NOVEL NEXT 2.31 Hail Mary
Hail Mary
I was a mess.
Circumstances were shoving me through too many different mindsets too quickly. I was angry, hopeful, scared, and exhilarated. Probably a few more too.
But it all went by the wayside when it was time to fight because nothing eliminated distractions like mortal peril.
Vather was a cut above Itun.
Esk was the most experienced fighter on our side, and it showed badly. But even with his blinding surfaces trick, Esk wasn’t a match for Vather head on.
The Prowler leader was able to threaten multiple people at once. Unless both Esk and I pushed on the offensive, Vather could fire off green lasers at multiple targets simultaneously.
Actually, even when both of us were pressing him, he still managed to sneak in shots.
The blinding glare that Esk had created was the only thing hampering his aim enough to let us keep going.
But it wasn’t a balanced fight.
Even two on one with Umtane shooting at Vather whenever he could, we weren’t going to win.
The Farnata and I just weren’t a team. There were moments where Esk took swings at Vather with what looked like railroad spikes, but I couldn’t step close enough. And when I had opportunities to stab at the Vorak, Esk couldn’t attack well either. And Umtane was only taking shots when he was sure Esk and I weren’t in the line of fire.
Vather wasn’t so much winning a two on one, so much as we were failing to fight him both at once.
He was just a little too quick to react to my jab at his face, just a little too neat blocking one of Esk’s stabs.
I had no proof. But I had a psionic hunch about what was giving him such an edge.
“Drop the shine!” I shouted to Esk.
The Farnata dropped back, giving Vather a moment to fire more beams—split between us and Umtane’s covering position. If the Vorak had waited a moment longer to aim, he could have fired after Esk dropped the shining blizzard he created.
But his beams went wide. One of them looked like it clipped Esk, but he twisted out of the way of it without being harmed.
I threw my quarterstaff at Vather like a spear, knowing he would dodge.
Able to see again, Vather ducked under the spear like it was nothing. He wasted no time in charging at me, firing another pair of beams at me.
I had to trust my augmented hand when I held it up to the beam.
Instead of melting my skin, it felt like a hot jet of compressed air on my palm. It didn’t hurt and my gamble paid off.
Even though Vather didn’t look surprised, my attack still connected how I’d wanted.
My quarterstaff rematerialized in my free hand, the original dissolved before it even struck the ground. I made a short swipe at his ankles, making him backstep for a moment.
From the first Vorak I’d ever fought, I’d had the right idea. Reach was a powerful tool to catch them off guard.
So when I snaked my hand forward to grab at Vather’s face, he wasn’t prepared to react.
There was a chance he just opened his jaws and tried to bite my hand, but after sliding down an elevator cable, I was confident my hands could take that. And if he did, then I might repeat my trick with Courser’s hound.
But Vather didn’t bite, and I got my hand onto his face, pouring as much of my cascade into his skull as I could.
He felt it and immediately twisted back in confusion, summoning six more beam orbs.
There was just enough delay in firing that I managed to dive behind the nearest terrarium.
I couldn’t see how many, but I heard the hum of another batch of beam orbs coming into existence.
“…Now what did you want to gain by doing that?” Vather wondered aloud.
That was a complicated question, because I hadn’t been sure what to expect beforehand. And looking at what I’d gleaned, I wasn’t sure I had any confirmation.
But I did have a snapshot of just what kind of bustle had gone on in Vather’s mind.
Even with hours, I’d barely been able to look at the specifics of how Nai’s mind had connected to the psionics I’d put in her head.
But even with just the single moment I’d checked his mind, the hazy outline of something had become visible.
It was just like a tactile cascade, and it came and went with Vather’s sight. Or at least, it weakened when he was blind. It probably still functioned blind at least somewhat or we wouldn’t be losing like this.
He had some kind of construct in his mind. Except…no, not a construct. It still wasn’t ‘psionic’. Not in the way I made things…it was like his mind had an extra limb, acting and reacting completely organically…Daniel had been wrong to call my mental machinery a phantom. What I created wasn’t alive. But the label seemed to fit what I’d glimpsed in Vather’s mind.
In fact, Vather might not even be consciously aware of the quasi-psionic shade.
“It’s complicated,” I shouted to Esk. “Don’t bring the lights back yet.”
“I would, if I were you,” Vather said. “Shooting blind my odds are worse, if only just.”
“He has some exotic senses,” I said loud enough for Umtane to hear.
“I do?” he asked. “How fascinating.”
My best analogy was spider-sense—some kind of automatic reaction to danger. Vather was reacting to things he couldn’t see. But that couldn't be the whole of it. As he fought me and Esk, the majority of his attention was on moving so that Umtane didn’t have a line of fire on him. No matter how augmented the Vorak was, even he couldn't dodge bullets already in motion. But this abstract sense of his was helping Vather avoid Umtane's line of fire before he pulled the trigger.
But how did it work? Surely his quasi-psionic shade couldn’t react to all kinds of danger…
Then what was it alerting him to? And could we figure out how to exploit it in time to save us?
No, my instincts said.
Still crouching behind the shattered terrarium, I materialized a disc engraved with writing and threw it back toward Umtane.
Vather fired two of his orb-beams on reflex, but the disk was small enough his aim missed.
“You sure?” Umtane called after reading it.
“Yes,” I said blatantly.
He was bottling us up right now. If we retreated further into the Ecology department, the narrow halls would make us easy targets for his beams.
So if we wanted to get out alive, we needed to get past the foyer Vather had taken to guarding. I hadn’t even realized he was doing so until this chance to slow down and breath.
Esk was saying something, and to my surprise Vather was actually talking back. He was playing for time too, but…not quite?
No, I’d gotten some practice being enigmatic and communicating in opaque ways. He was trying to figure out if there was a hidden game here.
“Getting help is pushing me a bit more, criminal,” Vather said. “But I don’t think this ends any different way with just the three of you…”
A voice came into my mind.
Oh, thank God.
Even with the halting psionic signal, it was a sweet relief to hear.
I poked my head out long enough to get a glimpse of Vather looming in the foyer with a number of green orbs at the ready.
But behind him…instead of seeing a Farnata Adept extraordinaire, I’d seen my Casti friend at the ready crouched behind the foyer doorway.
I said.
I said.
And weren’t those just brilliant words of encouragement?
I caught Esk’s eye, and jutted my head at the foyer door Tasser was hopefully helping us get through.
“[Lights…camera…]” I muttered as Esk flooded the area with more blinding-chaff. “[Action.]”
Umtane emptied his gun at Vather, making the Vorak truly dodge wildly, and I was tempted to attempt using my kinetic bomb to blow him out of position, but while that might get me and Esk through the door, it would leave Umtane stuck with Vather between us.
It was a good thing I didn’t try either. As soon as Esk and I moved forward to try and push Vather off the door, a spike jutted up from the ground.
My attention had lapsed from the floor and so my cascade wasn’t engaged enough to give me proper warning.
It stabbed up at my foot, tearing through the sole of my shoe like butter.
But luckily my feet were every bit as reinforced as my hands, and instead of boring through my ankle and tendons, the sharp spike merely bit into my skin and shoving my foot and leg out from under me.
Adrenaline was pumping and I caught my fall with my free hand and saw Itun tied up on the ground, face scrunched in concentration.
The spike had been him: Vather had other ranged options.
I hurled my staff into his face. Hopefully he didn’t have anything more like that.
Esk hadn’t seen me get waylaid behind him, and so for a crucial moment, he’d engaged Vather truly alone.
Vather fired four beams at Esk, connecting with his body in pairs. Where the two beams met on his shoulder, a horrid sizzle filled the air.
To Esk’s credit, he was viciously persistent. Even with his momentum arrested by lasers scorching his skin, he leapt forward and slammed his forehead into Vather’s face.
I caught up and shoved Esk toward the door.
Vather was a superior Adept in every way, except I had been forced to become a quick study in space.
Itun had dispelled my half-formed flashbang by disturbing the material while it was still being created.
So when Vather tried to repeat his close-range beams on me, I swept an invincible hand through two of the orbs before they could fire and threw my body to the ground to avoid the rest.
It was a small tactical mistake, because it left Vather free to strike me while I was literally on my back. But Umtane gave me another reason to call him my favorite Vorak.
The not-spy, actually actuary leapt on Vather’s back the same moment he tried to put a claw into my belly.
A Vorak yowl split the air, and I saw a knife sticking out of Vather’s collarbone.
Now or never.
I pointed two fingers at Vather’s chest, letting the intuitive motion help me bring the creation into reality.
Umtane recognized it and leapt clear over me toward safety.
A millisecond later a few grams of dense gas materialized, under pressures ordinarily only achieved through combustion.
My kinetic explosion didn’t carry any heat to it. Just raw impact.
The blast caught Vather square in the torso, throwing his arms wide and blowing him back.
For a second I got a flashback of Sendin Marfek because instead of crumpling against a wall like Itun had, Vather landed deftly, and slid to a halting kneel.
He summoned up, I don’t know how many exactly—at least twelve—green orbs before he’d even stopped flying.
But Tasser chose to attack at that perfect moment.
Like Umtane had, Tasser emerged from the foyer door and unleashed a steady rhythm of bullets at Vather.
The swarm of beam-orbs fired in obviously random trajectories, their aim thrown off by Vather suddenly being forced to materialize plating on his body to block Tasser’s bullets.
More than that, Tasser clearly had more ammo than Umtane.
He kept firing as Vather dove behind one of the same ruined office pieces Esk and I had used for cover moments before.
Tasser’s onslaught only put him on the back foot for a few seconds, but they were crucial seconds.
Umtane slipped out the door and I bolted after him, Tasser only breaking ranks after I was past into the hallway.
With Esk limping in the front, the four of us hurrying away from the Ecology and Biosphere’s department. Not willing to let Vather follow us too easily, Tasser pulled out a small canister, clicked the button on top, and tossed the parting gift on the ground behind him.
I kept sprinting forward when I heard the hum of Vather’s beam-orbs as he stormed out into the hall, but the canister Tasser dropped detonated into a cloud of fire and smoke a heartbeat later.
“The elevators!” he shouted to Esk.
Esk led the four of us around the corner toward the closest elevator bay, doors already open.
“Don’t they control these?” Umtane asked worriedly.
“Corphica is at the top of the shaft,” Tasser said, bringing up the rear.
The second all four of us were inside, the cage lurched upward and I spilled to the ground. The elevator shot up at lightning speed.
“Manual rigging…” Esk breathed. “I thought I was the only one who knew about that.”
Tasser fumbled with his radio, “Corphica, slow it down! We’re clear for now.”
The speed became a little less gut wrenching and I panted on the floor.
We were safe. For now.
“…Okay,” I breathed, turning to Tasser.
“Make something and hand it to me,” he said aloud.
With no explanation for our two tagalongs, I created a sheet of paper and handed it over.
And just like that, it clicked.
I could make my own psionics. Now, apparently, Nai could too. It had originally been an accident, but I also knew I could put psionics in someone else’s head.
But they didn’t have to be Adept.
“How did I miss that?” I said.
“You didn’t,” Tasser snorted. “The field isn’t exactly well explored. You’re really that surprised Nai figured out something you didn’t?”
“I’m upset,” I said. “That’s the kind of thing that could have saved Letrin’s life. If I’d figured it out—”
Tasser’s face fell. “There’s no helping it, Caleb. Don’t torture yourself.”
I knew he was only trying to encourage me, but logic was cold comfort. If our group had all been enabled psionically, the Prowler’s attack would have ended before it started.
Nemuleki would have been able to call for help from the very first second.
I could practically hear Daniel now. He’d say Tasser was right, which, of course he was. But no matter how much I knew it wasn’t my fault, it still stung.
And I didn’t think it would stop any time soon.
“What happens next?” I asked, trying to distract myself. “How’s your plan coming?”
“Nai is with them in the gymnasium,” Tasser said as the elevator came to a stop. “Let’s hurry there. All the key players are holed up there.”
Tasser helped Esk stay on his feet while we walked. I hadn’t seen one of the Farnata’s legs get scorched. Corphica emerged from a door labeled ‘maintenance access’ and saw there was only one other Casti among us.
Her face grimaced for a moment, but she didn’t say anything and fell in with us.
“Vather is going to be coming,” Umtane said. “I know your Warlock is powerful, but can she protect all the suspects alone?”
“No,” Tasser admitted. “That’s why Caleb and I were making sure to get Dr. Maburic up here. We have all the suspects in the same place. We’re ending this bioweapon fiasco before it can go any further.”
We arrived at the entrance to the gymnasium where no less than six security guards were waiting with guns ready.
“Esk needs medical attention,” Tasser said urgently. The Farnata was failing to stay upright and the security forces quickly ushered him inside.
Umtane was almost stopped, but after he readily disarmed, they let us through.
The sketchy psionic signal I was getting from Nai across the room would have thrown me off more if not for the immense bustle happening.
It was not a group of doctors and administrators huddling in fear of being struck at any moment.
No, Tasser’s idea was brilliant, if risky. But with the Prowler’s forcing everyone’s hands, what did it matter?
Nineteen different aliens suspected of bioterrorism were all conscripted into the very investigation they were suspects in.
“Is that my evidence?” Umtane asked. “What are—”
“There’s only one culprit,” Tasser explained. “It’s the one thing we know based on their behavior. They reached out for help because they didn’t have any help here.”
“So Tasser figured that means eighteen names on our suspect list are trustworthy investigators,” I said as we ducked around the forensic .
“Plus they know the facility, and the science, a lot better than we do,” Tasser bragged. “Eighteen experts in bioengineering and all intimately familiar with what a bioweapon would need.”
Doctors Eebat, Mo, and more than a dozen others were all poring over papers, some of which were being torn to test under microscopes. Others were even taking blood samples from their fellow suspects.
It was twisted brilliance, in a way.
The culprit had been so careful to hide any of their activity, the only thing they could do now was cooperate with the very people hunting them.
At first glance, it might have seemed like someone guilty could conceal a piece of incriminating evidence. But I saw that no suspect was working alone.
They were all constantly reviewing each other’s work, scrutinizing the evidence.
“Criminal investigation via peer-review,” I said. “I can’t believe you got it set up this quickly.”
“After Corphica and I got up here, I just talked to Nai before heading back down. She was the one to really put it together.”
“We’ve eliminated only two Names,” Nai said, walking over. Her cascade was sweeping through the floor in every direction. “Niza was at least the first, he’s working on shutting down the security room the Prowlers took over.”
“
“I know,” she replied. “Vather somehow has his suppressive field here. I thought he was expressing it with a material in his body, but since he went after you the field is still around. It has to be way bigger than I first thought.”
“Because you’ve looked around for it, and you can’t find the edge of the field without going too far from the gymnasium?” I asked.
She nodded.
“Well the—”
“What?”
“If I had to guess…” I aimed the more flexible parameters of my radar at Nai and found the disruption to be strongest centered on a thin slab of metal attached to her poncho at her hip.
“This,” I said, yanking at it.
I cascaded it for a moment, curious about how it could mess with psionic signals, but Nai grabbed it in frustration first.
“He slipped this on me?” She said, crumpling it in her hand.
“Calm down,” Tasser said. “Vather is still in fighting shape, and he’s coming here. How close are we to narrowing it down?”
“Not close enough,” she said. “This would work if we had the whole day, but at the rate we’re going, Vather is going to hit us here long before we figure out who it is. In fact, we have even less time now that you’re here. He doesn’t have any other objectives outside this room.”
“We need to figure out a contingency. If we split the remaining into four groups, we can manage them all and get them clear of the Prowlers—”
“No,” Umtane said darkly. “My people have died for hunting this terrorist. No, I refuse to let the culprit leave this room unidentified.”
“If you don’t have a plan…” Nai said.
“I do, but it’s all or nothing. I need Adept help too.”
The actuary ushered Nai and I up the side stairway to the gymnasium’s balcony.
“…I have an idea,” Umtane said. “Here.” He materialized a chrome container, lid sealed tightly with screws.
“What is this?”
“It’s a facsimile of the container the culprit would need to store the Lestrazine cultures,” Umtane said.
“Why?” Nai asked.
“So the Human can pretend to have found the bioweapon.”
“Absolutely not.” Nai said, probably out of habit.
“[Last-minute, Hail Mary],” I murmured. “It’s because it’s me, isn’t it?”
Umtane nodded.
“What?” Nai was still lost.
“Umtane’s betting on the culprit believing a bluff if it comes from me. They can’t know what I’m not capable of,” I told her.
“These are trained medical experts,” Nai protested. “You’re not going to be able to catch them off guard just by being an alien.”
“Why not? They might be experts, but they don’t have practice interacting with me. Even Tasser would twitch for his gun on reflex if I moved a bit too suddenly, even four months into teaching me Starspeak,” I said. “You threw me through a wall because of how paranoid you were around me, even after I’d helped save your life.”
Umtane looked shocked at that, but didn’t speak.
“And the sleep deprivation…” she protested.
“Immaterial. The point is, our culprit isn’t going to be able to help themselves,” I insisted. “Their first reaction is going to be to believe that I somehow found their bioweapon! I’m too much of an unknown for them for their first reaction to be anything else.”
“You realize even just saying the words out loud are going to make rumors spread, right?” she asked.
“What does that matter?” I asked. “Who knows what kind of rumors about me are already swirling? One more is just a drop in the bucket.”
“You should make your own canister,” Umtane said. “The Warlock and I can watch the sections of the crowd.”
“Go,” I told them. “I’ll mock something up.”
·····
A minute later, I followed them back down.
“[Ladies] and [gentlemen],” I called out, jumping on top of one of the gym machines. “I’m happy to inform you that your assistance in this investigation is no longer required. Myself and Tashi Umtane escaped from the Vorak assaulting the facility, and in the process we stumbled across the hiding place of the bioweapon we’re hunting.”
“What is this?” Director Hom-Heg protested. He was sporting scores of bandages across his body, and if the Prowlers hadn’t been rampaging through his facility, he might have been ready to apply for medical leave.
“I mean exactly what I say, Director,” I said.
I brought up the canister in full view and scanned the not-quite-nineteen suspects we had left. Every psionic muscle I had was watching the minds before me.
Reading thoughts was impossible, likely always would be. Psionics just didn’t seem to work that way.
But mental body language was much more viable. Large swings in mood.
And every suspect in my little audience had the same one. Shock.
Too many eyes to keep track of locked onto the fake canister.
My heart sank and my mind raced.
I could feel there were different reactions among them, but it was impossible to label each change. The change was detectable, but the feeling unidentifiable.
No, this couldn’t fail. There had to be something…
My mind went back to when the ‘Lestrazine’ weapon had first been explained to me.
It spread whatever plague you wanted with a very customizable delay…and it could theoretically kick the Vorak out of the system.
But at what cost?
Using a bioweapon was clearly as big a deal to spacefaring aliens as it was back on Earth. So…
What if our culprit had been truly nefarious?
No, scratch that. They definitely were. This was a patient manipulator who was willing to ignite violence between two nominal enemies who had already shown they were willing to pursue peaceful solutions.
The culprit wasn’t above sacrificing lives, and they weren’t interested in limiting the carnage their scheme might cost.
We’d already hampered ourselves with one assumption about our culprit. What if there was still one more thing we had wrong?
That was an easy gamble to make now. Everything was already at risk anyway.
I spun a loose bundle of gas into existence, on the inside of my false canister.
And then I twisted the top off, letting the new chilly fog spill out to sell the effect.
There were several gasps.
But only one Casti let out an anguished scream, cut off as abruptly as it began.
The Auditor.
Anpiar Norgi.
He’d been among the first personnel I talked to here. The first time, I’d found him terse and formal, but curious in a way that hadn’t been overbearing like some of the other scientists had.
Curious to see if I really was a First Contact, or just some Coalition ruse sent to help him.
“Gig’s up, Norgi,” I said loudly, letting the fake canister tumble out of my hand.
Where everyone else wore relief, his face was a blank mask, holding back the terror I suspected he felt. Psionically, his had been one of the reactions that had strongly differed from most everyone else’s.
If that dread hadn’t given him away, the look of anger on his face did, when he realized our canister was a fake.
Tasser was closest, and when Norgi tried to run toward the exit, he made it two steps before Tasser grasped his wrist and flipped him to the ground.
“What was that?” Nai asked me.
“…The bioweapon wasn’t for targeting Vorak,” Umtane slowly guessed. “For a second, he thought you’d infected everyone.”
All eyes were locked on Norgi, struggling on the ground.
“It would infect Casti,” Umtane continued. “Plaguing the Vorak would hamper them…but it would only reinforce Assembly resolve.”
“But if you plagued your own planet,” Nai said, horrified, “it wouldn’t matter how much the Vorak denied it. The public of every planet in every star system would kabraka every Vorak in sight.”
Kabraka. It was a difficult word to translate. The closest way to put it was ‘a very public execution’.
If a plague was unleashed on a Casti colony, all their enemies would be crucified in retaliation. It wouldn’t be a confined conflict either. Every corner of society would outcry.
“Someone, security! Lock him up.” Director Hom-Heg said, voice deadly cold.
“In all the wrong ways, I’m impressed,” I said. “Somehow Dr. Maburic isn’t the worst Casti I’ve run into today.”
Norgi looked like he might be about to speak, but Nai and the Director cut him off.
“Get everyone out of here,” she told Hom-Heg. "Keep a security team on the auditor and get everyone else somewhere out of the way. They’re all just incidental now. Umtane, that includes you now.”
“He won’t stand down now, Warlock,” Umtane said. “He made his gamble and now he’ll see it through.”
“He’s coming,” I told Nai. “Up the stairwell west of us.”
One of the security Casti corroborated what I sensed.
“Chief Niza sees them on footage,” he said, offering Nai a radio. “The security room the Vorak took doesn’t have camera feeds anymore.”
She didn’t bother talking to Niza, instead turning to the Director. “If I cut a hole in a wall, can you get all the remaining personnel to somewhere safe?”
“Yes,” he said. “What about Auditor Norgi?”
“He goes with Umtane,” Nai decided.
“Vather is on our level,” I reported. “He’s going to be shooting at the team outside in about thirty seconds.”
“Get them inside,” Nai told the Director. “I’ll deal with them.”
The Casti manning the doors to the gymnasium were brought inside, leaving Nai standing alone, awaiting the incoming Vorak.
Vather led his team round the corner and saw Nai awaiting them where he had them halt abruptly. Almost a dozen guns immediately trained on Nai.
“It’s over, Vather!” Nai shouted. “We have the culprit and if you keep fighting, the destruction could break open a bioweapon that infects Casti, not Vorak. And the Prowlers would get rightfully blamed for it.”
For a second, I thought surprise flickered on the Rak’s face. But in the end, he wasn’t moved.
“…You don’t have any evidence,” Vather said. “I think you’re bluffing, trying to get everyone to walk away now while you still have a hand in the outcome.”
The Vorak dropped into a low crouch on three limbs.
“No, I think all that’s left is the violence—”
He started to form a number of green orbs in the air only for Nai to move faster.
At the first speck of green, a rampart of dark grey crystal erupted from the ground before Nai’s feet, blocking any beams before they even fired.
In half a second it filled the doorway and then some, crawling across the side of the gymnasium until it covered half of the whole wall.
It was like she’d seen the massive spike clusters Sendin Marfek had used and thought to one-up the Vorak. But Nai’s spikes weren’t as rounded. Hers were less like bouquets of stalagmites and more like square geodes jutting out at odd angles.
“Wait here,” Nai called. She walked forward, right into and through her own crystal.
Selective interaction, I realized.
Her fire might have been her best trick, even her preferred one, but the Warlock had a deeper bag of tricks than even Vather was ready for.