Mistrunner 4 - Chapter 38 - Rescue Mission (Patreon)

Earth doesn’t even qualify as a backwater. It’s on the edge of the frontier, and the only people who care about it are the desperate or unscrupulous. I’m one of the former.

Galatira Iamaxis

“You’re really not going to tell me the whole story, are you?” I asked, glancing back at Gala. She’d crammed herself into one of the back seats of the Leviathan’s cockpit, and it was clear that she found it extremely uncomfortable. But then again, I was pretty sure that the ship hadn’t been built with enormous minotaurs in mind, so I didn’t exactly feel bad about it. “Just going to keep it all to yourself.”

“There’s nothing to tell, Mira.”

“You keep saying that, but it feels like me being an experiment kind of opposes that statement,” I stated.

Gala sighed. “It wasn’t complicated. More of a coincidence, really. There was nothing special about you, except that Jeremiah had the right combination of obsessiveness and resources to get the most out of the implant,” she said. “Even then, he was supposed to have given it to his daughter. The fact that he didn’t was one of the reasons he ended up the way he did.”

“She wouldn’t take it,” I said. I knew the story. Jeremiah had intended to give the Tier-7 Nexus Implant to my mother, but she’d turned it down in favor of living a normal life. And that normal life had ended up with her dead at the hands of some no-name mugger.

“I know that. And I understood it. The people who gave your uncle that implant didn’t care, though. So, the moment they realized what was going on, they pressed the right buttons, bribed the right people, and called in all the right favors. The results were that he ended up dead, and you ended up on your own,” she said. “It was a calculated risk meant to force you to either step up to the challenge or die. Either result would have been valuable for their research.”

Failure, it seemed, was still valuable.

“Who is it?” I asked.

“It doesn’t matter, Mira.”

“It matters to me.”

“Fine. It was the Ark Alliance, okay?” she answered. “Alistaris is your handler. Or he was until they called him back home. When he chose to stay on Earth, they withdrew their protection. The Gamori Confederation found out, so they sent the Arbiters of Orion to capture him.”

“Why not kill him?”

“They intend to. They just wanted to get as much information as they could out of him before the execution,” she explained. “They’re also waiting to see if his family will pay a ransom.”

“Will they?”

“Alistaris cut ties with the Dingyt homeworld a long time ago,” she replied. “Until your little stunt kidnapping the princess, he hadn’t spoken to anyone in the core for years.”

“So, let me get this straight – the Ark Alliance gave my uncle this implant so he could shove it into my mother,” I recounted. “They wanted to see what would happen, right? But then she refused, and it ended up in me instead. Ever since then, they’ve been…what? Manipulating events to try to force me to develop the way they want me to? That’s why my uncle’s dead? That’s why Al came after me in the first place? Was the whole heist a set-up?”

“Calm down, Mira,” Gala said.

“Don’t tell me to calm down,” I growled. “You just told me that the people I’ve been working with are the reason my uncle died. Under those circumstances, I think I’m pretty damn calm.”

My eyes flicked to the single gnome in the cockpit. She was trying to keep a straight face, but I could tell that she was on the verge of losing it. With Observation flared, I could hear her rapid heartbeat. And with my {Mist Warden} senses, I could see the fluctuations of her aura. Not only was she terrified, but she was also on the edge of activating some sort of ability.

“Don’t,” I spat in her direction.

“She’s not at fault, Mira.”

“Gala, I don’t need you to –”

“This isn’t helping anyone!” Patrick shouted. “All that matters is whether or not you want to rescue Alistaris. The rest of this interrogation can wait until then, okay? So, do you want to go get him?”

“Of course I do.”

I owed him, after all. He’d helped save Patrick’s life, and on top of that, he had chosen to stay on Earth when he had every reason to leave. If that hadn’t established him as my ally, then nothing would. As Patrick had said, everything else could wait until he was safe. However, if I found out that he was complicit in my uncle’s death, then nothing could save him from me.

“Then we should probably get ready, because it won’t be long before we’re there,” Patrick stated.

I nodded, though if I was honest with myself, I resented him a little for being the adult in the room. Or the cockpit, as it were. Still, I remained silent as he guided the ship into the upper atmosphere. Once we were there, I felt him activate some sort of ability before a swirl of Mist swept through the ship, enveloping it. As it did, he pressed a button on the command console, and another wave of Mist – this one originating from the Mist reactor – spread through the Leviathan.

However, my attention rested squarely on the bubble of diffuse nanites just ahead. Or above, I suppose. It was the system’s enforcement of the quarantine, and I knew that if Patrick’s measures were somehow inefficient, things would go very badly for us. I knew that his [Smuggler] skill was supposedly up to the task, but that meant very little when system censure was on the table. So, I couldn’t help but clench up as we passed through.

And other than a slight tingle, I felt nothing.

“That was anticlimactic,” I muttered. I looked back to Gala and asked, “So, if we wanted to, we could just leave, right? Take off through the galaxy and try to forget Earth ever existed?”

“You could.”

“But?”

“Nothing. I would advise you to do just that if I thought you would even give it a second thought,” was her response. “I know you won’t, though.”

“You think you know me?” I asked. Sure, I’d spoken to Gala on enough occasions that I thought of her as a friend. But I didn’t think she really knew me. Not like Patrick.

“I know you well enough to predict what you’ll do. But I’ve been wrong often enough that I can’t say I’m sure of anything,” she answered. “If you did choose to leave, I can tell you where to go so that you might survive, though. I even have some contacts who might consent to hide you.”

I shook my head. “I can’t do that.”

“Even if this is your last chance?” she asked.

“Especially because it might be my last chance,” I answered. Indeed, the idea that the rest of Earth’s population would soon be trapped on the planet while a bunch of aliens plotted how to strip its resources was precisely the reason I needed to get back to the surface as soon as possible.

If I had more time – and a lot more people – we could have gone ahead with Alistaris’ original plan to destroy the satellites that would create the blockade once the system quarantine was lifted. However, I knew that we’d never even get close without a significant fleet of ships to cover us, so that plan was out of the question.

We had prevented the planet’s destruction, but we were a long way from solving the next problem on the list. Yet, even living cut off from the rest of the galaxy was better than having the planet exploded while we were on it, so I didn’t want to dismiss the progress we had already made.

Part of me just wanted to try dismantling the system of satellites anyway, but I knew that was a suicide mission. But they were protected by a fleet of ships – the extraordinarily advanced Infinite Conquest among them – and each satellite housed thousands of combat bots and soldiers, as well as dozens of mystics. If I went in without a plan – or help – I was doomed to failure.

And even if I had accepted my own mortality, I wasn’t eager to fight a losing battle that would end with me dead and forgotten.

But Alistaris – he knew the system, and he’d already conceived a plan. So, we needed him if we were going to continue fighting for Earth’s freedom.

All those thoughts and more swept through the various threads of my mind as Patrick guided the Leviathan through the quarantine and toward the giant space station that we knew as the Bazaar. From the outside, it was a curious structure composed of various interlocking circles, each one more than a mile wide. However, I knew that the inside was far larger than the exterior suggested.

It also had the densest Mist aura I’d ever seen.

“It’s impressive, isn’t it?” said Gala, leaning forward. “I can’t see auras like you, but I’ve heard from a few Templars that the system stations are true masterpieces.”

“System stations?”

“Made in the core and connected to the system on a much more fundamental level than most technology,” she said. “They’re incredibly advanced, and in ways that few truly understand. Even the shipwrights who make them don’t fully comprehend how everything fits together. They just follow the plans implanted in their minds alongside the [System Engineer] skill. I’ve heard that there are a few near the peak who know how it all works, but they’re not telling anyone. It’s almost a religion to them.”

The system was an intriguing subject, but I knew that it was a dead end. Nobody really knew where it had originated, even if they claimed otherwise. Some said it was just a part of the Mist, but others believed that it had originated with the eldest races who’d had to adapt to the Mist the hard way. Whatever the case, the system was almost universally regarded as a sentient thing, which meant that tricking it was possible.

And on the frontier, it was almost encouraged.

“How are we getting in?” I asked.

“Gala sent me some coordinates already,” Patrick said.

“Oh.”

I watched as Patrick approached the Bazaar – or system station, as Gala had called it. And after a few more minutes, I saw him use another ability. I still wasn’t sure what all his [Smuggler] abilities were called, but as far as I could tell, this new one was meant to mask our approach. Soon enough, we came into sight of a large, open entrance that was guarded by a semi-permeable Mist shield.

There were a few other ships coming and going, and Patrick released his ability before joining the queue. Before long, we were passing through the Mist shield and landing in an open spot.

“That seemed a lot easier than it should have been,” I remarked.

“Thousands of ships come and go from system stations every day,” Gala stated. “There’s no reason for them to suspect we’re anything but another merchant ship. Besides, it’s not like security is particularly tight this close to the quarantine dropping. Add the Gamoris to the equation, and nobody’s going to care about one extra ship.”

“What about people like Ana?” I asked. “She came here with the expectation of taking advantage of the world opening up after quarantine.”

“She just has to accept it. It’s part of the risk we all take when we come to the frontier.”

“This is a terrible system,” I pointed out.

“Can’t argue with that, but you have to understand that most of the universe couldn’t care less about what happens to a world like this. They have their own problems, so they can’t afford to worry about a planet that’s halfway across the universe.”

That certainly fit with my understanding of how people worked. At one point, I would have called it human nature, but everything I had seen suggested that it was a pervasive attitude across all species. It was difficult to care about others when you were worried about your own fate, after all.

Regardless, once we’d landed, everyone made certain that they were ready. For my part, I used Mimic to take on the appearance of a red-skinned alien I’d killed a couple of years before. She was mostly human-looking, except for the hue of her skin and a pair of tiny horns jutting from her forehead. At the look I got from Patrick, I said, “I’m public enemy number one for the Gamoris. I don’t think it’s a great idea to walk around with my normal face.”

“Do I need a disguise, too?”

“No offense, but I don’t think anyone’s looking for you,” I said. I glanced at Gala. “But her on the other hand…”

“I can move around without notice if I like,” she said. “But the Dingyts should stay in the ship unless we need backup.”

That garnered some resistance from the gnomes, and I understand why. It was their leader we intended on rescuing, so they had a personal interest in the mission. However, Gala only had to point out that the enemies would expect a troop of Dingyts to come to the rescue of their commander, and they let it go.

After that, Gala, Patrick, and I left the ship behind.

Trekking through the Bazaar was both a familiar as well as novel experience. I recognized the corridors, but the people inside were plainly projections. Visually, that was obviously due to their transparent nature. However, it was even more obvious to my {Mist Warden} senses because none of them had the slightest aura about them. Yet, I knew that I could disperse them with the slightest nudge with Mist Authority.

But the worst part was that the whispers that had dogged me since the crater were even louder than back on Earth. I couldn’t quite make out what they were saying, but I was closer than ever before. It was almost enough to keep me there. Almost, but not quite.

Still, I kept one thread of thought continuously trained on those whispers as we traversed the miles of corridors. Eventually, after passing through a few less-than-prosperous sections, we reached an intersection. There, Gala held up one of her giant hands and said, “Stealth from here on in.”

With that, she disappeared. I could still feel her, but her aura was so subdued that, from a distance, I might’ve mistaken it for a slight ripple in the ambient Mist. For his part, Patrick activated some sort of device on his belt, and when I asked what it was, he responded via Secure Connection that it didn’t actually have a name. Then, he added, “I’m calling it the Stealth Generator, though. I finished the design a couple of weeks ago, but this is the first time I’m using it. I built something similar into the mech suit, though. This is just smaller and way more efficient.”

“Neat,” I said.

“Neat? Who says neat?”

“I think it’s neat. Very impressive.”

He groaned silently, and I embraced Stealth. After that, we took the right-hand turn and, a few hundred yards later, Gala informed me that we had arrived at our destination. It was another large chamber, much like the ones that held Gala’s shop. However, instead of hundreds of cube-like rooms, it housed a single facility that was placed right in the center. Outside, there were dozens of enemies representing all sorts of alien species. I didn’t bother noting their characteristics, because none of them seemed particularly dangerous.

“How much do you want me to hold back?” I asked.

“Don’t blow anything up,” Gala said.

“Can I use Ghosts?”

“If you can get them to stick, but I’m fairly certain you can’t,” she said. “These aren’t –”

Even as she spoke, I’d been infiltrating the nearest alien’s system. It fell in seconds, and as I’d uploaded my Kill Switch Ghost, the other threads of my [Multi-Mind] were hard at work doing the same to three other aliens. In the couple of seconds it took Gala to express her doubts, the enemies had already begun to drop.

“Oh,” she said.

“Would be easier if I could use something like Plague, but I don’t want to infect Alistaris, too,” I said through Secure Connection as I strode forward. “I won’t get them all, but –”

At that moment, a surge of Mist exploded in the center of the compound, then swept through me. Immediately, I felt my system go haywire, and I collapsed only an instant later.

Behind me, Patrick and Gala were even more affected than I was, and both hit the ground as soon as the wave of Mist tore through them. More distressingly, all of our various stealth measures fell away, exposing us for all to see.

“Target down!” came a voice out of nowhere. Then, a dozen figures suddenly appeared all around me. They were wearing the black armor of Adjudicators, and each one had assault rifles pointed in my direction.

A thirteenth enemy flickered into view. He was tall, four-armed, and wore a tight-fitting, yellow jumpsuit that showed just how alien his anatomy was. His torso bulged in all the wrong places, and his legs had multiple joints where only one should’ve been. However, his face was mostly human, save for a pair of compound eyes and a trio of antenna emerging from a mop of white hair.

He held a pair of slender swords, and more importantly, had the aura of a mystic.

“Mirabelle Braddock. I’ve wanted to meet you for quite some time,” he said with a wide smile that revealed a set of pointed shark’s teeth. “I do so look forward to becoming intimately acquainted with everything you have to offer.”