Free The Sac'a'rith by Vincent Trigili

used to hide will help you in defense later.”
    I do not know how long we spent there with him trying to teach me, but it seemed like years. I think his fear of me gave him patience beyond that normal for his species because he never once let himself lose his temper. Eventually I started to grasp it, and then suddenly it clicked. I heard Narcion call out, “Well done!” I looked over at the screen and saw that I had dropped completely off the internal sensor grid.
    “As much as you can, stay hidden. Practice that much and we can move on to more advanced lessons later. Now I need everyone to take a terminal and start sweeping the station. We need to know who is on this station with us and what they are doing,” said Narcion.
    I moved to the terminal closest to me, but was unsure how to work it. Crivreen gave me some quick pointers and then went to his own terminal. As I swept through the station I could see sentries, which are powerful robotic defenders; they were all over the place, destroying the walking dead, but the entire time we had traveled through the station we had not stumbled across even one of them. The sweeps the sentries were making were too clean; someone had to be controlling them. Then something struck me.
    “Three groups,” I said.
    “What?” asked Narcion.
    “There are three groups on this station: the attackers, ourselves, and whoever holds the core. The attackers are trying to push us to the core so that we will open it and give them a vector to attack it. The wraiths, that bug, and the humans we have seen so far are all together, which is why they are not dead yet.”
    “Go on. What does that mean?” asked Narcion.
    “That means that there must be something in the core that these attackers, whoever they are, want really badly; and the military is not willing to risk giving it up.”
    “Yes, and what will happen if the core is breached?” he asked.
    I thought about that for a while and came to a sickening conclusion. “They will blow the station up.”
    “Exactly. Well done, you are making an old teacher proud.”
    No one had ever been proud of me before, ever. I did not know how to respond, so I just stood there in stunned silence.
    “If they blow up the station, do we have a way off?” asked Felix.
    “If we can make it to an airlock, I can arrange for my ship to meet us; but that would require enough warning for us to make it there, and we currently have no way of getting that,” he said.
    “Great, just great,” said Felix.
    Narcion worked at the computer for a long time. Then I saw something on the viewer. “Narcion, we have company.” On one of the viewers there was a group of men supported by sentries, fighting through a wall of walking dead, trying to reach our position.
    “Should we help them?” I asked.
    “If we lower those shields, the wraiths could rush the room,” said one of the magi.
    “These men will reach the door and, if they are from the core as I believe they are, they will be able to open it. So everyone get in position to cover them as they rush in. Magi, use blasters and save your spells in case the wraiths do come. Zah’rak, hang back and watch for the rush. I am going to take over the automated defenses and give them some help,” said Narcion.
    “Are we sure they are on our side?” asked Felix.
    “Pretty sure. Just be ready for anything,” he responded.
    I moved into position behind the magi, but then thought better of it. I moved to a place where I was completely under cover and closed my eyes. With my eyes closed I could see the wraiths gathering outside the door, waiting. They could guess our plan easily enough. Moving quickly, I began to dismantle one of the railings that separated the two levels of the command center.
    “Whatever you’re doing, better make it fast. They are almost at the door,” said Felix, who had taken up a position, which gave me cover fire.
    I merely grunted and kept working. Moments later, the door opened and the men