they said that.  Ashghar, though, did not seem
the type that needed yes-men.  She hesitated.

    "Permission to speak freely, Commander."

    "Of course.  I expect you to speak freely whenever I ask your
opinion."

    She nodded, filing that away for further reference.  "This is a bad
idea."

    "Taking the girl prisoner?"

    "The whole project.  They should all be liquidated, Commander."

    He put his head on one side.  "Our first subject has met with
nothing but success.  And we've made progress in our experiments on the
others--"

    "We're dealing with forces we don't fully understand."

    "The Adepts do."

    "The Adepts can counteract those forces.  Understanding them is
something else entirely."  Kaia leaned forward, trying to press home her
point.  "Commander, no one has ever done anything like this before.
This occupation is still at a critical stage.  If these experiments must
go on, ship the subjects back to High Command and let them handle it.
They're better equipped to handle things if--"

    "If what, Vice-Commander?"

    "If something goes wrong."

    "What could go wrong?  If the subjects get out of control, they'll
be terminated."

    "You know it isn't that simple.  They are sentient minds connected
to the Grid."

    "So are you."

    "I am a loyal officer of the Empire.  These...people are not."

    Ashghar sat back, thinking, then finally shook his head.

    "All right.  Your opinion has been noted, Vice-Commander."

    Kaia couldn't quite just let it drop.  "Commander--"

    "Enough."  He cut her off.  "I listen to my subordinates, and I want
them to offer their opinions freely.  However, *I* am the Commander of
this fleet, and the decisions are ultimately mine."

    [Enough is enough.  No sense risking my neck.]  She brought her hand
around in a salute.  "Of course, Commander.  Forgive me if I have
offended."

    "Not at all."  He waved a hand.  "Now, since we have acquired a new
subject, I've found a use for her.  You'll be doing the briefings until
she gets accustomed to the Grid."

    "Of course."

    "I'll send you the details for the missions in question.  Please try
to make use of the subject's abilities.  I'd hate to waste them."

    "Absolutely, Commander."  [I will, too.  These experiments are
dangerous, but he's right about how useful they can be...]  "Will that
be all?"

    "Yes.  You may go, Vice-Commander."

    Kaia saluted again and left the office, already reaching out through
the Grid and reading her new assignment.  She smiled to herself when she
saw the details.

    [Whatever else he may be, Ashghar is a tactical genius.]  This
mission had his fingerprints all over the planning, and she could
already see how the latest subject was perfect for it.  [This one is
going to be fun...]
   

Still to come: 
	Part II: God of Blood, God of Darkness
	Part III: Convergence
	Part IV: Visions and Confessions
	Part V: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Wand


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