Rickard Tytas entered the briefing room after everyone else had gathered. He wasn’t interested in listening to the parts that didn’t concern him, and no one was going to complain about anything he did. Rickard was forty-six years old with short, jet black hair. A touch of gray accented his neatly trimmed beard. He was already hard to miss at six feet and three inches, but he was walking around a carrier vessel with no uniform. He did wear a long cape and carry an intricate metal staff that everyone on board recognized as the focus of a Galduran mage. What they didn’t know simply by looking was that he was an Illuminatus. There were potentially troubling things on the planet below, and the Galduran Synod had decided they wanted their agent to observe it rather than military intelligence. He would have found a way eventually, but the Concordian Assembly had actually agreed to let the Galdurans take the lead.
So he found himself in a room full of Navy Praetorians sitting in rows of chairs and listening intently to a young admiral. Sere Yon had beautiful red hair and a youthful face. She was in her early thirties, unfortunately not too young to hold such a high rank in a time of vicious warfare. She was small and soft-spoken, but the gruff and boisterous shooters under her command understood big muscles weren’t particularly an asset when you were maneuvering against an enemy fleet. So they listened patiently if not enthusiastically.
When she saw Rickard, Admiral Yon said, “And this isn’t your typical VIP. Let me introduce Rickard Tytas of the Order of Galdra. He is not here to support us. We’re here to support him. Anything he says carries the authority of myself and of Commander Lanfer.”
She looked at one of the Praetorians sitting in front of her. He didn’t appear noticeably different from the others except maybe a little older than the average, but apparently he was in charge. His hair was also red and his weathered face was covered in bristly stubble. Even sitting down, Rickard could tell he probably stood eye level with himself. The man, Commander Lanfer, said, “That’s right.”
“Lumen Tytas is here on the orders of both the Synod and the senate, so if you have any questions, keep them to yourself,” Yon said. “We’ll wait for the assault on the orbital defenses to begin in earnest, then your team will quietly escort Lumen Tytas to the ruins of Qua’n Belil. The enemy has taken an interest in ancient history there. Questions?”
“Do we get to kill bad guys?” one of the sailors asked.
Yon replied, “Possibly.”
“Are we getting work done?” the same man asked.
“Definitely. This is important.”
“I’m sold then.”
Most of the group commented on their agreement.
“I need to attend my real job,” Admiral Yon said, “but it’s been nice chatting with you fellows. Commander Lanfer will fill you in on what you actually need to know.”
With that, she left the conference room, and Lanfer took up her place.
“Hey, boss,” one of the men said. “You ever hear the one about the blind wizard in the snowstorm?”
Lanfer grinned and crossed his arms over his massive chest. “My delicate ears were not made to experience such filth,” he said with a surprisingly straight face.
Rickard had in fact heard the joke about the blind Galduran in a snowstorm many times. He didn’t say so. But he realized after a moment Lanfer’s attention was on him. The Praetorian commander said, “Mr. Tytas, welcome aboard. I need to make sure you understand something. You have the exact authority as me and the admiral because these men are elite. We don’t micromanage each other. They’re not here to die for you; they’re here to kill for you. You point, we shoot. The thing is we need to know what we’re shooting at. Or at the very least, when we’re supposed to shoot.”
Rickard leaned on his staff casually and actually smiled. “I’m not here on a power trip,” he said warmly. “There’s an archaeological excavation at Qua’n Belil. Aersetz technology. Do you know anything about Aersetz technology?”
“No,” Lanfer admitted freely.
“Me either,” Rickard explained. “But I know magic, so I have a better chance of figuring out what's going on than MoNI.” That was the Ministry of Naval Intelligence.
“My mom’s deaf cat has a better chance of figuring it out than MoNI,” one Praetorian team member said.
Rickard explained, “You’re going to drop me off, enjoy the rainforest for a few hours, then bring me back home.”
“Well then let’s get to it,” Lanfer agreed.
They loaded onto a navy dropship. The two pilots, Rickard, Commander Lanfer, and his team of special forces operators known as Praetorians were the only people on board. The hangar around them was bustling with activity. The Concordia's navy and army had begun an attack on enemy hardware located in orbit over the planet Pilyar. The marines were standing by in case targets of opportunity drew attention on the ground.
It was a legitimate objective, but the only reason they were attacking at that moment was to help Rickard reach the surface undetected. Intercepted communications had indicated the enemy’s excavation on Pilyar had turned up lost cybernetic technology. They thought it might be related to the Aersetz, and even if it wasn’t, they needed to know if it was something the Aersetz might use. And if the Dominion already recognized it for what it was, their Aersetz allies would be all over it soon.
“So what’s the Synod so worried about,” Lanfer asked from his seat beside Rickard. “Are we looking at some kind of magic superweapon?”
“It’s probably not that dramatic,” Rickard assured him. “But that’s why I need to get a look at it. I channel magic through my staff. It’s attuned specifically to me. Even if a traditional engineer replicated it perfectly, it wouldn’t be useful for anyone else. Aersetz take a more brute force approach. The technology is similar, but they have to completely integrate it with their bodies. It’s quicker to learn, and others can do the technical part for you. We’re concerned any lost arts might involve ways to make that process more efficient.”
“That sounds like a pretty solid mission,” Lanfer acknowledged. “Why the mind-your-own-business speech?”
“That’s more the assembly than the Synod,” Rickard guessed.
“Sounds about right. Get shot now, find out if it’s important later.”
“Don’t get shot,” Rickard suggested. “I wanted to do this without the escort.”
They skirted around the battle, but fighter craft from both the Concordia and the Dominion were visible outside, firing energy weapons at one another. Some kind of space station loomed in the distance, already being approached by a large, angular army bomber. The bomber was surrounded by an escort of sleek navy fighters. It emitted a wide, bright blue beam of light and the space station exploded into a fiery ball that quickly disappeared as the oxygen inside the station was used up. Then the dropship turned away from the battle and Rickard could only see the giant planet beneath them from his window.
They entered the atmosphere and approached the surface without being harassed. It seemed the diversion was working. They landed on a flat ridge only yards from the treeline of thick rainforest. The Praetorians debarked first and set up a perimeter around the landing site. One of the pilots spoke over the intercom to say, “All radio chatter is normal. I don’t think anyone knows we’re here.”
“You’ve got your radio?” Lanfer asked.
Rickard nodded. “Won’t be on unless I need you to come to me. You probably shouldn’t try to talk to the ship from here either. I think our security is good, but why test it.”
“Have fun,” Lanfer said.
“I just might,” Rickard told him.
He exited the dropship and took up his staff in both hands. Suddenly he was only a vague outline breaking up the foliage behind him. When he moved, the distortion of the camouflage became more obvious but in the jungle he might as well be invisible. Before long he could no longer hear the dropship over the sounds of wildlife. Brambles tugged at his protective cape and long sleeves, but he pressed on steadily. He used the staff to clear the way in front of him, which was difficult since he couldn't see the staff.
It took a few hours to reach the base of the cliff that protected the fortress of Qua’n Belil. Rickard “sheathed” his staff on his back. There was a quiet hum and click as a magnet came to life and locked the staff in place. Then he began to climb. His cape rustled, but there was no other sound except for the call of jungle creatures below him. No longer channeling magic through his staff, he couldn’t camouflage himself, but no one was guarding the high, steep cliff.
When he pulled himself over the final ledge, he saw something he didn’t expect. A Dominion shuttle was parked in the middle of the excavation site near the entrance to a large building made of carefully cut stones. He scrambled away from his location in the open and hid behind some rocks. He pulled his focus free of the magnetic holder on his back. He was about to camouflage himself again when he saw two figures walk around the shuttle into his line of site.
One was an army officer with long blond hair down to his shoulders. His goatee was neatly trimmed and he stood with perfect posture that made his lean, long frame appear even taller. But he was dwarfed by the other man whose legs and torso were altered by robotic additions. The big man’s skin was pale and sickly looking. More cybernetic implants marred his face and neck. He was clearly an Aersetz. Whatever the Dominion had discovered here, their Aersetz allies already knew about it.
Rickard tapped his focus against the ground and channeled the slightest bit of energy toward the pair. Suddenly he could hear them clearly, but he had missed the heart of the conversation.
“You’ve done well, Legatus Pol,” the Aersetz said. His voice was deep and distorted by artificial processing. “Keep me updated on the prototype.”
“Of course, Pir,” the army officer replied. “You’ll be the first to hear of any progress.”
Rickard stopped listening and redirected his effort into camouflaging himself again. The Aersetz boarded the shuttle and it took off quickly, passing directly over Rickard before zipping away into the sky. Legatus Pol watched the ship leave then returned to the stone building and disappeared inside. Rickard moved slowly away from the stone building toward the giant, square pit where the Dominion had been digging into the hill.
He looked down into the pit and learned very little. He decided documentation would be more useful than trying to figure out what he was looking at once he got down there. While maintaining camouflage, he approached the stone building. He suspected this was largely an ancient structure, part of the original ruins scattered across the plateau, but the doors were sturdy and modern.
Rickard worked his way around the side of the structure away from the door. Then he touched his focus to the wall. His camouflage faded and he concentrated on the vague sensory experiences he was drawing from the other side of the wall. He could never know for sure, but he thought it was a safe place to enter. He gave the stone a little tap, and a chunk of wall just big enough for him to crawl through crumbled. He slipped through the opening and found himself in a dark room. The only light came from the little bit of sun his entrance let in. He raised his staff and emitted a light just bright enough to see his surroundings.
The room looked like it might have been part of the ancient construction, but obvious additions had come within the last few hundred years. Cables ran along the ceiling through the wall into another room. Rickard followed them. He stepped through the modern automatic door and found himself in another ancient corridor. He worked his way down the hall in the direction the cables had run. He quickly found another door and tried to enter. It was locked. He touched his staff to the keypad. Sparks exploded from the device, and the door opened slowly. Rickard entered the room.
He let the light shine from his focus again and looked around the room. It was basically empty. Shelves lined the walls with tools and boxes scattered on them. In the floor, he found a trapdoor. He tried to open it, but it was locked. There was no electronic lock, only a latch and keyhole. He let the light fade and struck the door with his staff. With a loud crash, the door gave way. Rickard immediately heard urgent voices in the hall. He reactivated the light and dipped down into the hatch, using a modern-looking ladder to lower himself to the level below.
He found himself inside a maze of giant humming machines. He didn’t know what all of them did, but many of them were data servers. He approached a random one and pulled a device from a pouch on his belt. He plugged it in, pressed a few buttons, and waited. Then he heard people following him down the ladder. Rickard left the device attached to the server, but he crouched low and walked back toward the ladder. One man was at the bottom of the ladder and another was close behind, still climbing. They wore the uniforms of the Dominion Army.
Rickard raised his staff quietly and a distorted, translucent burst of air swarmed over the duo. The man on the floor dropped straight down. The man on the ladder lulled forward, still hanging in place as he drifted to sleep. He began snoring before he fell backwards and landed beside the other soldier. Rickard looked them over for a moment to see if the spell had taken proper hold. Both men were in fact sound asleep. Rickard returned to the server and his data device. He picked up the device and saw that its memory was full. He tapped the screen to pull up a summary of what the device had seen. It read, “Target storage scanned: 87%. Data copied: 34%. Device storage full. Summary: Dominion forces under Legatus Ivn Pol have developed new weapons combining Aersetz technology, ancient technology discovered in the ruins of Qua’n Belil, Aersetz necromancy, and traditional Dominion weaponry. The innovations fall into two categories: Functional necrotic automatons with Aersetz filtration and prototype Aersetz filtration mobile armor."
Rickard sighed. Magic robots and vehicles. He would have to look deeper into the stolen data to understand what was being done with the automatons, but if the mech prototype was on Pilyar, he had to disable it. With a little luck, it might be here at the ruins of Qua’n Belil. “Where is the mech?” he asked the device quietly.
The words appeared on the screen immediately: “Last known location: Outpost Laboratory ZRQL 213, Pilyar, Plot 51267, Ruins of Qua’n Belil.”
Rickard tucked the device away and looked up to assess the room. He didn’t return to the hatch. Since the two soldiers he had put to sleep had come to investigate, he suspected there might be more. Instead he looked for another way out. He located the elevator because it suddenly came to life. He tightened his grip on his focus and channeled magic through the metal rod until he was camouflaged again. The elevator hummed and clacked until it reached the double doors at the end of the room. The doors opened. Rickard watched as half a dozen Dominion soldiers entered the large server room carrying rifles at the ready. He backed away and placed a row of machines between him and the soldiers.
“We know you’re tampering with our systems, Mr. Spy,” a voice called out. “Make it easy on yourself, and come out now. We’ll talk things over. In fact, we could use someone as resourceful as you. But if you fight us, we will kill you.”
Rickard moved as silently as he could toward the elevator. The soldiers spread out but stayed close to the elevator, making sure to block access to it. Rickard moved slowly. He rounded the corner past a tall, square machine. One of the soldiers was pointing a rifle right at him, but the man had no idea he was there. Rickard made his way within ten feet before the soldier even suspected anything. The soldier cocked his head to the side and seemed to strain his eyes to see deeper into the dark alley.
Rickard dropped his camouflage in the same instant he reached out with his focus and pointed it at the soldier. The man dropped his rifle as he was lifted into the air. He floated toward Rickard, crying out in surprise. Rickard moved forward, keeping the man paralyzed and hovering a few inches off the ground, forming a wall between himself and the other soldiers. Rickard sidestepped in front of the elevator with his hostage floating in front of him. The Dominion soldiers all trained their weapons on him. Their leader had made his way halfway into the room, but he turned to watch Rickard calmly. “A wizard then,” he said. “That does explain how you got this far… Shoot them both.”
Rickard dropped his hostage onto the elevator floor and held his staff in front of them. A translucent screen formed between both men and the Dominion fighters as they all opened fire at once, bombarding the elevator with hot, bright bolts from their energy weapons. The attacks bounced harmlessly off of the magic barrier until the doors closed and the elevator began to ascend. Rickard dropped the shield and looked down at the soldier on the floor. “These are the people you fight for?” he asked without expecting a response. “Would they have used your corpse for their experiments?”
The soldier stood up slowly, testing his muscles as the effect of the earlier spell lingered. “No,” the soldier said angrily. “I mean maybe. I can’t believe they tried to shoot me.”
“Who do they use?” Rickard asked.
“Anyone,” the soldier answered without hesitation. “POWs, criminals, rebels, undesirables.”
“And they wait for them to die peacefully and donate their bodies to science?” Rickard said sarcastically.
“Yeah,” the soldier muttered. “Exactly. Look, I’m just doing-”
“If you tell me you’re just doing your job, I will kill you right now where you stand,” Rickard said just flatly enough for the man to know he meant it. The soldier had nothing else to say.
They reached the surface, and the elevator opened. “Take up arms with your comrades and you can die with them,” Rickard said.
The soldier raised his hands to indicate he was unarmed and harmless and took an extra step away from the mage. Once the doors fully opened, Rickard wasn’t surprised to see every soldier stationed at the site waiting for him. They stared at him for a long moment in silence. Rickard shifted his cape off of his shoulders and held his staff in a ready but relaxed grip. Their hesitation amused and emboldened him. He feinted at aiming his focus toward them and at least a dozen men dropped their weapons and ran full speed into the jungle. Rickard reached into his pocket and activated his radio. Then he calmly stepped into the hot sun beating down on the clearing. The soldiers wearing their modern uniforms and carrying their rifles seemed out of place against the backdrop of the massive, half-buried stone structure.
Finally one of the soldiers attacked. It was a single shot aimed perfectly at Rickard’s head. He didn’t even raise a forcefield. He simply swatted the golden bolt away with his staff. Then Rickard struck quickly. He swiped his focus across the crowd, emitting a blade of pure ethereal energy that cut through three of them and dropped them instantly. Golden bolts of deadly energy flew in from all sides. Rickard used his staff to deflect the first volley, redirecting the shots into the crowd of enemies. Then he slammed the butt of the metal staff against the stoney ground and emitted a translucent bubble around and above himself. The wave of deadly shots fizzled harmlessly as they hit the barrier. Rickard noticed an opening in the barrage and dropped the bubble. He took a step to his right, attacking with an ethereal blade again that thinned the large crowd further. Then he was hit with the overwhelming sensation of powerful magic hurling toward him. He raised his staff and invoked a magical ward just in time for a giant fireball to bounce off of it and consume a number of his enemies.
Rickard remained behind the ward and tried to figure out what was going on. Then behind the crowd of soldiers he saw what he had been looking for in the first place. A robotic figure loomed over the regular soldiers, standing nearly ten feet tall, piloted by the blond officer he had seen earlier. He now knew the man to be Legatus Ivn Pol according to the stolen data he carried. As he watched, the robotic arms split open to reveal massive guns. Rickard switched his ward quickly to deflect the incoming bolts, moving nimbly to avoid the attacks of the regular soldiers until it was fully formed. Then he made himself as small a target as possible and hid inside his bubble as the robotic walker’s guns unleashed on him, overwhelming his position with rapid and violent bolts of energy. The stones all around him exploded and smoldered. Then the mech disappeared.
Rickard raised his staff to focus on the regular soldiers, but the air around him crackled and suddenly the mech was on top of him, appearing from thin air. The robotic arms swiped at him. He got his staff in the way just in time to absorb the blow. It pushed him backward five feet, giving Ivn Pol space to swing his mech squarely toward him. The guns came to life again. Rickard ducked low and moved closer to the walker. Pol could no longer reach him, and the soldiers were hesitant to fire toward their legatus even though he hadn’t shown them the same courtesy. One giant leg lifted high as Pol tried to stomp on Rickard, but the mage slashed at the other leg with his staff, extending the magical blade one more time. Sparks flew and the mech stumbled backward, but the leg was barely scratched. The vehicle landed on its back but quickly rolled over and found its feet smoothly. Ivn Pol glared at Rickard through the clear screen separating them.
“Thank you for giving me a chance to test my prototype,” Pol said, his voice magnified and distorted through the speakers of the vehicle. “It seems her magical repertoire might be greater than your own.”
Rickard didn’t have time to react as the ground beneath the mech became electrified. The sputtering arcs of energy spread quickly, and Rickard felt like his entire body was on fire. He went stiff and was unable to think. In fact his brain felt like it was melting. Then suddenly it stopped. The mech adjusted its position to look up to the sky. Suddenly the guns were blazing again, but they were aimed upward. Rickard twirled the staff awkwardly and aimed it at the center of the mech. He managed to reach one knee and channeled as much power as he could through the staff until a forceful beam launched through the center of the mech. Ivn Pol screamed in pain and the mech fell over again, but this time it didn’t recover.
The Concordian dropship appeared overhead. The soldiers focused their small arms fire on the vehicle, but the side doors were open and Navy Praetorians were dropping precision shots into the crowd. Rickard stumbled to his feet and approached the fallen mech. The protective screen isolating Pol inside the vehicle was shattered. He was wounded but he looked healthy enough as he tried to free himself from the wreckage. The Dominion soldiers began retreating. Some tried to return inside the structure while others fled blindly into the jungle. The dropship landed, but several sailors had jumped to the stoney ground and begun engaging the enemy face to face. Lanfer approached Rickard and the fallen legatus. He said, “Looks like we have a prisoner.”
“Two,” Rickard said. “Take it easy on the kid cowering in the elevator. He was just doing his job.”
Lanfer chuckled. “Aren’t they all,” he said. “Nah, we’ll be gentle enough. This guy though…” He turned his attention to Pol inside the wreckage of the mech.
“Get as many scans of this vehicle as you can before they regroup,” Rickard said. “We’re further behind than we realized on a lot of things.”
Rickard surveyed the archaeological dig site for a moment and thought about the 87% of summarized data and 34% of collected data. They needed to fill in the gaps. He would recommend to the Illuminati that they take over this site as quickly as possible. He didn’t think it would come to anything though. The Synod and their Illuminati agents had plenty of influence, but the Assembly had the final say for military decisions. Rickard suspected it would be up to him to gather as much information as he could about these innovations in making magic accessible to the Dominion forces. He thought about an entire unit of these mechs and decided in that moment that he wouldn’t allow the Dominion to figure out how to make it work.