The Sac'a'rith by Vincent Trigili Read Free Book Online Page B

annoy me more and more. By now he should be able to trust me, but he was not behaving as if he did. It did not take a strategic genius to realize we had been told multiple different stories about the computer core, none of which matched up, which left me wondering why we were rushing that way.
    As we moved through the base heading towards Central Computing I began to think that the base must be bigger on the inside than the outside, as it seemed that we had been running forever by the time we came upon Sergeants Sunto and Sam, who were pinned down under fire from a group of three humans further down the hall. We quickly joined them and Narcion asked, “Who are they?”
    “We don’t know. They just attacked us without warning,” said Sergeant Sunto.
    Narcion called out, “Hold your fire and identify yourselves!” A fresh wave of blaster fire was the only reply he got. “Zah’rak, toss one of the stun grenades.”
    A stun grenade emits a blast of electricity, which temporarily renders most life forms defenseless. It would only buy us a few seconds, but that would be plenty of time in this case. I tossed the grenade, waited for the flash indicating that the grenade had gone off, and charged in. Narcion and I reached the enemy position at the same time and we quickly disarmed them before they had a chance to recover.
    Something seemed odd about them, something I could not place. I did not get much time to think about it as Sergeant Sam came up and said, “We should kill them. It is too dangerous to leave them behind.”
    “I’ll worry about them; you head towards the core. It sounds like they are in real trouble down there and need help. We will catch up with you when we can,” said Narcion.
    “With all due respect, sir … ” started Sergeant Sam.
    “Enough. Go,” said Narcion. They hesitated a bit more, but Narcion commanded, “Now!”
    There was something in Narcion’s eyes that seemed to drain them of any urge to stay, and they quickly ran off. Once they were gone he turned to me and said, “We need to get these men out of here before those two come back with help.”
    The surprise on the face of our prisoners probably matched my own, but I moved quickly to comply, “Can you walk yet?” I asked the one closest to me. Narcion obviously had some plan that he was not sharing with me, yet again.
    “Yes, sir,” he said.
    “Good, help your buddy and let’s move it,” I said. It got on my nerves that I could not figure out what was different about them. I knew I should recognize it, but it eluded me.
    We took a very erratic path through the station for about half an hour; then Narcion stopped us and said, “Okay, now we talk.”
    The y all looked at each other and seemed to have a conversation completely with their eyes. It was odd; I could almost feel them talking, but there was no sound at all. Long minutes passed until one of them said, “We do not think it would be wise to talk to invaders.”
    “I agree entirely; however, of all the people we have spoken with today, I suspect you might be the only ones who are not invaders,” said Narcion.
    Something clicked in my head at that moment and I suddenly realized what was different about them. “They are the magi!” I called out involuntarily.
    Narcion grinned and said, “Yes, but could you have your revelation a little more discreetly next time?”
    “What are you getting at?” said the same one who had spoken before.
    “Here,” said Narcion, showing him his security pass. “We were hired to assist in taking back this station from the wraiths. We were told that some magi were sent before us and had failed, but we did not find out about the more mundane attackers until we arrived.”
    The magus did not even look at the security card. Instead, he looked deep into Narcion’s eyes. “How do we know you’re telling us the truth?”
    “You are not dead, for one thing,” said Narcion with a grin, matching the man’s gaze.
    “I am going to need