novelxo Invasion: Chapter 6
“I’m not staying behind, Henry.” Dan maintained eye contact with the billionaire across the conference table from him. “They’ve only been training for about three and a half months; they aren’t ready to be deployed. Without me on site, the elves are going to tear them apart.”
“Dan.” The Director leaned back in his heavily cushioned chair. “Have you considered the possibility that they’re all going to die no matter what we do? They should have known that the Tellask would find an answer to air cover before long. Everyone should have seen the elves breaking containment and attacking nearby cities from a mile away.”
“The government is underestimating them, Thrush,” Ibis continued, gesticulating wildly as he shook his head. “They won’t even listen when a cooler head tries to give them advice. As soon as I offer a suggestion to the Department of Defense, they try to take it over and force the process along.”
“We wouldn’t even need Starshield if they listened to me when the Tellask first landed.” Henry’s eyes were burning, his hair disheveled from his erratic movements. “A couple of fuel-air bombs followed by a tank division and flame throwers would have solved the whole thing. Disrupt their operations while we burned a road to the heart of the jungle and blew that damn spaceship of theirs up.”
“Instead, what did I get?” He threw his hands in the air. “Ignored until I had something shiny that the paper pushers wanted. The second I had Starshield, they sent in their bureaucrats and auditors, claiming that I had engaged in ‘unsanctioned human testing’ of dangerous electronics and threatening to shut me down unless they got their cut.”
As the victim of that unsanctioned testing, Dan shifted uncomfortably, the motion utterly unnoticed by the manic old man.
“Shut me down,” Ibis growled. “I’m the only hope our race has of actually surviving this mess, and they come to me with their demands, hands outstretched? Their shortsightedness will kill us all, Dan. This isn’t even the blind leading the blind anymore. The senators and their subcommittees are actively trying to find and purge anyone that can see.”
The Director paused, closing his eyes and taking in a deep, shaky breath, his cheeks still flushed from the diatribe. When he reopened his eyes, the glassy sheen of the old man’s fervor was gone.
“Ahem.” He cleared his throat before continuing, his voice strangely calm after the earlier outburst. “The elves didn’t end up ruling half of the galaxy by being passive. I’ve been telling every senator that will listen that treating the elves like primitives just because they’re using swords is a mistake. That the main reason they don’t have guns and tanks is that they didn’t need them. Magic made them apex predators, and if we aren’t careful, we’ll end up just like the rest of their prey.”
“Our army needs to either commit or cut our losses.” Ibis sighed. “The time for decisive intervention was months ago. Sending a couple more troops along with Starshield will just doom both groups. We either need to activate our reserves and deploy everything or walk away and prepare for a drawn out war. Dan my boy, mark my words. This is a disaster in the making.”
“Are you really ready to give up on them already?” Dan asked, eyebrows raised. “We spent two years and God knows how much of your money working toward this, and you’re already prepared to write off Brazil? I’m not thrilled at the idea of fighting the Tellask, but it’s not an impossibility. Individually, they’re more powerful than any human alive, but if we’re smart about this, beating them back isn’t a crazy idea.”
“I’m not happy about it, Dan.” Ibis sighed. For the first time, Dan noticed the bags under his eyes and the weariness in his voice. “Half of the coalition is too passive and the other half is too aggressive. America wants to see if the elves have an answer to nukes, and most of the European nations seem more interested in finding excuses to not ship over their promised aid than actually helping out. Sending the Starshield recruits along with the 5th Marine Regiment was a compromise, but it smells like a half-measure to me. From the moment we read their records, I realized that the only way we were going to be able to beat them was by taking advantage of their arrogance to grow strong enough to hold our own. Yet here we are, blundering into mistakes of our own due to a combination of arrogance and a lack of political will.”
“It isn’t ideal, Henry,” Dan agreed, his mouth twisted into a tight frown. “We only have the materials for about twenty runescript tattoos, but we can put together low-level enchanted equipment for everyone else. Low-level runes on armor and weapons aren’t anywhere near as useful, but they don’t take much to build anyway. The magical beasts that you’ve been rearing don’t have much essence, but if all we’re doing is making people a little faster or creating a very localized spell shield, it should be enough. Just give me a week to work on it so we aren’t sending them into the meat grinder completely unprepared. Then, once we’re in Brazil, I can do follow up runescripting on site. Unless things go completely sideways, we’re going to have plenty of monster essence.”
“But what if things do go sideways?” Henry questioned, his energy faded and his eyes dull. “Even if the Tellask don’t win a complete victory, America wants to nuke the rainforest. For now, political concerns are holding them back, but the longer the conflict drags out, the more likely they are to simply not care what Brazil and the rest of the world has to say. You’re stronger now than you were two years ago, but you can’t survive a nuke, Dan. You have to realize, if you fall, humanity falls with you. We can’t awaken new candidates without you. Sam, please talk some sense into him.”
“If Dan gets killed, it will be hard for us to get a second chance at this,” Sam began hesitantly, trying to avoid becoming embroiled in the argument between Dan and her boss.
“Thank God someone is being sensible here,” the Director interrupted. “Dan, listen to Doctor Weathers. Right now, you’re too important to risk on an ill-planned military campaign.”
“If you would let me finish, sir.” Sam put a slight amount of heat into her voice. “I’m sure Dan doesn’t plan on dying, but I understand his desire to not stagnate. We’ve been training as much as we can, but at some point, it just isn’t enough. You can smooth the rough edges off of a spell or increase its mana efficiency, but at a certain point, you just need actual combat experience and more mana regeneration to cast what you want.”
“She’s right,” Dan said with a grimace. “Since I’ve started teaching, I’ve only managed to hammer out one new spell, forcebolt. Right now, it shoots a fist-sized ball of telekinetic energy that hits with the force of a punch. I can use it to distract someone or strike something at a distance, but beyond that, it isn’t much use.”
“I’m plateauing, Director.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Even if you take out the time I’m spending on administration and training, practicing on training dummies just isn’t the same. It’s not even that I’m not earning mana. There’s something about the stress of combat that forces you to adapt and use your existing abilities in new ways. Whatever it is, the System recognizes it. Skill levels have been almost impossible to earn since I returned to Earth.”
“Having Dan on hand to awaken more candidates is important.” Sam leaned forward, “but at the same time, his combat capabilities might be our best bet against the Tellask in the long run. Keeping him here while we deployed the recruits would stunt his growth.”
“Plus.” She flashed him a quick smile. “It sounds like he would be miserable. I think he got a taste for action on his little vacation.”
Dan nodded at her gratefully while Ibis hemmed and pondered their points.
“I’m sure deploying Dan would be beneficial to him, but what do we do if he dies? He’s the only person that can awaken new candidates.” Henry was beginning to become frantic as he felt the conversation slipping away from him.
“Henry,” Sam interjected uncomfortably. “He can awaken a couple people before he leaves. They just need to kill monsters raised in your private bestiary until they rank up enough. It’s hardly the most efficient way of dealing with things, but it’s not as dire as you’re making it. If Dan were to die, we’d lose a couple years of work, but we can’t keep him here forever without stunting his growth and drastically lowering the survivability of the candidates.”
“Fine,” Henry said in defeat. “But no runescripting for the army candidates. General Finch is forcing us to deploy early and without the resources he promised. If he wants his troops to be treated with the same care as ours, he can fulfill his end of the bargain.”
Dan winced. He understood where Henry was coming from, but the Director wouldn’t be the one delivering that pronouncement to Bowman. The Lieutenant Colonel would likely blame Dan, adding once more to the resentment the older man felt for him. He looked to Sam for help, but she was burying her face in her tablet once again.
“We only have the resources to pick twenty for runescripting,” Dan responded with a sigh. “How am I supposed to pick who to enhance?”
“Talent and loyalty.” Henry looked him in the eyes. “Pick the twenty most talented candidates that actually care about the project and humanity as a whole. I’ve read the reports. My security guards aren’t terribly inventive, but they know their duty and they can fight. Making them faster and stronger will help everyone. Pick ten of them and ten from the tournament. Just make sure that none of them are from that group of vapid glory hounds. The point of this program is to create magical soldiers to lead humanity into a new era. If we’re going to be selecting the paladins that will herald the new age, we need to make sure they’re willing to listen to advice. I’m tired of screaming into the void, warning politicians that they’re making a terrible mistake, only for them to take my campaign donations with a smile and then ignore me. Something needs to change.”
Dan shifted in his seat uncomfortably. He understood where Henry was coming from, but at the same time, it was different when a man of his power said it. Hell, he usually didn’t go a month without complaining about some government agency’s inefficiency or corruption, but Dan was just an upset voter. Henry knew people and had the power to change things, and now he was talking about creating a corps of mages loyal to him in the same breath as he demanded political change. Ultimately, Henry was right. The governments of the world had gotten them into this mess by being shortsighted and unwilling to commit the forces needed to clear out the elves when it could have been accomplished more easily. Still, the entire business worried him.
“Speaking about loyalty.” The Director’s eyes flashed, “I need to be sure of yours, Dan. If I send you to Brazil, the army is going to try to tell you lies. They’re going to say they understand the threat posed by the elves, that they should be the ones in charge of Earth’s defense. Don’t listen to them, Thrush. Remember how they swept the entire thing under the rug in the name of political expedience the first time? Only I have the technology and the vision to carry us through this storm.”
Dan shifted uncomfortably. Next to him, Sam nodded dutifully, a sour look on her face.
“Promise me, Dan.” Ibis leaned forward, staring at him intensely while Dan squirmed under his gaze. “Promise me that you will stay loyal to the Thoth Foundation and me.”
“Of course, Director,” he replied. After all, what could he say?
“Do you swear it?”
Dan tried to avoid Henry’s gaze, instead focusing on the old man’s clenched hands, and white knuckles. “Yes.” He smiled weakly. “I’m not going to forget what you’ve done for me and the sacrifices you’ve made for humanity as a whole.”
“Great!” The storm cleared from the Director’s face as he clapped his hands cheerfully. “I suppose that’s settled, then. I’m famished! I hope the rest of you are ready for an early lunch.”
The next week passed in a blur. Dan barely had time to sleep as he finished runescripting the twenty candidates that Sam and he selected only to get started immediately on enchanting gear for all hundred and sixty two members of the program. Each soldier received a silver breastplate that slightly increased their strength and speed, a golden bracer that could generate a small spellshield that resembled his force bubble spell, and a shortsword enchanted to be sharper and lighter than should otherwise be possible. Most of the soldiers elected to still use rifles, keeping the sword as a reserve, but most of the Thoth Foundation candidates selected a mixed arsenal. Dan himself wore a new suit of mythril/tungsten chainmail and equipped himself with the sword he had taken from Daeson and a 9mm pistol. He wasn’t terribly skilled with firearms, but a handgun didn’t take up much space, and its firepower would be very useful against unshielded targets.
Then, the work was done and Dan found himself on a privately-chartered jet sitting next to Sam and Jennifer. Thankfully, Colonel Bowman had just glared at him and walked to the back of the plane where the sixty soldiers sat in full battle kit.
The difference in appearance between the soldiers and the Thoth Foundation candidates was stark. Every soldier wore a full camouflage combat kit with their enchanted breastplates worn in their armor’s plate carrier. The Thoth Foundation candidates, on the other hand, looked like they just walked out of a renaissance fair. Most of them wore their breastplates openly and several equipped other medieval weapons such as warhammers or spears to complement their enchanted shortswords.
“Penny for your thoughts,” Jennifer interrupted Dan’s reverie from where she sat next to him. She was one of the runescripted candidates; she didn’t wear a breastplate. Instead, she wore a thick long sleeve shirt and full length pants made from a tough synthetic fiber woven through with strands of silver. The outfit promised to be sweltering once they landed in the jungle, but it should prove effective armor against most unenchanted bladed weapons while allowing her sufficient mobility. The silver even let her run mana through the armor, theoretically letting her disrupt magical attacks so long as she didn’t run out of mana herself.
“I just don’t think we’re ready,” Dan replied, struggling to be heard over the sound of the plane rattling as it began making its approach. “We haven’t even trained for four months. The average elf trains for at least a century before they are deployed to field duty. The System helps, but it only helps people learn spells. The candidates don’t have any field experience with incorporating those spells into their fighting styles. It just feels like we’re about to walk into a massacre.”
“Ready or not, they’re here,” Jennifer shrugged. “If we don’t stop them here, our only options are to let them keep a bridgehead in the form of a teleport beacon or to bomb the Amazon until we risk a nuclear winter. When you’re out of options, overthinking things doesn’t help. We just need to go out there and win. Worrying won’t help anything.”
“You’re right,” Dan jolted in his seat as the plane touched down. “We’ve planned, schemed, and tried to prepare for two years, and we could have easily spent another two preparing to fight the Tellask. We still wouldn’t have been ready. Now it’s just a matter of killing enough of them that they decide that Earth isn’t worth the cost it would require to subjugate.”
“Grim resignation. There’s the spirit, Commander!” Jennifer grinned at him.
“Commander?” Dan asked her, raising an eyebrow.
“Well,” She replied unbuckling her restraints as she prepared to disembark the plane. “I’m sure as hell not going to call you ‘project lead’ or whatever the hell your official corporate speak title is. At least until we head home, you’re ‘Commander.’ Just don’t let it go to your head.”
Dan rolled his eyes and checked his gear as he stood up. With everything in place, he called up his status from the System one last time.
<USER> Status
Rank 5
Body 6(8)
Agility 7 (9)
Mind 8
Perception 7
Spirit 43
Skills
Swords 9, Brawling 5, Archery 2, Runecrafting 6
Affinity
Space 12, Lightning 11, Fire 10, Gravity 6, Force 8
Enhancements
Armor Rune V, Strength Rune +2, Agility Rune +2
Runes+
Spells
Shocking Fist 10, Spark Field 2, Lightning Stroke 10, Spatial Shield 8, Flame Jet 4, Gravitational Easing 6, Fireball 10, Force Bubble 8, Spellshield 3, Forcebolt 1
Even though most of his time had been focused on training the candidates, Dan had still found enough time to advance noticeably. As Dan stepped off of the ramp into the damp heat of the army camp where the Thoth Foundation plane had landed, he smiled wryly. Hopefully it would be enough.