One by one the pirates added their assent. The last to speak was the young American, Barns. 'Do I get to take a Raptor out and die in a glorious dogfight?'
'Yes,' Southunder answered.
Barns grinned. 'I wouldn't miss it.'
Southunder nodded calmly. 'Let's go murder some Imperium dogs then. Every. Last. One.'
'EVERY LAST ONE!' All the pirates shouted together.
Sullivan followed Southunder back into the hall, figuring he could learn a thing or two about leadership from this man. 'You didn't tell them that the Chairman himself would be on board…'
Southunder gave him a sad little smile. 'They're brave, Sullivan, not suicidal.'
Chapter 24
The Imperials have a war cry. Tennoheika Banzai. It means something about the emperor ruling for ten thousand years. The emperor is a puppet, but the soldiers meant it when they bellowed it at the tops of their lungs. Their Actives would often charge numerically superior, entrenched positions, with complete disregard for their own lives, confident in the rightness of their cause. Banzai!
– Captain John J. Pershing
Army Observation Report on the taking of Vladivostok, 1905 San Francisco, California John Moses Browning was sitting up in bed. His chest still ached from the gunshot that had left him crushed and bruised, but he could certainly call his new, lightweight, woven-armor vest a success. He was getting far too old for this business. The UBF company Healer had stuck with his parting promise to Francis and had Mended him, but not nearly all the way, just enough to keep him from dying, the rotten weasel.
He had listened to Southunder's message along with most of the Grimnoir in the world. He knew Southunder well, so he knew that the man spoke the truth. Many thought that he had been run out of the Society because of his rashness in dealing with the enemy, but Browning suspected it had been more because of his outspoken loyalty to Pershing's cause to take the fight to the enemy, rather than to skulk in the shadows.
Something about that magic conversation had left him unsettled. He'd had a notebook in his pocket, as was his custom. It had been retained with his other things at the hospital, and he had sent for it. When the nurse had brought it, he had turned immediately to the last few pages, where he had carefully copied down the mad scribblings that Jake Sullivan had drawn on the mansion walls after his brief death.
He had never seen the Power represented as a single cohesive entity before, yet it made sense. His mind had always been attuned to making pieces fit together in perfect harmony, and this was no different. Given sufficient time, he had no doubt that a map could be made of where every single individual magical ability originated, and if that corresponding geometric shape could be drawn correctly, then those energies could be harnessed. It was exciting, but it would have to be a younger man's work, because he had no doubt that it would take a lifetime, and he'd been living on borrowed time for too long now.
But it was for another reason he'd turned to Sullivan's map. It was the interrelation of the various Powers. He'd long held suspicions that a sufficiently powerful Active could blur the borders between their own abilities into those areas that traditionally belonged to others. Sullivan was a perfect example of this, having moved beyond just altering gravity into the related fields of mass and density. If this new hypothesis was correct, then it was possible that with sufficient knowledge, any Active could do this, which was extremely exciting, but once again, not his purpose.
The Power's complete body seemed to be two overlaid triangles. Sullivan's drawing was two-dimensional, so that was all Browning had to work with. The bottom triangle was how the Power interacted with the physical world, the top triangle was how it interacted with the living world. The two combined into one great mass in the middle. Overall, it looked a bit like the Star of David. The physical triangle's three points were gravity, electromagnetism, and nuclear forces; the governing laws of the universe. Each of the Active magics that influenced physical realities was connected to coordinates within those areas.
It was the top triangle that had been more mysterious to Sullivan. This one appeared to interact with life, with three points ending in the biological, the mental, and then into one that Sullivan had left as a question mark, but that Browning's personal belief system logically attributed to the spiritual.
The coordinates in the middle were where Actives that seemed to overlap the two areas came from. Healers were such, near the middle, and Sullivan had gotten a good look at the geometric structures there that Browning had long erroneously thought of as stylized archaic letters. Healers operated in the realm between physical and electromagnetic. The other areas around that had also been mapped into their coherent pieces by Sullivan's fevered hand, and the close cousin to the Healer was the Pale Horse. They inhabited bordering areas. Both bent the laws of biology and matter to their will. One for good, one for ill.
And if one were to reason that a sufficiently strong Active, such as a Heavy, could wander into fields such as mass and density, then why couldn't he assume that a sufficiently strong Healer could wander slightly into the area of causing disease? Or even more important to the particular question haunting him… Could a sufficiently strong Pale Horse drift across the boundary and masquerade as a weak Healer?
They had never found the man that had cursed Pershing. Oh, how they'd looked. They'd torn the world apart, overturning every rock but they'd never found the Imperium villain. But what if they'd been looking in the wrong place all along?
Browning summoned a nurse and sent for a runner. Even under a different identity, he was still a man of great means and resources. When the errand boy arrived he requested for him to travel to a bank to a specific safety deposit box to retrieve something for him.
The boy returned an hour later and gave Browning a wrapped package. He tipped the boy generously, sent him on his way, and then removed the Colt M1911 from the box. He loaded it with a seven-round magazine of 230- grain,.45-caliber ammunition, all of which had been designed by his hand, put the safety on, and placed the gun beneath his pillow. Then he activated his ring and called for the nearest Grimnoir to come to his aid.
There were only two other Grimnoir in the area, both oath-bound to respond, and whichever one came, they had some explaining to do. UBF Tempest Francis was so nervous he could barely think. By hugging the clouds, they had gotten within half a mile of the Tokugawa. Both vessels headed due west, but the Tempest was traveling twice as fast. They would be attacking from above. The Marauder would be coming in from the left. Was that port? Whatever, south, he corrected himself. He had to try to remember to think in nautical terms. The other battleship was half a mile ahead of the flagship and they were trying to orient their approach so that the flagship blocked its shot.
'We've been spotted!' the driver shouted. 'Searchlights.' And as soon as he said that, a perfect white beam flashed across the window bubble, highlighting the crew's taut faces and clenched teeth.
'Weatherman, draw in the storm. Helm, full speed ahead!' Lance shouted. 'Bounce this son of a bitch off their top deck if you have to, but get us down there now!'
Sparks rose from the still distant Tokugawa and Francis realized in an abstract way that those were giant tracer bullets heading right for them.
Faye was standing off to the side, shotgun over her shoulder, scowling, waiting for something. 'You got it, Faye?' Lance asked quickly.
'Not yet… Almost…' She had her eyes closed.
'Wait, what are you doing?' Francis asked. 'You're not going to-'
'Got it.' Faye opened her grey eyes and disappeared.
By herself? 'Damn it, Lance!' Francis shouted.
The front window shattered in a spray of glass. Sparks shot from the radio console as the tracers screamed past his head. Bullets puckered through the walls and the driver screamed in pain and lurched away from the controls. Foam from the torn seat blew around in the new wind like a snow flurry. Lance immediately shrugged into the chair and kept them on course. 'It ain't like she's any safer here, kid,' he said. Imperium flagship Tokugawa Faye hit the deck ten feet from the gunners. They were so focused on the blimp heading their way that they never even saw her coming. She tucked the shotgun butt tight into her shoulder pocket and welded her cheek to the stock just like she'd been taught. She lined the gold bead at the end of the barrel with the soldier's head and pulled the
