ΔV Pt. 12

"Getting you into position to deal with the Dark Lord," Admiral Cho said. "Is going to take the entirety of our fleets working together. But it's...still going to be a close run thing. And, what is more, we'll be doing so without any knowledge of their capabilities."

"They are our ships," Admiral Zakaroff said, his lips turning down into a fierce, fierce frown. "But reports from the planet show that missiles, railguns, everything goes straight through the airplanes that the Dark Lord created. The planes from the Great Patriotic War shot down modern fighters, purely because our weapons couldn't touch them! And they never ran out of fuel -- even if our planes disengaged and fell back to airbases, it was only a matter of time before those bases were shot to pieces."

"And the enemy soldiers are just as hard to destroy," Xu said. "Our glorious resistance fighters have managed to transmit some few messages to spy satellites. High explosives can destroy physical ones, but the enemy have many ghost troops."

Qasim nodded, then turned to Huxia. She had been instrumental in managing the confused clot of magicians -- since, not all had been part of the same guild. In fact, some days, even those in the same guild had felt like they were at odds with one another. But Huxian had cut through the knots, bashed the heads together, and generally used her administrative abilities and knowledge of magic to organize their magicians. And so, she was the one to explain: "We brought magicians, primarily focused upon two spheres of magic: Wood and Water. Water produces water -- which your ships use as fuel."

Qasim felt a tiny twinge of amusement, seeing the urge on each admiral to correct her terminology. But Huxian continued, barreling through any complaint: "And wood, the magic of life, can be used to disperse ghosts. We haven't done any tests on what it will do to spectral ships...but..." She shrugged. "The magicians believe that enchanting the railgun bullets, your missiles, all of it will manage to damage the enemy. Fortunately, your lasers need no enhancement. Fire has always been effective against the undead -- and lasers are close enough to fire, according to the battle mages I've spoken too."

Cho chuckled. "My high school physics teacher would be tearing their hair out hearing this."

Huxian shrugged, her many fox tails twitching. She, like most Arcadians, seemed to enjoy giving the middle finger to what Starkers thought about physics.

The Admirals nodded. Xu spoke, quietly. "We should go over our plans of attack..." she said.

"What are they?" Qasim asked. Xu did allow a flash of anger to crackle through her eyes -- but Admiral Cho seemed to be just fine with treating a lowly Spacer First Class as if he deserved to know the plan of attack.

"We'll be using the refitting facilities here to change out the hydrogen burners with teakettles," Admiral Cho said. "Then we'll accelerate and do a series of fast pass attacks, angled so the drones from our carriers will pass through the spectral fleets, using the laser drones on the Chinese ships, until the enemy has been reduced in number. Then, we shall engage in force with the lasfrigates and the nukes until they're so much scrap -- taking advantage of our unlimited burn budget to out fly the enemy."

Qasim frowned. "Sounds like it still gives them plenty of chances to shoot us -- a fast pass is linear." He drew a line through the air.

"Wait, if you're going fast, you should be extra dodge!" Hua said, his eyes widening.

"Heh, not so little guy," Cho said, despite Zakaroff glaring at Hua as if Hua was the most annoying creature in the entire galaxy. "See, going at those speeds mean you have a harder time changing your trajectory in time to make any difference -- if they can put bullets ahead of us, we'll run right into the suckers. Assuming they can. In all the movies I've ever seen, zombies are pretty dumb."

"These won't be zombies," Huxian muttered.

"We need to draw them out," Qasim said, frowning.

"There's no way to do that," Xu snapped. "They have the defensive position and the Earth. There's no reason for them to ever break orbit -- they can just leave us out here until our ships fall apart around us."

Qasim nodded. "Then we'll poke them." He smiled, slightly. "We need to give them a target that they have to leave orbit for."

The admirals frowned...and Qasim began to explain his plan.

***

Nothingness.

That's the scary thing about death.

The nothingness.

Knowing that there was something more than nothingness did, ironically, nothing to make the absence any less completely terrifying. But like a dream that only comes to you in snatches and pieces after you awaken from your deepest slumber, the nothingness only truly becomes terrifying after you...

Annie snapped up and did not gasp for breath. She sat in a room that was as gray and dark and sprawled onto the seat next to her was Dale. He was looking spent and tired, his eyes closed, his body haggared. Annie felt as if she should have been panting. Whimpering. Something. Instead, her lungs did not breathe and her heart didn't hammer in her ears. Her eyes flicked around and she forced away all her worries, all her thoughts, and instead focused on Dale. He was almost dessicated. She scrambled off the metal cot she was on and fell forward and upwards. She tumbled, head over heels, as if she was weightless, and struck the ceiling...

And moved through the ceiling.

She emerged into a bedroom and into gasps and moans of pleasure. When she righted herself, she saw one of the returned slaves, the ones who had been drowned in the vast Atlantic slave crossings of the 16^th to 18^th centuries. Her hair, a massive mane of curling blackness, spilled down her spectral back, while a pair of shimmering, equally spectral hands gripped her round, full hips. Her ass jiggled as she rose and fell on what was clearly a man's cock -- a ghostly man. Annie gaped at them, her mind reeling -- and then squeaked. "Mord?"

"Oy!" Mordechai yelped, looking past the ghostly woman he was screwing -- she was one of their leaders, one of the most intelligent and present women from the ranks of the vast array of drowned dead. She snapped her head over her shoulder and glared at Annie as well, her eyes saying, quite clearly: Do you mind?

Before Annie could stammer any apologies she felt something grip onto her ankles and tugged her down. She floated through the floor and found herself before Dale. He was holding up one hand and then wobbled. She tried to grab for him, but he flowed through her body. His hands pressed to either side of the cot she had been on and his head hung forward. For just a moment, he was inside of her. Touching her. Filling her. It was almost erotic, even if it was his shoulders filling her chest his hips penetrating her belly. Annie almost mewled aloud -- but then she flitted away from him with a thought. She managed to stop herself by screwing up her hands and clenching every muscle in her body.

Finally, she took a moment to look herself over...

And gaped.

She looked good. Slightly better than she had before, honestly. Her breasts were slightly perkier. Her belly was a little flatter. Her ass was a bit more spankable. However, her entire body was a pale blue-white and shone with an internal luminescence. Her fingers were the same, but as she touched her own face, she found that her ears had attained a definite point, as if she had been turned into a quasi-elf. Her hair floated around her body, as if she was underwater, and it had been turned a pale white. She pursed her lips.

She knew what this was.

She had been taught the basics, after all. And so, it was with deepest control, she asked: "Dale. Why am I a banshee?"

Dale collapsed before her into sobs.

Instantly, every flare of anger and irritation in Annie's breast vanished. She flitted forward and tried to make herself tangible. She felt her body responding to her desires only sluggishly, barely twitching, barely moving. Her arms, though, touched Dale. The touch felt faint and spongy, as if Dale's body had been turned into swiss cheese. But it wasn't his body -- it was her ectoplasm not hardening properly. She gritted her teeth and felt herself soldify even more, allowing her to wrap her legs around him and give him a complete, full body hug. She pressed her face against his back, nuzzling into him. "It's okay, it's okay!" she whispered.

Dale shuddered. For a second, she was terrified it was because of her touch-

Then she realized it was him drawing breath. Steeling himself. "No. I'm sorry," he whispered. "I...I tried to raise you -- but-"

Annie's brow furrowed. She started to feel his shivering -- it was growing more and more intense. His body was growing chill, as the supernatural cold of her body sucked the heat out of his skin. She flitted back and away, despite the need she felt, the deep, bone deep urge to hold him. As she floated backwards, Dale rubbed his shoulders -- looking less desiccated by the moment as he drew mana into his body. His voice became clipped, as if he was narrating something that had happened to someone else: "I tried to raise you but someone sabotaged it. The magic was drawn away, towards France, but the initial disruption came far closer. I think it may be Heydrich..." He shook his head.

"How long have I been out?" Annie asked, trying to move past the fact she had been dead. That she was dead. She was undead. She had been returned as a spectral spirit -- tied to her moment of death and sustained by the void. Banshees were normally sustained by their anguish and their fury, which they vented in their song.

She didn't feel particularly anguished. But she knew what she had had that form picked by Dale -- Banshees were incredibly flexible and potent. They could become physical, incorporeal, they could alter their bodies to look more similar to the forms of their prey, to increase the anguish they caused. Their sonic attacks could be modulated and modified to suit the situation in question. And they had their own innate connection to the void, which could be shaped into magical spells. She frowned slightly, watching Dale as he slid his hands through his hair.

"A week," he said.

"A week?" Annie's eyes widened.

"The spell that almost brought you back was extremely dangerous -- and then crisis popped up across the planet. France has a mage working among them. I think the Russians were bringing an Arcadian delegation back from the other world and one of them got to the planetary surface. The outward fleet and our fleet are still at a standoff -- they have pulled back to Ganymede. Well. They're en route to Ganymede. We took out their communication beacon at the portal, so they're not in communication with Arcadia, so..." He shrugged slightly. "And there's still resistance in China...Russia..the Middle East..."

Annie frowned, slightly.

"That isn't all of it, is it?" She asked. "Dale. Why didn't you bring me back?"

"Because I-"

"I know why you brought me back as a banshee," Annie said, quietly. "You said that someone sabotaged it. I want to know why you waited a week." She bit her lip. "You clearly cast it from your internal reserves alone -- no material components, no drawing on the local magical fields. You look like hell." She reached out, her finger brushing through his hair, then drawing back. "but you could have done that the instant you recovered."

Dale brushed his fingers along her knuckles. Then he let his hand drop. "I was scared. When raising you botched..." He shook his head. "It almost destroyed what was left of you. If you had been-"

Annie floated close. She leaned in and nuzzled his neck, finding herself becoming solid with ease. "Shh...it's okay..."

Dale drew her in close and squeezed her tight. His arms were growing stronger by the moment. Annie held him back -- and then felt her own eerie stillness. Her heart should have been racing. It wasn't. Her chest should have rose and fell -- faster and faster as her panic increased. It didn't. She was still and cold, and even as she clung to Dale, she felt things muted. Distant. She closed her eyes.

Tried to breathe.

Tried to breathe.

Tried to breathe.

Tried to breathe.

She was still failing when the door to the room bust open and a ghost -- a white man from the 1950s that she faintly recognized -- came into the room. "Dalethraxius," he said, his voice a Texan drawl. "Sir, we just got a report -- the outward fleet's burning."

"For Earth?" Dale asked, his head jerking up.

"Ceres."

TO BE CONTINUED