Scrambled, page 21
part #14 of Directorate Series
***
"I've put my foot in it this time!" Ahco looked at his guards. "I am now in charge of magical training. Any of you have teaching experience? Especially teaching physical shields?"
Shaken heads. A couple of snorts from the men who'd been assigned to the Black Horse Guards as grooms. "Some of us don't even have much student experience."
Coff nodded at Ajdo. "You two are the best at battle shields. Surely we can figure out how to get some of the Ministry guards up to speed, and train the rest on coordinating with the shield carriers."
Ahco remember his earliest lessons in projecting a physical shield an arm's length in front of himself. It had been very difficult, and . . . difficult. "That's going to be time consuming."
The Princesses were in the back. Myyk caught his gaze. "We all have training, but not training in training others. We'll work something out. Shields, definitely. Fireballs? Too energy draining, for showy but minor results. Slice? Stun? Very short range on those. But if they get that close, and we're low on ammo . . . One. This could get nasty."
Dipper bit her lip. "I could ask in the Red Zone . . . but . . . "
Ahco winced. "But what would the Minister say if he found out Azho the Priest Killer was holding magic classes? I shudder to think. Let's see what we can do, then if we need to, we'll ask Nick if he can train magicians."
Chapter Fifty-one
Adding Agents
4 Rajab 1411 yp
Ebsa waved his new crew aboard the crawler.
"Welcome to the Junkyard, gentlemen. Our crawler earned that name by being repeatedly battered and repaired. We are going to try to not do it again. Or at least not on this trip."
Utly and Wkde glanced around . . . froze and stared at Ra'd.
"This is our Ra'd, not your Azho. Azko, there, is our electronics expert and Nighthawk Swishdaut is from Disco. She's our dimensional expert."
"Toss your stuff in two of those bins by the folded up bunks. For simplicity's sake we've left the starboard side for visitors."
Wkde grinned at Nighthawk. "So what's a dimensional expert, Honey?"
Her eyes narrowed. "Someone with extremely strong magical abilities, the dimensional talent, and lots of training."
Ebsa cleared her throat. "Guys? Treat Nighthawk like a very powerful Ice Princess, and you'll have the tone about right. Get fresh, and she'll beat the crap out of you."
They swapped glances and frowned at Nighthawk. "But you're not a Oner. We can tell."
She rolled her eyes. "Welcome to the Multiverse. The One World has two of the five major groups of power genes. No, I don't have the One power gene. I have what we call the Witch Gene and the Wizard gene. The fifth type we call the Mage gene. That gene has, that we recognize, five versions, although some people argue that the One gene is a sixth version, not a separate type."
She looked beyond them . . . "Raven! You're our Medgician?"
Ebsa got his mouth closed. The girl had a spectacular mane of curly red hair.
"Yep. I finished medical school and of course I've been getting the magical side of the training from Lady Gisele and Uncle Xen since forever. This Oner named Paer trained me on the Oner equipment I'd find here, a week ago."
Wkde poked Utly. "Vicious, nasty Princess. Remember that."
Raven eyed them, and grinned like a hungry predator. "You'd better believe it, although I'm not as mean as Nighthawk."
Ebsa paused . . . shrugged. "You're big boys, you can fend for yourselves. Let's line up so we're ready to go as soon as Q finds another prospect."
The new gate was busy. Flats trundling through with squishies and containers of equipment and supplies.
Ebsa lined up and drove through. "Welcome to the refugee world. Anyone who hasn't got a place to return to—or a place they want to return to—is being settled here."
Wicked, Utterly, and Raven had nabbed the other three seats on the driving deck.
"That gate goes back to Embassy, of course, and then these corridors go to the incipient towns." Ebsa drove as he lectured. "And over here we have the competing welcome centers. Nuked Earth on this end, Nuked One on the other . . . "
"We object to that name, you know." Utly growled.
"I know. Choose another. 'One World' is already taken, as is 'Empire of the One.' Sorry."
From below, Ra'd laughed. "I'd suggest 'Two' but someone might try to hit me. Again."
Double glare aimed backward.
"Empire of the None? Since you've run out of Prophets?"
Wicked glowered. "You're down to a single Prophet."
Ebsa suppressed a grin. "And in the middle we have the Purps and Disco buildings. The Purple World sort of wants their people back—they're on their second generation Earth-born by now—but most of the expats would just as soon start fresh here. And Disco is here to count how many squishies they need to import and hook up and sort the pioneers out into groups that won't immediately start fighting with each other."
Raven pointed. "There's Q. So we're putting the gates up here?"
"Yes. Keep in mind that so far we haven't found any worlds that anyone wants to stay on." Nighthawk climbed the four steps to the driving deck and stood behind his seat. "The only problem we anticipate is if, when we find the mining worlds, people actually want to live there. Then we'll have to break the news to Earth that they can't have the world back."
"Oh?" Wicked looked surprised.
"Disco rules. Worlds that have been out of contact with their origins get to choose. They don't automatically revert to colony or possession." Nighthawk shrugged. "Time-wise, this is quite borderline, but the first gates we—Disco—put up, that Earth immediately attacked through, so we're not cutting them any slack."
Ebsa lined up with the rock arch, staying back from the people sitting on the ground. "So far, all the miners we've rescued jumped at the chance of land they own here, rather than stay on either of the mining worlds."
Wicked peered out at the people sitting cross-legged, facing the arch. "They can't possibly be opening a gate! Where's the power plant, the rings, the . . . everything it takes?"
A chuckle from Nighthawk. "The powered gates create a magnetic tunnel between membranes. Our gates utilize a natural multidimensional phenomenon. Much less energy intensive."
"The lady in the middle is Q. Dr. Quail Quicksilver. She could do it by herself, but she's making her understudies practice. The halo of teenagers are just observing, at their ages. The two guys who are standing around don't have any dimensional abilities. Like five of the seven of us, they can look through a gate and see what is actually there. The gate makers see the energy of the gate, and can't actually tell what's on the other side."
"That's why we like mixed teams." Nighthawk added. "You guys are handy."
"So all of you . . . Fallen?"
Nighthawk and Raven nodded.
"Weird. Fallen are dimensionally talented?"
Shaken heads.
"No, it's rare. But Disco aggressively recruits the dimensionally talented, so Disco's not a representative population. Ordinarily our explorer teams are made up of both, from our own people. That guy in the blue uniform? That's Colonel Lebonift, the head of Comet Fall's explorers. The equivalent of Ebsa and Ra'd's External Relations Subdirector of Exploration Ajha. Except Lefty's better at escaping and getting out in the field. I doubt the Nuked One has one yet." Nighthawk broke off as a rusty red desert appeared in the rock arch. Not that she could see it.
"Desert." Ebsa couldn't see any signs of human habitation, but that meant nothing.
The guys already on their feet led the way through, the Fallen scrambling up to follow them.
"Why aren't we going?" Utly was leaning forward eagerly.
"We'll let them get some idea of whether, and what direction, any people are. If it’s very far, they’ll close this gate and open one closer to the people they detected." Ebsa shifted all wheels forward as he got a wave from the other side. He barely noticed the twist as he drove through. Who'd have thought you could get used to that!
Desert all around. Edges all around.
We’re on top of a mesa.
Ra'd opened the door for Lefty.
"There are people at the limit of what I can feel, and Q says there's definitely a big dimensional pinch scar on the world here. It could just be an exploration party from the Earth, so go find out." He pointed behind them. "That'a way. One-eighty-seven magnetic. About a thousand miles. Have fun."
A chorus of young voices from behind him, volunteering to help them. Lefty just grinned and backed out.
Q stuck her head in and slapped the bulkhead with the Fallen's usual gesture for attaching a corridor or bubble. "They're a bunch of strong Oners. Not in immediate danger, but a bit stressed. If you need me to move the gate, just yell."
Then she was gone, shooing the youngsters off to one side. All wheels forward and they were off, turning to face an arid plain dropping abruptly to a broad sweep of canyons and mesas and lots of more desert. Once away from the gate, Ebsa took a compass bearing.
"This should be fun. Hawk? Let's give our new friends a demonstration of how we descend cliffs, shall we?"
Nighthawk grinned and got out to throw a corridor down to the bottom of the cliff, stepped in and opened it, stepped back and mentally held this end open.
Ebsa drove straight at the desert patch . . . really it didn't actually look like he was driving off the cliff . . . Utly and Wkde screamed anyway.
And looked embarrassed as he drove out onto the floor of the canyon.
Nighthawk jumped back in and he started driving, explaining the simple controls to the newbies . . . "Raven? Have you driven?"
"Motor vehicles, you mean? Yes, Uncle Xen gives us all driving lessons."
Uncle Xen. Right. Q's only got a toddler, so is uncle a courtesy title or is she related to him? Perhaps there's an older sister we've never heard of?
He ran out of lecture and let them each take an hour's turn driving. Utly almost rolled it.
They stopped for the night when it got too unsafe to drive in this terrain, even with lights. Nighthawk threw a corridor so they could camp on the top of a mesa.
"Not that it looks like rain, but this is obviously flash flood territory."
They started again in the early dawn for a long day of corridors up, down, across or past various obstacles. They only back-tracked once. The second night they slept up on the rim of the much-narrowed badlands and Azko picked up bits of radio transmissions, but couldn't get through to them.
"Low powered, might be security comms like our guards have. No antennae to speak of, so they aren't hearing us at all. It sounds like two different groups, patrolling to make sure the other group isn't sneaking up on them to steal their stuff."
Ra'd laughed. "That makes four out of six worlds that carried their grudges and their war with them."
Nighthawk snorted. "The Water World wasn't much better. Another day and I'll bet there would have been a fight for the last of the drinking water. And the Dino World ought not count, since all eight survivors were from Nuked Earth."
"I was being generous."
"Literal."
"True."
After a long day spent negotiating a rocky hill, they topped out to see the spiral laid out on the stark plain below.
"One! Is that the Council Hall?" Ebsa eyed the mostly-still-standing edifice. "Or, umm most of it?" Lost half the front façade, the northeast corner, back, at a guess, to the front row of offices. Meeting rooms . . . whatever the heck they had there.
"Yep." Utly sounded cheerful. "We were really worried about it. It was in session, you see. Easily three quarters of the council were in the building, including Prime Councilor Akja. One only knows why, but they want them back."
Wkde snickered. "Or at least accounted for, so they know if they should hold elections and get a whole new Council together."
"Not to mention having to replace all the bureaucrats, secretaries, assistants, gofers, janitors, guards . . . "
"Wow. And the building looks sound enough that you may well get them all." Ebsa started looking for a good way off the shoulder of rock . . . "Hawk? Can you throw a corridor down to that flat spot, then another over to there . . . "
"Ha! A clear line-of-sight. Watch this!" She drew back her arm and threw absolutely nothing.
"Whoa! Ten miles, easily!" Raven bounced up to help pin the corridor down.
"Yeah. Dad can go so much further . . . "
"Oh, he's old!"
"Not that old! Everyone's kidding him about turning forty later this year."
"Ancient."
Nighthawk snorted. "And you're twenty-three. Isn't that a little old to be a Crescent?"
Raven stuck out her tongue and jumped into the corridor. She appeared to shrink.
As if she were ten miles away . . . a bright spot opened up into a dizzy drop.
"Please tell me Ebsa isn't going to drive through that!" Wkde sounded horrified.
Nighthawk shook her head. "Now we can start linking them. We'll get you down in a few minutes."
Ebsa scratched his nose. "So . . . you could have done this all along?"
"Oh sure, but most of the time it's just as fast to drive. This hillside is one of the times it's not. Going up, it's hard to see where to throw the corridors, and it wasn't so steep, so we did it piecemeal." She flicked a grin at Ra'd. "Plus it gives some people a chance to show off their magic muscles."
Utly and Wkde exchanged glum glances. Ra'd's occasional slice and push had involved quite large volumes of rock.
"Are we going to have to be able to do that in order to impress Raven? I leave Nighthawk out because she's so obviously already paired off with Ra'd."
Ebsa grinned. "Comet Fall witches come from a culture where witches never marry. If you're looking for a wife to take home, you're shopping in the wrong store. If you're just after sex, well, the witches don't actually expect men to be magically stronger than they are. So you can just show off in other ways and score. Maybe."
Nighthawk looked around. "I'm going to tell Paer you know all about witches."
"Who do you think told me about it?"
Nighthawk laughed and jumped through the corridor.
"Who's Paer?" Wkde looked wistfully down the hill. A red spot disappeared into something that was probably another corridor.
"My wife." Ebsa got out the binocs and scanned. "Two more corridors and we'll be down on that plain."
Azko joined them. "I'm getting better reception up here. I've been broadcasting that we're the rescue party, that there's no war, that all sides are going home. They all changed their encryption, so I'm starting over."
Ebsa sighed. "Well, it does show that they got your message. Maybe they'll stop fighting."
"Raven's all the way down." Ra'd was squinting, using his magically enhanced vision instead of binocs.
"Excellent. Let's load up and get down there."
Nighthawk jumped out of the corridor and made a shaking motion, and the view through the corridor changed from rocky precipice to rocky flat. "There you go. Sorry to ruin the challenge of driving down this fun slope, but . . . "
"You know I'm eager to get home to my family. Thank you Hawk."
Ebsa climbed back into the driver's seat and maneuvered carefully to line up with the corridor. Drove through to the plains. Flat clay and sand, like a dried lakebed, an occasional outcrop of rock, patches of lichen. No grass, ferns . . . too dry for moss . . .
"Well there must be algae at least in the oceans, else the air wouldn't be breathable."
Ra'd called down from the crow's nest. "Park to the left of the Council Hall. Let's get between them and those prefab shacks. I can see the soldiers on each side aiming weapons across the space in between."
Ebsa turned to avoid the rotting remains of a large dinosaur. "Now I know this place doesn't have Ajha, but surely someone ought to have thought to eat that thing."
He slowed and drove the length of the Council Hall. People were leaving from the south entrance, standing and gawping at them. He stopped opposite them. "We'll swing around and send the Earther's home next."
Wkde and Utly were the first off the crawler. The rest of them followed.
Utly was glowing with relief, as they walked up to a frowning man . . . "Prime Councilor! The President will be so relieved to know you survived! We'll have you home by morning."
"Oh? Really? And why should I return when I have an entire world to conquer?"
Utly stopped dead . . . "Uh? Umm . . . "
Ebsa and Ra'd joined them.
Ebsa looked around. "Why do you want a world that's highest form of life is lichen? And, well, not that this whirlpool world might not be different, but the others have been notably lacking in women."
"This . . . Whirlpool?"
"Yes, sir. Nine worlds swapping chunks in this weird pattern." Ebsa glanced over his shoulder. "One of them with dinosaurs. The Earth you nuked forty-seven years ago, two of their mining colonies, a Dinosaur World, two Barren Worlds, a Water World and one with a lot of grass."
"Who are you? I recognize the two Interior goons, I suppose you're one as well."
"No, Ra'd and I are from a parallel One World that split away at the time of the Granite Peak invasion. We're with External Relations, operating at the request of Disco—the Department of Interdimensional Security and Cooperation—to assist in recovering marooned citizens from all four of the inhabited worlds."
The Prime Councilor narrowed his eyes. "Oh? And don't think I haven't recognized Azho the Priest Killer, standing beside you. Armed."
A snort from Ra'd. "That would be my . . . parallel self. So I'd advise against those guards of yours shooting at me."
Nighthawk stalked around and tapped two spots on the side of the crawler, and two on the ground, opening the corridor they'd pulled all this way. "If you walk through this corridor, and then through the gate, you will find people ready to help you get home."
"And she's not a Oner at all."
"Certainly not!"
Ebsa cleared his throat. "If you don't want to go home, fine. Just write out a resignation so your people can hold an election and replace you." He looked beyond the Prime Councilor, at the bureaucrats, at the other Councilors . . .
