Chương 170: Chapter 168 – Parallel Op

Cole looked up at the big wall of screens in the Lewis Hall ops center. Kickers and data collectors reviewed footage—some of which was his own helmet camera from Hexighast. The automatons had been a hot-button topic over the last months. The fact a world had finally proved too much for even Deadlight sparked a lot of interest, and so did the promise of unique affixes and more arquebus engineers for future Kickers classed on Hexighast. Moriarty cleared his throat, bringing Cole's attention back to the workstation.

"I won't lie to you," said Moriarty.

"This world you're going to, Icarus, sucks."

"Most of them do," said Cole.

"I don't suppose there's many paradise planets that needed powerful teenagers." Moriarty laughed.

"I wish. But there's always Thailand. You ever been to Thailand?"

"Not yet." Cole nodded towards the screen.

"That looks more like the Himalayas." The images on the screen showed icy mountaintops amid fields of mist and snow. But something seemed… off about the terrain. Cole narrowed his eyes and looked closer.

"You're not seeing things, Airborne. Those mountains are floating."

"For real?"

"For real. Planet's got a powerful magical field and super high concentrations of this anti-gravity crystal. The surface is pretty much unlivable; all the locals live on these islands. When the islands drift close enough together they trade, fight, or fuck. Sometimes all three. It's a planet of air-hockey pucks floating around bashing into each other at random."

Shifting through the intel deck, Moriarty pulled up a fuzzy helmet cam clip of someone looking up at two of the floating mountains side-swiping each other, causing massive quakes and part of one island to break apart. The camera panned down, revealing a person with avian, feathered features crying out in alarm as debris started to rain down on a fortified town.

Ethereal spells and shields fired up to intercept the debris, but it wasn't fully effective and several buildings were crushed under massive chunks of stone.

"The locals are bird-people?" asked Cole.

"These ones are. They call themselves the Starlit. Tribes on Icarus split along local deities and land-bound gods. Experts in flight, despite their primitive aircraft. World-war I era tech. Biplanes, anti-gravity gliders, that sort of thing. They're our local contacts. Watch." Moriarty skipped the footage ahead. Along with the falling debris, other shapes began to descend from the higher island. Winged forms navigated through the city, blasting down bolts of lightning to scour the streets.

Small aircraft rose up to engage them, dogfighting between the falling debris in an acrobatic display of grace that would have made airshow pilots jealous. Cole pointed at one of the sinuous winged creatures.

"Those aren't birds."

"Dragons," said Moriarty.

"Genocidal storm dragons, in fact. This is just a small group, but their biggest flight has wiped several tribes out already. Their islands are drifting close to the Starlit and it's only a matter of time."

"And that's where the rescue comes in?"

"Sort of. Not directly. There's an imprisoned god of the locals in dragon country, said to be able to control all winds who can send the dragon islands back to the frozen north. They sent the rescue, Monica Phillips, on a pilgrimage to free it. I've convinced the Starlit that we're beings from heaven sent to aid her in that task."

"Great. So we go, track down the hero, and bring her home. What's the catch?"

"The catch is that the dragons know about the bound god, too. They're not dumb beasts. They're intelligent and cruel. They think strategically, too. They've got the hero pinned down and doing their best preventing more Starlit from getting in to help. I need a team that can punch through with this." If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Moriarty skipped ahead again. He pulled up a set of schematics for a device Cole didn't recognize."

XDIM fixed coordinate generator," said Cole.

"XDIM coordinates… I heard that term at Oak Ridge."

"This is a brand-new Oak Ridge prototype," said Moriarty.

"Establishes a stable connection—or should anyway. Rather than slipping through the cracks where reality is weak, this thing is supposed to let us brute force a permanent portal location almost anywhere we want. Icarus is a perfect use case. You get it to Phillips, set it up wherever she is, and then we can bring her home."

"And this time, she is where you say she is?" asked Cole. Moriarty scowled.

"Look. I'll admit, Leon's location was my fuck-up. Intel a day behind threw everything off. But I don't make mistakes twice. She's stuck in that temple. I'll stake my career on it. All you have to do is get in there and get her out." Even if that weren't easier said than done, Cole doubted it would be that simple. But Moriarty was nothing if not prideful. Even if he didn't care that people thought he was an asshole, he cared that people thought he was good. He wouldn't fuck up the same way twice.

Moriarty had something to prove. And Cole and his team weren't the underpowered, inexperienced pawns they had been on Vael. They were a precision instrument, now. And even if he didn't trust Moriarty, he trusted Moriarty to know what his team were capable of. And what would happen to him if he tried to fuck them, again.

"Alright," said Cole.

"Send me the slide deck and any info we have on the world. I'll brief the team and get final approval from Director Bricker."

"Director Bricker has already approved. I'll forward it along with the mission documents. The Starlit are standing by to summon us any time. I'll come along and make introductions. After that, your team has lead."

"Summon us?"

"The islands are floating, Airborne. Portals are fixed points. Unless you want to emerge 20, 000 feet in the air and plunge into an arctic ocean, we need the locals to perform a summoning ritual. That's why the XDIM anchor is so key, it gives us a moving target we can actually hit." Great. Winter weather, lightning-breathing dragons, and an ingress that depended on people they were out to rat-fuck by stealing their hero back while masquerading as angelic beings. What could go wrong?

Cole sent a message to his team that mission details were impending. They weren't excited to do another op for Moriarty, but one and all they understood the need. Cole wasn't sure what he'd done to earn such loyalty from them, but they knew the mission was intensely personal. No one had even complained about the fifty-percent residue bounty haircut. Cole glanced at the screen again and grimaced. The conditions probably weren't going to get anyone excited, either. *"Are you kidding? We get to slay fucking dragons?"

asked Howie.

"This is going to be awesome!" Roxy glanced his way.

"Sounds like we're going to be getting use out of that shock-resist gear sooner than we expected. But… yeah. I can't say I'm tore up about it. I've been itching to fight another one since we lost the loot from the one in Babel." Cole looked at his teammates.

"You're shitting me."

"I mean, I'm not thrilled about the heights and the floating islands thing. But otherwise?" Howie wiggled his eyebrows.

"Big targets. Big loot." Besson shrugged, noncommittal. Nona didn't answer at all.

"Airborne," said Alexa, "You do realize this is every fantasy nerd's wet dream, right? I've been dreaming of fighting dragons since I was four years old." She scowled.

"Granted, I'm not happy about the Moriarty angle. But I can see why he needed you for this."

"Do you think he's trying to fuck us, again?" asked Cole. She considered, then shook her head.

"No. You covering down for his fuck-up on Vael damaged his rep. He may keep grudges, but he's been doing the legwork for other teams, second-checking everything since then. His intel will be airtight. He stands to look the best if we pull this off, after all. That's not to say it's going to be easy."

"Better'n burning sands and heart-eating demons," said Wayland. He blew out a breath.

"It's not Kevlesh, but it's a heck of a first mission."

"True on both counts," said Cole. He thought back to his initial encounter with one of the nearly bulletproof creatures that had flat ignored him as he emptied an entire magazine into its side, in favor of chewing through the guts of a Syrian rebel. He still had the occasional nightmare about those bloody jaws spreading as it leapt at him.

While he didn't share his team's unexpected enthusiasm for dragon-slaying, this was still a golden opportunity to rescue another kid and get his team powered up even further in the process. They were mid-level Kickers, now. The jobs were only going to get more intense. He was just glad his people were rising to the occasion.

"We transition off-world in five days. Take care of anything outstanding. If you've got any new weapons for me to enhance, they'll get top prio. Rest up, pack warm. Any questions?" His team shook their heads. Cole took a deep breath.

"These next couple months are going to be grueling. Between this op, training for the Beast Cult extraction, and the capture operation itself, we're going to get pushed hard. If anyone is close to burning out, cracking, needing a break, tell me. We don't have to carry the whole Department on our shoulders." Besson looked as though he were about to say something, but pursed his lips and stayed silent, instead. Cole raised an eyebrow and the Kicker gave a gentle shake of his head.

"If there's nothing else, let's get prepped."