Cyrus hated being in charge.

  Honestly, it wasn’t something he ever thought he’d have to worry about. He was a son of a relatively poor farmer with no particular political allies or strings to pull and no money to spare, so enlisting as an officer had never been in the cards.

  He’d gone in happily as a private, made corporal quickly, and gotten a promotion to sergeant when he got tapped to escort secret agents somewhere west of Pyongyang. That was as far as he’d expected to get, and he was fine with that. Going further up the enlisted daisy chain would have meant that he’d eventually have been put in charge of actual people.

  Cyrus had dreaded that notion, not because he was worried he couldn’t do it or was afraid of being incompetent; Cyrus knew he learned fast and did pretty well under pressure. He dreaded the idea of being in charge because that meant you had to deal with people. And be responsible for people. And convince people to do things. And get on their asses when they didn’t do those things. And vaguely hope that they could be trusted to managed themselves to do the sorts of things they were supposed to be doing that were beyond your control. And clean up their messes when they did not, in fact, do what they were supposed to.

  No, Cyrus had known far too many people to want to be in charge of things. Hell, he’d spent his entire life being a people himself and he had done his fair share at being a problem for his leaders, he admitted that.

  But as every poor kid learns on Christmas morning, you don’t always get what you want.

  “Sometimes it’s socks in every box,” Cyrus muttered.

  “Sorry?” Henri Guiscard asked.

  “Nothing. Just thinking out loud.” He gave his glasses one final wipe and looked around the table at the team.

  His team, now.

  Henri Guiscard sat to his right. He was the only black face in the room. Henri didn’t seem much concerned about that, didn’t seem concerned at all. He’d donned basic fatigues that were struggling to cover his post-service plumpness, with a medic’s armband white and red on his left arm. He had his spectacles on and was jotting down notes in a small journal as he finished perusing the handouts.

  The suit, Palmer, sat on Cyrus’s other side with his hands folded in front of him, green eyes flicking around the room as he took everyone’s measure. But his gaze always seemed to come back to the small figure across from him.

  Barty Mossjaeger returned Palmer’s surveillance with a cheerful grin whenever the spook’s eyes lingered too long. He was on his second plate of breakfast, was Barty, and he’d read as he ate and taken no notes. He wore fatigues as well, a ranger’s tabs displayed proudly.

  Sitting off to one side of the table, off by himself, the mountain of a man that was Greg Holden eyed the handouts like they were a bad contract. He wasn’t bothering to hide the skepticism that made his forehead wrinkle every time he looked at Cyrus. He wasn’t wearing fatigues; just plain jeans and a turtleneck.

  Patrick Harvey wasn’t wearing fatigues either. Just a plain yellow button up with brown slacks. He was the one who had been at the negotiating table when Scarred Jaw and the unknown CIA suit had approved the operation. He’d read the handouts and written notes directly on the papers.

  Scarred Jaw had shown up himself, in air force blues with four men in fatigues behind him. They were young, serious, and definitely a little intimidated. Privates with one corporal among them, looking at their ranks. Cyrus would have bet good money this was their first covert operation, and damn, this one was a doozy to start on.

  Scarred Jaw’s nametag read “Phillips.” The others had patches, but Cyrus hadn’t given them more than a glance. They were clearly under Scarred Jaw’s— Phillips’ command. Cyrus would learn their names later.

  The last member of his team sat behind him, shifting nervously. His half-sister, Carmina. Their own personal Frodo Baggins, in something that could barely be called a Fellowship.

  Henri finally put down the notes, clicked his pen, and looked to Cyrus. Shit. I’m out of time, Cyrus realized. So he took a deep breath and did his best.

  “All right,” he began. “Two months ago we discovered hostile forces scouting our area for what we believe to be the prelude to an invasion. They’re using some sort of technology that for all intents and purposes is magic. They’ve been kidnapping local children and empowering them to use them as soldiers in order to fulfill one of their prophecies.” Cyrus looked around as he spoke, trying to imitate the better officers he’d served under by making eye contact. “Any questions so far?”

  Nobody had any. No real surprise there, he wasn’t saying anything the handouts don’t cover. So after a short pause, he got into the real meat of it.

  “We have secured one of the entryways they have been using to enter this region. We have developed a device that will unseal it and allow transport into their territory. At oh-six-hundred tomorrow we will assemble at the entryway and cross over, taking vital supplies with us. Once through, we will secure the landing zone, fortify it, scout the area and attempt to make contact with forces in opposition to the enemy. That is the mission. The floor is now open to questions.”

  One of the new arrivals— his nametag said “Potts,” spoke up. “Sir, where exactly are we going?”

  He was new. That was a bad question to ask in this sort of op. But Cyrus answered it anyway, because he needed to reinforce the point. “The enemy believes it to be an alien world. Until we get proof otherwise, we should assume that it is.”

  “You’re not joking,” Greg Holden said, losing the squint and staring in flat-out amazement. “Holy shit…”

  That caused a murmur in the back ranks. Phillips shot them a murderous look, and the sound subsided.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Got a question forya sir,” Barty piped up. “Who are the enemy and what’ve they got to throw at us?”

  Cyrus nodded. He’d been expecting this and talked it over with Carmina beforehand. She was the expert here, so he nudged her, and she stepped up to the table.

  “There’s only about a few hundred of them,” she began, her voice quavering to start, then firming up as she got into the rhythm of speaking to strangers. “There’s five… four now. Four wizards that run things. They can use magic. It can do just about anything, but they usually have to see you to do stuff to you, and the more they do, the more tired they get. Eventually they run out of power and have to recharge it by resting.” She looked away and took a deep breath. “They have… the rest of them are soldiers. But they don’t have guns or tanks or anything. They’ve got swords and crossbows and spears and knight armor and stuff. They’re not as well-defended as the wizards, but they have these things called charms that let them ignore a few stabs, so you almost have to get right in where the armor doesn’t cover, and—” she mimed a few shanking motions.

  That was too much for one of the privates.

  “Okay, hold on there,” the largest of them said, interrupting Carmina’s speech. “Alien world, sure, okay. Wizards and shit? Whatever, anyone Uncle Sam wants me to serve up a bullet I’ll happily punch their clock. But you’re trying to tell me this teeny little girl killed—”

  The private stopped talking.

  He had to.

  In a flash, Carmina had jumped up on the table and was pointing a finger at his throat, her hand a few inches away from the suddenly-dimpled skin, that was oozing blood.

  Just a couple of drops, slowly oozing sideways in defiance of physics.

  Carmina drew her hand back, and tilted it up. And Cyrus and the rest of the room watched, wide-eyed, as the blood traveled down the edge of an invisible knife, revealing it one red inch at a time.

  “I killed three men,” Carmina whispered, staring past the private. “Or maybe some were women, I don’t know. They let women be soldiers, there. I might have killed four more, but I didn’t have time to watch them die. I didn’t want to. We were too busy anyway. I killed them when I was invisible, or I pretended to be dead once to lure a man in and stabbed him with an invisible knife just… like… this one.”

  Her voice was breaking as she spoke. The room was dead silent.

  Almost dead silent. Palmer was breathing pretty heavy over to Cyrus’ left, and Cyrus had a feeling that if he looked down he’d see just how excited the guy was about the idea of invisible knives.

  The silence lingered on for a few more seconds. The big guy who’d tried to call bullshit on Carmina touched his neck, and stared at the smear of blood on his fingertips. His face squirmed as he obviously tried to do the math.

  Henri Guiscare rose, and dug a roll of bandages out of his pocket, along with tape. “Oh for god’s sake man, hold still.”

  As he bandaged the big guy, Barty Mossjaeger spoke up. “So you’ll be workin’ with us, Little Miss? That’s good news and we’re happy to have you! Don’t you worry none, you won’t have to stab nobody no more. We’ll take care of the fighting and all that, you betcha!”

  “Damn shame you had to in the first place,” Greg Holden leaned forward. “I’m guessing you were one of those kidnapped children? Well we’re going to fix that.”

  “Carmina Colfax will be operating as a non-combatant specialist,” Cyrus said, realizing as she shot him a surprised and touched look that he’d given her his last name. “She’ll be helping to conceal our breach into the other world, and providing counter-wizard support. But before we get sidetracked, there are more assets on the enemy side. Carmina, please tell them about the elves.”

  Cyrus saw the sidelong looks between Holden and Guiscare. Those looks lost some incredulity as Carmina spoke again.

  “They’re not like Santa’s elves or other made-up stuff. They look like green people, but on the inside they’re plants. They bleed sap and they only eat sunlight and drink water. And they’re deadly. I don’t know how many elves are helping the wizards, but if you even see one it’s a bad time. They’re not stronger than we are, but they’re really fast, they hide really well, and they’re really good shots with their bows. They see in the dark too, but it’s better to fight them then because they go a little slower when there’s no sun. Or it’s good to fight them underground, but they don’t go there. Most caves are flooded in Elythia.” Carmina took a deep breath. “The satyrs know more about the elves. They used to share a world, I heard them say once.”

  “Satyrs,” Phillips said. “What are those?”

  “They’re people with horns and hooves. They work for the Lion. So do the grach. The grach are like walking turtle people. I never learned their language, but they seemed nice. I met some of their kids once, when I helped them escape after the wizards won a battle and pushed the lines forward. One of the kids gave me a necklace.”

  Her smile was honest and innocent. It was almost heartbreaking to see it, then look down to the bloody, no longer invisible knife in her hand.

  “Aliens. Fine.” Phillips turned to Cyrus. “Do we have a map of the landing zone?”

  Holy shit, we don’t, Cyrus realized. It was an obvious thing to have and it had slipped his mind entirely. The worst part of it was that he was the guy in charge. He didn’t have anyone else to blame.

  Fortunately, there was a chalkboard over on the side of the quonset hut.

  “We can put one together, but the immediate area is pretty simple,” Cyrus deflected. “Carmina, do you know the area? I only saw one floor of that ruin, and the swamps around it.” He rose, ignored the sparks of pain all up and down his legs from sitting too long, and started sketching on the board.

  “I don’t know the area that well,” Carmina shook her head. “After we ran away from the wizards the Lion kept me and Irene… kept me in the North to keep us out of the worst of it. But elves killed— um. After Irene was gone, I was pulled back. The ruin was always behind the wizards’ lines.”

  Cyrus finished sketching. “Right. So we’ve got an old stone building here. The gate opens up on the main floor, which is about thirty feet above the swamp…” He described the ruins around it and the distance to the treeline as best he could, while the others in the room studied it intently. He didn’t blame them. Their lives might literally depend on it.

  After a while, Phillips grunted and leaned back. To the side, Henri Guiscare finished patching up Tomlin, the big private who had called Carmina out. She’d evidently steered clear of stabbing anything serious, but the wound was a bleeder.

  Cyrus waited a moment, then tackled the hardest part.

  “There’s one more thing that we’ll have to work around. Time runs differently between here and there. It varies, but for every minute that passes on that world, seven or eight minutes pass on this one.”

  “Say again, sir?” Potts asked.

  “Time runs slower there. If we spend a day in there, a week passes out here, more or less. Carmina says it didn’t used to be this way, but the time shifted somehow. Wizards might have done it.”

  “How the hell is that even possible?” Phillips snapped.

  Cyrus spread his hands. “Magic.”

  They didn’t like that answer much, and he could see it on their faces as the briefing wound down, and the questions and answers turned to the less troubling parts of the plan.

  But once it was done and he dismissed them to prepare, Cyrus saw the looks on their faces as they filed out.

  The privates were young and stupid. They didn’t care, and were focused on the mission in front of them. Barty Mossjaeger was cheerful and grinning and unreadable.

  But the dime had dropped for everyone else. If something went wrong, and they ended up stuck there for too long, everyone they loved and cared about would be dead and gone.