If I'd known we were going to be stuck on Bunvorix for more than a couple hours, I really would have taken more effort to bring others with me. If I had even been capable of truly thinking at the time, which I was not. The moment my Scrying had locked onto Midnight, I had to go.

Now we were slightly trapped on the planet, by social conventions and possibly by limitations on opening portals. But when you came across a resistance, you couldn't just not join it, right?

Practically, we needed to set up long term contact with these people- this was an opportunity Midnight's people needed to capitalize on. Furthermore, Midnight himself came up with another reason that we hadn't yet tested Gate with the limited mana regeneration we had scrounged together.

"Bunvorixian technology should be able to lock onto anything of the sort. It can also suppress it. I'm surprised you got here, in fact."

"I'm not," I said. If I couldn't use Gate with as much mana as I'd thrown into it and as little care for how stable it was or how long it lasted, it simply wasn't possible. Granted, it could have been a huge waste with suppression on both sides of the equation, but that was something to consider when consideration was even possible. But as I had gone over earlier, thinking hadn't been available.

Maybe that was the true Curse of the Barbarian. But frankly, I thought friendship was worth it. I would have done almost the same for my other good friends.

I was going to have to write a long report when I got back and help the Power Brigade bolster their spatial restrictions. Or at least prove to them that they were good enough to stop everyone but me. I'd gotten a pretty strong reply from Calculator… who had at least been glad to know I was alive. Since Midnight had used Sending to contact home, I figured I should do the same.

"... Do you think they can pick out Sending? With their spatial stuff."

Midnight thought about that seriously, bringing up some sort of information on his suit. "Probably not. It's below the energy threshold required to teleport someone. I suppose we should limit our usage just in case. Until we destroy the station, that is. Hopefully any tuning will go with it. I know they aggregate training data, but they don't have a completely connected network. Otherwise it could be taken down by one good virus."

I wondered if magical barriers worked like that. My studies in that area were very limited. I didn't even know how much Master Uvithar's tower had, though it was certainly some. The whole place had been at least a little bit magical. Maybe I should have spent more time studying it, but I hadn't known how things would turn out.

-----

Honey Badger, Kick, Midnight, and I all made our way through the city streets, led by Flopan who had become our primary resistance contact. It wasn't a coincidence he had been the one to speak to us, after all. Granted, he was just the closest ranking member, but he wasn't a random member. They'd tracked our descent from the sky and then hidden our path from the Bunvorixians. The other ones. The government.

"I can't get much closer," he said. "Not without risking giving myself away. My collar reports a false location, but it is not so far off that they wouldn't detect me entering a military base." He turned to Midnight. "Were you able to incorporate the scanning blocker program into your suit?"

"Its constantly complaining about it, but yes." If these Bunvorixians were going to betray us, they would have done so immediately when we were ineffective. No doubt he would still be having his software wiped next time he visited Celmoth, but we were trusting it for now.

"Good. They shouldn't have any checks for human-lifeforms." Technically only two thirds of us were humans, but Flopan might not know that. Given the variety in dogs… or Bunvorixians… an orc might seem human. Despite the wildly different skin color and tusks. "We have shown you the best targets to dismantle. We would like maximum damage to be caused to the infrastructure. Our other agents will be drawing attention elsewhere, but there will unfortunately be some guards here. If you can, do not harm any."

I wondered how much a high tech spaceship cost. Given the prices of military planes… let's just say I was glad I was getting paid to cause this destruction and not paying for the damages. The combined incomes of everyone in the Power Brigade might never be enough. Assuming we were successful.

We entered the airbase via a fence made out of metal poles and crossing energy bars. It had to take a ton of power to maintain that, right? I honestly couldn't tell, because it wasn't super tech. It was just tech that was very good. It didn't stand out to my supernatural senses much more than my phone, and anything I thought I felt could have been my imagination.

How we dealt with the fence was by climbing over it. I had the feeling it would be nearly indestructible, however we just went over. It was somewhere around fifteen feet high, but it was an easy climb sticking my feet between the bars.

"How is this secure?" Kick whispered.

"It's made to keep out people with paws," I noted. Each horizontal bar was far enough apart that a cat or dog shaped individual wouldn't be able to climb it. The material was smooth. But there was enough space for us to just step on the various spots. Could they not create a continuous barrier, or were they cheaping out on the energy by cutting out 'unnecessary' middle sections?

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Theoretically, there were some sensors trying to prevent things that didn't belong from coming onto the base. Practically, we should look like overly large birds. Or something.

Or maybe a silent alarm had already gone off and we were cooked.

The initial plan had been for me to fling a Spatial Rift from afar, but upon actually studying what the base looked like it was clear we needed to approach in person. We weren't near the highest density of ships, however. Instead, we were near a few of the more expensive vessels. The plan was for Spatial Rift to be used last, targeting some unoccupied section. We wanted to cause as much subtle damage as possible before that.

I really wanted to break whatever was lowering the mana regeneration on this planet- even if it was the laws of physics. However, I had the feeling it wasn't natural given what had been going on with Midnight. He'd been hooked up to all sorts of junk, some of which was using mana. Maybe it had been taking his, but either way they'd clearly learned some stuff from Spot. Things even I didn't know, but maybe his new evil friends did. The magic ones, not the one with superpowers that represented the darkness of her heart. Actually, maybe there were two of those depending on whether Gloom counted as a friend. She was working with Darkstargirl after all.

Those of us with hands pulled out tools the Bunvorixians had printed- basically just wrenches and prybars- and began pulling out screws and bolts. I would have thought that a hundred million dollar ship being physically dissected might raise some alarms… but then again that wouldn't be true on Earth.

Once we dismantled some of the paneling, we were able to actuate the mechanisms for a ramp. Then we crawled our way inside, following Midnight's instructions to reach a few specific sections of the ships, where we alternatively caused subtle sabotage and just smashed stuff. Our resident barbarian unleashed his axe for the latter, and was quite effective even with small amounts of mana used.

The most 'effective' method would have been completely subtle and unknown, something that caused the ship to crash when it next took off… but the resistance didn't want to kill 'innocents'. And there were far too many of those wrapped up in this military.

Knowing that wasn't going to stop me from aggressively defending myself if I had to, but I did think about Zeb. The big dogs like Spot I was currently less sympathetic towards, as they'd been the type to assault me directly.

I wasn't as convinced that the tiny dog leadership was worth saving, but they probably wouldn't place themselves in kicking range very easily so it didn't really matter.

In ten minutes we were in and out of one ship. I didn't actually know how much it cost, but on Earth it would have been priceless. We did snag a few parts, but those were mostly for the resistance. We got through three of the big ships before Kick sensed some people approaching.

"They're carrying some high tech," he explained.

I looked down at his legs. "Do those have sensors?"

"They have lots of things. Not as much as Swiss Arms, but a variety."

We peeked our faces through some windows- they were rather low to the ground like everything- and saw some marching Bunvorixians.

"Do we run?" Honey Badger asked.

"They're already close," I said. "I can… maybe Dimension Door us out if they come here. But if they search the other vessels, we might just be able to run."

"With Haste," Midnight suggested.

Yes. We couldn't be too quick. They might detect power usage, but it was more likely they wouldn't.

With some luck, they did in fact get onto the first vessel. That was when we rushed out. I was the last one atop the fence when they rushed back out. I hopped down, glad for my ability to efficiently absorb the impact with my legs due to the increased processing speed. Bunvorixian beam weapons blasted their own super fence, protecting us- though not entirely. We began to run.

I gathered mana, looking back across the base. A much larger mass of medium and small ships were unoccupied and densely packed- because the saucers could take off vertically so they didn't need a long runway.

19 38 mana and I cast Spatial Rift for the first time. My connection to the target location was visual and conceptual. My connection to an alternative space was… tenuous. So I only got generic extraplanar effects as ships were sucked in. Some were torn apart by the rough edges of space, others were destroyed when it spit them back out. At least a dozen vessels were ruined, with dozens more sustaining various levels of damage.

That wasn't the end of things. The Spatial Rift jabbed into the ground a good way, throwing chunks of Bunvorixian concrete- which may or may not have been relevantly different from Earth concrete- in all directions. Mostly into the flying saucers.

Midnight didn't have the fatigue limit to create one of his own rifts, not without any upgrades to the spell. Otherwise, he would have tossed one as well.

The guards chased us at the speed of normal Bunvorixians that couldn't get over their own fence. They clearly weren't prepared for people like us in particular to be causing trouble. Midnight was riding on my shoulder, obviously.

It was unfortunate that they knew we were still on planet, but they couldn't make a public announcement without also announcing that they screwed up and their important capture, Midnight, was free. They'd lose so much face.

It did seem they were able to turn off the fence, but with a head start and over a minute of extreme speed from Haste, we rushed our way into the surrounding city, rounding corners and surprising some of the citizens. Then we ended up in some underground tunnels that were not sewers. Flopan was waiting- fortunately we'd been able to come to our first emergency location.

"Mission successful?" he asked while he sprayed some sort of anti-scent spray. Then he began to lead us through various tunnels and other secret tunnels to throw off our pursuers. He was quite pleased when we told the results. "Three Mastiffs damaged and dozens of Hounds? A resounding blow. We could use people like you long term."

I wasn't planning to become a long term resistance member. But maybe I could help some of them get useful powers. It was probably even more illegal here than on Earth, but so was everything they were up to so did it really matter?

I'd have to be able to get people exposed to my old world, though. And to leave here safely. Hopefully they would hold up their end of things.

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