Chapter 13 – Ring Around the Meadow

  “You really have to give credit where its due. Those folks put a lot of time and energy into making things to kill each other better. That’s why we use their stuff, it’s the best.” Order Stabilitas supply sergeant on using human firearms over other race's guns.

  Kurt and Val watched the crested bird’s approach with their guns up and ready to fire. The tall avians ran toward them in darting, and inconsistent movements. Kurt himself was reminded about the story of the emu war and the difficulty the Aussies had with those fowl beasts. Pun intended.

  The birds got closer, still changing their direction at random intervals but the flock approached in a generally straight vector. A rather slow straight vector since they spent more time zigzagging in front of each other than closing the distance.

  “Aim for the center of the group and throw some rounds out. I think I see a pattern.” Kurt said and fired a trio of rounds in the general center of the group. One of those rounds hit and the bird started moving slower, barely limping along until Val sent a double tap its way and put it down.

  The next time Val fired, a couple of controlled pairs at a time. One of the rounds in the third pair hit and another bird began to slow and eventually fell to the ground from blood loss. The birds kept closing as this happened, almost oblivious to the dead and dying.

  Finally, the whistling and fpping flock of birds was down to its st two members. They had managed to get within fifty yards of Kurt and Val but that was when their tactics changed. Both birds split, running away from each other before turning and running straight at Kurt and Val.

  They sprinted at an incredible speed with their necks fttened out and their long, sharp beaks pointed right at them. It looked like the avian version of a knight with a nce. Kurt lowered his rifle and looked over his primary scope and through the red dot that was mounted above it. His scope was still set in the middle of its power range and was not great up close.

  His world seemed to slow as his elven mind processed all the information in a fsh. He slightly adjusted the elevation of his muzzle and fired. Bang-bang-bang. The trio of rounds hit the bird right in the base of its neck and it dropped, flopping around on the ground from its spine being severed. He quickly turned to see how Val had handled her bird.

  As he spun, Kurt saw a fsh of brown streak past in the opposite direction. The motion caught his attention so he reversed course and tracked it. It was the other bird, that was now slowing and looking confused. Kurt shot it in the back, not giving it a chance to come around for another pass. He gnced over at Val after making sure it stayed down.

  The Kitsune was looking back at him with a grin. “Illusion.” She said before turning back to the open field. “How are we going to handle the rest?”

  Kurt looked out over the field and saw that the other groups of birds remained in their patrol paths. “I think we engage them at range like the fliers. If we let them get close in rge numbers, we are fucked.”

  “Yeah, we are the ones who should be doing the fucking.” Val muttered. She then looked over after realizing what she said and saw Kurt raising an eyebrow. “Ahem, statement stands.”

  Kurt snorted and went back to observing the patrol of birds moving terally across their field of view. “Wait till they turn and start moving inward. We can take them from behind.”

  “Wish you would take me from behind.” Val whispered to herself. Kurt still heard it and smiled knowing she was unaware he picked that up.

  “Only if you’re a good girl.” He stage whispered back. Val’s ears perked up and he thought he saw a blush creeping up her neck. He would feel bad for embarrassing her if not for her tail fluttering behind her.

  The patrol of birds turned at that point, following their track back toward the center tree. Val and Kurt seized the moment when they were moving in 2 different directions and opened fire. Kurt was pretty sure he got a couple pass throughs from the birds that were standing in a line. Naturally, the sudden sughter lead to chaos.

  Val was working her way in from the trailing birds and was adopting a more ‘to whom it may concern’ policy for her shots. The rifle was accurate, and she knew it was capable with its current accessories, but she didn’t have enough experience with it to really make use of it. However, she was pretty sure she would have mastered everything after this rift.

  She managed to kill or wound over half the birds with her liberal distribution of high velocity lead. Those that were only wounded were quickly put down as her and Kurt took care of the stragglers. The entire engagement was over in less than thirty rounds and ten seconds.

  They changed magazines again and looked over the area. Nothing was really moving that they could see besides the st group that was just now turning to start the route back to the edge. Deciding it was good practice, they waited until the birds were halfway back before engaging.

  Unlike the previous time, the birds caught on retively fast exactly where Kurt and Val were set up. Unfortunately, their odd flock movement was only good for making the duo miss a couple times on each bird. After the st group had been dealt with, they decided to move up to the tree that had started this mess.

  They found the bodies of the birds at the base of the sprawling tree, exactly where they should be. They also found some strange flowers growing just at the edge of where the shade and sun met. The stems were a pale bule color while the petals of the flowers faded from orange to red at the center where a purple core was exposed. Val didn’t recognize them and neither did Kurt. So, he cast a rather odd spell that was in his repertoire.

  There were several varieties of the Inspect and Identify spells that were in use by magic users. Some could be used to find out if something was damaged, some could tell you the value of things and others had their own twists. All of them needed one thing however, a frame of reference.

  If someone wanted to use the version of inspect that would tell them of broken parts on a car, they would have to know about those parts to some extent. What Kurt cast was a variation on a detect spell since he didn’t have any real experience or knowledge of flowers. He cast detect toxin followed by detect poison. Neither spell showed toxins or poisons on the flowers and since they looked valuable, they took them.

  “What are the odds that these are just a weird color of some common flower?” Val ughed.

  “Who knows.” Kurt replied as he dug up a couple examples. “If that’s the case then at least they look pretty.” They finished their work and then looked back to the fields around them. “So, what now?”

  The tree they were under was one of ten trees in the outer ring. Each was separated by a few hundred yards of grass. The exterior wood line was moderately closer but looked to be a fair distance more in some spots.

  “Think we should just do the same thing?” Val asked. “Like we head back to the trees and circle around?”

  Kurt looked at the open field. He didn’t see a better way than that. There was also the central tree to consider. They hadn’t seen anything come out of it yet, but he had a feeling there were more surprises lurking in its branches.

  “Yeah, let’s do that and then circle back around to deal with the big one.” Kurt said. They ended up crossing back over to the woods and began making their way around in a clockwise fashion to the next tree and its avian guards.

  *****

  “Thanks, Feraz.” Penny said to the goblin as he finished hooking up the monitoring equipment in the hub. She was having the equipment pced in the room outside the anchor room. The room she still hadn’t come up with a name for. She decided that maybe Kurt would have one if the order didn’t already have a naming standard.

  “No worries, let me know if you need anything or if something gives you trouble.” He said waving his little grey-green hand as he wandered back through the portal into the order. He turned completely grey after stepping through the portal and then disappeared through her office door.

  Penny powered up the computer on her secondary desk and waited the few seconds for it to boot. After Kurt and Val had re-entered the portal the second time, she had tried to monitor them from her office but couldn’t quite focus. That was why she had opted for the secondary office that was common in agent hubs.

  After the computer started, she brought up the program she wanted while organizing the dispy and multiple screens to her preference. The program she loaded was a rather unique one and it operated with the input of some rather clever magi-tech.

  Each anchor had a form of mana sensor that was built into it. That mana sensor was capable of giving multiple different values for the data it collected. But when paired with the nanobots that agents were injected with, it became a sort of progress monitor and locator.

  After the program had loaded and she had sorted the data columns, Penny actually began to monitor the progress of her charges. While it wasn’t yet possible to map these rifts, the tracking features of the nanobots allowed her to see a sort of path that they traveled.

  She currently saw what looked like half of a child’s drawing of the sun but with the ‘rays’ of light pointing inward. it was a semi-circle that was slowly being completed in a clockwise fashion. Unlike most of the drawings that kids would do, the little rays of sunlight were being drawn at same time as the perimeter.

  So far, she could see five completed rays and that they had stopped roughly where a sixth one would be. She watched as the little dots representing either Kurt or Val moved ever so slightly, shuffling back and forth. Then they started moving inward at a decent speed.

  The dots reached a point then stopped and wandered around a little before retreating along the same path and continuing the circle. Penny was both confused and fascinated by the dispy and watched the progress of the dots coincide with the change in energy levels of the rift. She made a mental note to ask someone about what the values represented.

  Once again, the dots stopped for a while, just wobbling in pce occasionally. Penny took that moment to get out a pad of paper and a thermos of tea. She would begin taking some notes and creating a wish list for gear that could potentially help her understand what was going on a little more.

  “Radios would be good.” She said, talking to herself as she made her wish list. “I would like to get some sort of visual reference too. I know it’s likely a forest, but I can’t see beyond the portal.”

  She looked back to the monitor and saw the circle was getting close to being completed. She also noticed that a column beled ‘CES’ was much lower than before, sitting just over half its original value. “Have someone expin these acronyms.” She muttered to herself.

  With a sigh, Penny settled back into the chair and sipped her tea as she watched the dots making their way along, wishing she knew more of what was going on.

  **********

  “Shit, fuck.” Kurt cursed as the long beaked bird just dodged his st two bullets and he was forced to change mags. They hadn’t any real problems until this st tree. “Reloading.” He called to Val.

  “Me too.” She replied and began inserting a fresh magazine.

  The five remaining birds were getting close, within a hundred yards as Kurt got his rifle back up. He decided to try and suppress the whole group as they ran in their odd, twisting movements. He centered the dot of his optic back on the group and fired as fast as his trigger finger would move.

  He drained his thirty rounds in but a couple seconds and was rewarded with the screeching sound of dying birds. Of the five remaining, he had managed to clip four of them enough for Val to put them down. That still left one, however.

  The st bird had gotten close enough for it to try and charge him again. It lowered its head and pointed beak as it bolted forward. Unfortunately, Kurt didn’t have a ready magazine for his rifle and decided to try his glock.

  He could faintly see an image that looked like him moving off to his left and the bird tracked it, adjusting its path to try and skewer the false Kurt. His handgun had cleared the holster as he dropped his rifle and let it hang on its sling. He brought the gun up, looking through the optic mounted on the slide and deciding that the sight picture was good enough for government work.

  Bang-bang-bang-bang. Four rounds of jacketed hollow point ammunition hit the bird as it passed only ten yards away. This time the puff of feathers was much more subdued than when rifle rounds hit but the avian asshole also got a couple extra rounds for his troubles.

  The bird dropped like a stone as its leg faltered and it nosedived into the ground. Val stood up and put a trio of rounds into it to be sure that the thing was dead. She swapped to a fresh magazine and scanned their surroundings, covering for Kurt to reload his rifle and manage his full magazines and stow the empties.

  “Oh, that was a seven out of ten on the pucker factor.” Kurt said.

  Val looked over at him, curiosity evident as she tilted her head. “Pucker factor?”

  Kurt blushed a little. He had never had to expin this to a girl before and especially not one he liked. “Ah, um.” He hesitated before just deciding to spit it out. “Ahem, it’s the butthole pucker factor.” He stated simply.

  “And how is that measured?” she looked confused, curious and slightly grossed out, all at the same time.

  “The more harrowing a situation, the more your butt puckers as you tense up.” Kurt said, studiously not looking at her.

  “Oh! That’s what they meant.” She said then expined as it was Kurt’s turn to look at her in confusion. “I heard some of the other agents talk in the mess hall about it and they called it the ‘clench scale’. I’m pretty sure it’s the same thing from context.” She then paused, hummed then spoke again. “I like pucker factor better.”

  Laughing a little, Kurt and Val walked out, collected their flowers in the now very stuffed bag. They then surveyed the open fields once more. There were now ten empty trees, ten rock piles and ten pie shaped patrol paths all littered with bird carcasses. Kurt pulled out his binocurs again and looked toward the center tree.

  The giant of the forest was around seven hundred yards away, sitting on a very slight rise. Kurt could see the avaible cover went from almost none to absolute zero. It was nothing but open fields all the way to the tree. He could also see movement in its branches and around the base.

  They looked like the same variety of birds they had faced so far but he also didn’t discount the possibility of some surprises mixed in. “So, can your illusions cover us all the way there or while we move closer and engage?” Kurt asked.

  “I can conceal us as we move but the moment we start engaging, the more difficult that becomes.” Val answered. “It will get worse once they start looking for us.”

  Kurt scratched at his chin while he thought for a minute. “Let’s back out and grab some other equipment.” He said. There was the faintest whiff of a pn forming in his mind. If he was honest, it was probably more of a general idea than a pn.

  They quickly back tracked through the woods and jumped through the portal. They saw that a desk had been put in the other room. Penny was standing behind it, looking at them expectantly.

  “Hey, gonna take a quick break and change equipment.” Val said. Penny followed along as they left the hub.

  “Holy shit, how long have we been in there?” Kurt said when he stepped out into the darkness. “For that matter, what time is it?”

  “It’s nearly midnight.” Penny answered. “I was waiting on you since I didn’t have a way to get in touch…”

  “Ok, how much time do we have on this rift?” Val asked.

  Penny pulled up her tablet. “Um, another forty-seven hours before its able to consume and grow again. This one is fast for its size, normally it takes a few more days.”

  Kurt and Val shared a look before he made the decision. “Since nothing can get through, and we have everything done except the central tree, let’s get some sleep.”

  “Central tree?” Penny asked.

  “It’s what we are calling the big tree in the center of the clearing. Probably filled with more birds too.” Val answered. “I second getting some sleep. I’m hungry too.” She grumbled the st part as if annoyed that she had a metabolism.

  “I could make…” Kurt began to say but Val cut him off.

  She stopped and looked at him, raising herself up as tall as she could, ears included. “Kurt, I don’t need you to make me food for every meal of the day. I love it and it’s amazing that you do it for me, but I think we can live with some cold sandwiches before bed.”

  Kurt nodded dumbly. He felt like he was just told something super obvious that everyone knew except him. “Right. Gear off, food, showers, sleep.”

  Val smiled. “Right, I’ll go strip off my gear and shower if you and Penny can handle some cold food then we switch.” She then looked at their handler. “Are you staying the night or going back to your apartment?”

  “S-stay the n-night?” She asked, suddenly nervous.

  “Fine by me.” Kurt said while setting his rifle in the corner and opening the fridge. “You have the couch or share with Val but that would be between you two.” He ignored the part that Penny was asking more than answering. “Ham and cheese ok with you?”

  Penny just nodded and sat at the kitchen isnd. She started to y out ptes and food after remembering that she was supposed to help. They both ignored the mostly naked Val that paraded past on her way from the workshop to the shower.

  Kurt rotated after shoving a sandwich in his face and smming a Gatorade. He dropped his gear back on its rack, tossing empty magazines in a bin he pulled out from the corner. He also took a moment to hang Val’s gear up so it wouldn’t be such a sweaty mess if she had to wear it again.

  After his shower, he said good night to the girls and went to bed. He hadn’t realized how tired he was until he stopped moving and sat down to eat. It all caught up with him in a sudden rush. He was so tired that he didn’t even notice when someone else crawled into the opposite side of the bed with him.