Jack settled in the pilot’s seat. He powered up as Josie settled in the co-pilot seat. He
nodded as the charged engines registered full power. He opened the Hangar’s roof as
he retracted the landing gear and fired the belly jets. The quinjet leaped into the air
and hovered as he closed the cover over his storage space.
“Can you do me a favor and write a note for the Duke to mark out a spot where he
wants his new house,” said Jack. “Remind him that he can’t have the old Duke’s
property.”
“Thinking about his house?,” said Josie. She pulled out a piece of paper and a quill
pen. She wrote a note and folded it. She sent it with Zatanna.
“Yes,” said Jack. He headed into the city with the normal drive. “If I come across
something I like, I might steal it and drop it in place instead of just building it out of
scratch. I should have asked for some kind of blueprint.”
Josie wrote another note and sent that. She smiled quietly.
“All right,” said Jack. “There’s the Guild Hall. Do you see Fass and his Fighters?”
“Not yet,” said Josie. “Take us in and we’ll work on the portable maps while we are
waiting.”
“All right,” said Jack. “Do you think you can do that teleporting thing with the bird
again?”
“It works great for moving things,” said Josie. “It just takes some setup time.”
“We might need it to move whomever we find at this place,” said Jack. “I’m just
thinking ahead before we get into things.”
“I can alter the model to give us real pictures,” said Josie. “I should have thought of
it before we started out.”
“Just put it on the to do list,” said Jack. “I can see a magic mirror thing we can try to
put in use.”
“I see what you’re talking about,” said Josie. “Magic television.”
“I was thinking more like magical internet,” said Jack. He grinned at her. “We can
watch Dan and the boys in concert.”
“I like that,” said Josie. “We can show the girls the light show.”
Jack brought the quinjet down and hovered to a landing in the Hall Yard where
adventurers gathered to talk about the jobs they had taken off the board, and to get
organized. He didn’t see anyone he knew in the small crowd standing back from the
machine.
“I think I have a pilot I can use if things get bad enough,” said Josie. “I just don’t
want to use him unless I have to.”
“I have Rocket Racoon, but I am afraid of what happens if I call him,” said Jack. “Do
I get a savvy spacefighting raccoon with a gun, or a raccoon that turns into a missile?
If I had access to G.I. Joe, I could get Ace, Ghost Rider, Maverick, or Slipstream.
Maybe Wild Bill who is awesome. But apparently you can’t get the licensed heroes
with what we have.”
“Blackhawk, pilot or bird?,” said Josie. She smiled with Jack’s grin.
“Bird,” they said together.
“How are you going to make portable models?,” said Josie. “I assume it has
something to do with magic tech.”
“I need something to work the spell on,” said Jack. “Let’s see if we can grab
something as a base. I can transmute anything we need from raw material.”
“Everyone is looking at us,” said Aviras from the back. “Should I set them on fire?”
“Not yet,” said Jack. He undid his harness. “Do you think you can find Fass?”
“Perhaps,” said Aviras. “It should be simple enough to look around as long as I can
get someone to open the doors if I have to go inside.”
“All right,” said Jack. “I’m going to lower the gangplank for you to do your recon.
If you run into trouble, come back to the quinjet. I’ll sic Jo on any problem.”
“That should be extremely hilarious,” said Aviras.
“Toe warmers,” Josie said.
“But I think I have to be going now,” said the dragon.
Jack triggered the door. He looked out the window. Aviras soared away on his
mission.
“Toe warmers?,” asked Jack.
“I get cold feet,” said Josie. “How are we going to make these portable models for
Eric’s crew?”
“I need some material,” said Jack. He headed down to the gangplank. He rubbed his
hands as he thought. Josie followed. “Then we just adapt what you did to a new
surface and use that for our command and control. We probably won’t need it, but I
like having things in case I need it rather than needing it and not having it.”
“All right,” said Josie. “We can use that. Should we arm up in case we run out of
power?”
“Do we need to?,” said Jack. “You still got my pocket knife? That should be enough
for you.”
“Pocket knife?,” said Josie. She raised her eyebrows.
“Ryan Reynolds killed Morgan Freeman with one,” said Jack. He stood in the Yard
and looked around. “I don’t see why you can’t.”
“What are you looking for?,” asked Josie. “Also I don’t see how killing a ninety five
year old is okay.”
“He deserved it,” said Jack. He smiled. “That’s what I need.”
Jack walked over to a bush. He looked around. The bush was all alone. He placed a
ring around it, using Majik and transformed leaves. He activated the ring. The bush
became fifteen tablets of glass and metal. He checked the sheets and lightened them
for easier carry.
“Step one is done,” he said, reverting to normal. “I’m going to wait until we’re on
station before I try to copy your model.”
“Do you think you can do that?,” asked Josie.
“Sure,” said Jack. “I think that was one of Warner’s problems and something he was
afraid of but didn’t want to admit.”
“Magic was driving him crazy?,” said Jo. She frowned at the implication.
“Maybe,” said Jack. “Remember, the Society said he operated as a lone champion
with some allies helping out. Using the ring might have started going to his head and
he decided that maybe he should put things down and not come back.”
“And constantly going home where the ring might not have worked could have
caused some problems for him,” said Josie. “I wish he would send a letter back with
some of the answers we want. I know he wouldn’t want us prying, but I think what
The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.he knows is relevant.”
“Did the Duke send back his answer?,” said Jack. “Once I know where he wants his
house, the faster I can take stuff and build it for him.”
“Not yet,” Josie said. “I asked him to pick a spot that was legally his, and where he
thought a house would do him the most good. I don’t think he liked that we seized the
old Duke’s place without a by your leave, and we are holding it with the force of our
arms.”
“When he gets a watch, I’ll care a little more,” said Jack. “I consider it the spoils of
war.”
“All right,” said Josie. “Plus we can’t have him uncover our secret airplane hangar
right in the same spot as the old house was.”
“Exactly,” said Jack. “That’s why I put a mental vibe out there to keep people away.
I didn’t want them finding the roof switch and falling in. Crashing the quinjet inside
the thing would be more acceptable than some idiot driving it into the city wall, but
it’s still bad for us.”
“Totally agree,” said Josie. “There’s Fass. Looks like he’s ready to go.”
“Josie Fass is almost close to Josie Fox,” Jack whispered.
“Shut up,” said Josie. “No one wants to be involved with a witch. Let’s go before I
give you a black eye.”
Jack grinned at her as he carried the inactive tablets into the quinjet and stored them.
He headed up to the pilot’s chair. They would be out of there in a minute, and then
headed out of the city.
He began powering the machine up as he heard Budd and Aviras bickering about
something from their conversation as Josie and Fass settled everyone in.
“Jack!,” called Josie. “We need another seat.”
“Got it,” said Jack. He transformed long enough to coax another seat out of the floor.
He changed back to let the watch recharge. He noted that it was much slower than he
expected. He thought it was because of the mana charger powering the engines.
It might also be eating his charge on his watch.
He could fix that as soon as he landed. He set the coordinates they wanted with a
touch of Majik. He started the engines as Josie started up front. She took her seat and
strapped in.
“Emily Budd wants a taste of revenge,” said Josie. She kept her voice low.
“That’s not something we can worry about unless she gets in our way,” said Jack.
“The fact is we need her if we have a lot of women to deal with and ship home. The
freed slaves aren’t going to look that highly on a bunch of guys.”
“Okay,” said Josie.
“Also I think the charge on your watch is going to refill slowly while we’re using the
quinjet,” said Jack. “I think the mana charger feeding the engines is in the way like
at the dinner.”
“Got it,” said Josie. “We’ll worry about that when we get to where we have to go.”
“Everybody strapped in?,” called Jack. “We’re leaving.”
“Go ahead,” said Fass. “We’re ready.”
Jack pulled up the landing gear as he lifted off. He swivelled the aircraft to point
down the line created by his navigation. He poured on power as he climbed above the
wall. They would be in Kearnly in a few minutes from the way the gauges moved.
“We’re going to land somewhere we can walk up on the camp, or whatever it is,” said
Jack. “The first objective is to rescue as many women as we can. Depending on the
way things look, we might have to use Josie’s birds to transport them. The second is
to wipe out as many of the Montrose that we can, take their stuff, identify anyone
else. I’ll probably have to do that. Eric, your guys are going to have to protect Josie
while she is getting all of the victims away. There’s a chance we will have to retreat.
If we do that, we’ll hold as long as we can before we fight back to our landing zone.
Aviras is going in with me as support. I will probably need someone to watch my
back, and he can fly out of danger if things go badly. As soon as we land, I will
activate the tablets and we’ll see how they work in the field.”
“Do you think they’ll rush us?,” asked Fass.
“They may break in random directions,” said Jack. “If they do that, Josie will have
to defend you and the women instead of moving them out of the area of operations.
We’re going to need you to shoot anyone who comes within bowshot. I expect some
of them will see what’s going and rush you to take you as hostages.”
“That’s something we can’t allow,” said Fass.
“I’m not going to lie,” said Jack. “There’s a ton of targets on the scene according to
Josie’s invention. There’s a chance they will all run right at you. If that happens,
we’re going to do what we can keep you alive, but we might all be killed just trying
this.”
“If we defeat this force, the salvage rights will be worth it,” said Fass. “Doing
something to these monsters will just be the syrup added on.”
“Remember to stay calm and be ready,” said Jack. “You guys might not have to do
anything but keep watch.”
“Then that will make everything that much better,” said Fass. “We’re ready.”
“Josie, as soon as we land, we’ll look everything over and see where we can start this
extraction,” said Jack. “You might need to call Jane in case we have to send some of
these people back to Hawk Ridge.”
“Do you think we have been stopping the Shemmarians from doing whatever they
have been trying to do accidentally?,” asked Josie.
“It would be funny if we have,” said Jack. “We are doing so much good, we crippled
the military of another country.”
Jack looked for a place to land close to the designated area. He found a clearing and
brought the jet down on its landing gear. He was glad the Hangar fixed wear and tear
as it charged up the engines. He could see replacing the legs taking a fortune in the
old world.
He lowered the gangplank before unstrapping his harness. He wanted to make sure
nothing was going to charge the jet while they were trying to arm up and get ready
for combat.
He hit the ground and looked around. Nothing moved. He frowned at that. Silence in
the forest was a dead giveaway something was there the local animals didn’t like.
He went back up the gangplank and pulled enough tablets for everyone out of the
storage locker he had stashed them in. He took them outside. He had to get the
sensors running so Fass could keep track of anyone trying to get close to attack the
group while they were running security.
He carried his burden away from the jet so his watch would recharge faster. Then he
changed to Majik to finish work on his creations. If it worked like he thought, he
would be able to alert the group to anyone trying to get close enough to attack by
surprise.
He created an iron ring on the ground from sheared grass. He placed the top tablet in
the ring. He let the runes charge the tablet and enchant it to give him a picture. He
smiled as small facsimiles of people went about their business within range of the
device.
He took the original device out, and put all the copies into the ring. He told them to
charge and give the group priorities. One by one, they lit up and showed his group
milling around the quinjet, pulling on weapons. None of the enemy seemed close
according to the tablets.
“All right,” said Jack. “We’re at the edge, no one is around, no seems to care about
finding out what they heard. Do we go ahead?”
“There are a lot of enemy workers here,” said Fass. “None of them seemed to have
noticed anything. And they seem to be holding captives next to the cage wagons at the
edge of the camp.”
“Jo?,” said Jack.
“I can send them all to Jane’s from here, or we can send them home one at a time in
however long that will take me,” said Josie. “Either way, if I am doing that, then I
can’t help fight.”
“All right,” said Jack. “I’ll go down there and send the women up here. Then you
send them where they have to go.”
“Depending on how far away they are from their homes, it might take a while for the
birds to make the delivery,” said Josie.
“Do you need protection while I do what I got to do?,” said Jack. “I can build a wall
for you until I get done.”
“I got it,” said Josie. “Do you have a plan?”
“Sure,” said Jack. He became Majik and formed a ring in the ground. “I’m going to
take Aviras down there and lift all the captives up and let them appear here one at a
time. I don’t know how much time I will have, so let’s do what we can to fix this.”
“All right, guys,” said Josie. “Let’s push the women to one side until they are gone.
Anyone who doesn’t have a place to go, I will send down to Jane’s. I need to send a
letter to her to get ready to take in anyone we send to her.”
“They will start coming through as soon as I get started,” said Jack.
“Budd, you and Emily do the crowd control we might need,” said Fass. He pointed
to a spot to one side of the ring. “We need to funnel those people away from any
fighting. Everyone else spread out in a wall and keep an eye out. We don’t want them
running up here when Jack gets started doing what he is doing.”
The Fighters spread out in the directed way. Glances at the new tablets told them
where everyone was. Arrows were put in the ground to be shot when the outlaws tried
to break in their direction.
Jack came together in the center of the camp. Aviras was on his shoulder, looking
around at potential targets. He was about to do a big magic to show that he was ready
to stop anything anywhere by anyone.
“Two hundred miles with a blindfold on,” said Jack as he raised his hands. “Mama
always asking where did I go wrong. What’s up danger?”
He cast his spell.
Jack stood in the center of camp. Tents formed little houses everywhere. A corral for
horses were on one side of the camp. Transport cages were on the other side. People
were everywhere.
His spell ripped up everything that wasn’t alive and turned the mass into an
expanding ring of iron on the ground. The captives disappeared out of their chains as
soon as the ring passed under them. The Montrose looked around as everything
around them but their horses vanished.
The horses fled from the destruction.
“There are two kinds of people in this world,” said Jack. He reached for his watch.
“Us and them.”
He called the cloaked skeleton, tapping the summoned scythe on the ground.
Foot soldiers started dying from wounds and sickness and old age. He turned in a
circle, letting the touch of death reach out. Occasionally one of the men would burst
into blue flames. This caused a stampede away from the camp as the men fled from
Death.