Starship's Mage: Episode 3 (3 page)

“What the hell is
that
?” Damien asked, staring in surprise as the data being fed to the screens covering the walls of the simulacrum chamber by the
Blue Jay’s
computers.

‘That’ was a massive metal
ring around Legatus’s fifth planet, a gas giant roughly the size of Jupiter. Damien had jumped them into the system inside the fifth planet’s orbit and they were heading towards the third planet, Legatus itself, but the mega-structure wrapped around the outer world stuck out like a sore thumb on their sensors.

“That’s the Centurion
Accelerator Ring,” David replied over the link from the bridge. “It’s a million kilometer long series of particle accelerators they use to produce antimatter – the answer of a society that hates Mages to the modern need for antimatter.”

“That must have been… expensive,” Damien said
quietly, looking at the distance measure. The
Blue Jay
wouldn’t detect a ship of her own size at that distance, even under full acceleration. The immense structure wrapped around Centurion was impossible to miss.

“Forty years, a million workers, and more money than
I think Legatus has ever admitted to anyone,” the Captain confirmed. “They maintain a one light minute no-fly zone around it and no Mage, not even those working for the King, gets inside that no-fly zone.”

Damien continued to eye the structure for a long moment.
He had only minimal training in transmutation, but even he could transmute a few dozen kilograms of antimatter a day. Most systems ran production facilities, with a mix of well-paid volunteer Mages and carefully supervised convicted felon Mages, that churned out thousands of tons of the high energy fuel a year. Legatus, of course, wouldn’t accept that option.

And the
system needed the fuel. That was obvious as he turned his attention to the scanners and cameras tracking the
Jay
’s destination. The world they were heading to
glowed
on every spectrum the freighter could detect – heat, light and every other form of electromagnetic radiation.

Damien had grown up on a
MidWorld and he’d
never
seen a system this busy before. The ship’s computer was tagging ships with numbers as it identified them, and it was already into the dozens of vessels transiting between Legatus, Centurion, and the fourth world – Princeps. Princeps wasn’t even habitable, but it had acquired its own collection of orbital structures supporting what looking like massive mining operations on the surface.

“
I didn’t realize a Core System was this busy,” he admitted aloud, checking for ships that would approach the freighter out of habit.

“Legatus is the second most industrialized system in human space after Sol itself,” Jenna answered.
A glance at the bridge link showed David was busy reviewing their course in-system. “Most of the other Core Worlds would use Mages for a lot of things Legatus uses tech for, so Legatus needs to build and fuel that tech.”

“The Legatus
Self Defense Force is also a much more serious force than most Core security forces,” she continued. “There are
hundreds
of sub-light gunships in this system, keeping the peace and being paranoid about Mages.”

“Speak of the Devil,” David interrupted, haloing a closing heat signature on everyone’s screens.
“That
Crucifix
just went squid-mode, and is heading our way fast. Damien…” he trailed off, looking at Damien’s screen.

“Yes,
Captain?”

“
I’d rather we not incinerate a police ship, but if they try to arrest us, I know we need more space to jump,” the Captain answered grimly. “Try to disable it if you can, but you are our only defense.”

“Understood,” Damien answered. The amplifier
centered on the simulacrum would allow him to use any of his regular self-defense spells at the ship’s scale, more than enough to deal with a single gunship – but not enough to take on the entire star system!

He
saw almost instantly why Rice had referred to the ship as in ‘squid mode.’ The ship’s main hull was a deep hemisphere, with four pods locked behind it on outriggers, likely providing a magnetic channel to increase the efficiency of the antimatter flare. A quick check of the
Jay’s
database showed that, normally, the four outriggers were extended around the ship in a cross shape – hence the name of the ship – and rotated to provide artificial gravity to the crew.

“
I’m copying you in our channel,” Jenna told Damien. “They won’t see or hear you, but you’ll see both of us.”

A second screen popped open next to the bridge link, blank for a long moment.

“We’re receiving a transmission,” the First Officer announced. “Aligning our com array, and throwing them on-screen.”

The new screen on Damien’s display lit up, standing out even more
sharply against the starscape and sensor data around it. The screen rapidly resolved into a utilitarian command center, six uniformed men and women belted into chairs clearly designed to function as acceleration couches.

Centered
in the camera was a seated woman in a dark blue jumpsuit uniform, gold cuffs and a gold oak leaf on her collar presumably marking her as being in command.

“
I am Lieutenant Commander Hunts of the LSDFS
Broadsword
,” she stated sharply. “You have performed an unscheduled jump into the Legatus System, identify yourself immediately or be fired upon.”

The database entry that Damien had pulled up on the
Crucifix
class gunships happily informed him that the gunship carried a load out of antimatter missiles rated similarly to the Martian Navy – which Hunts was already in range to use.

“
I am Captain David Rice of the independent freighter
Blue Jay
,” Rice responded immediately. “We are transmitting our credentials now.”

Seconds ticked by in silence as the crew of the
Jay
waited for the signal to cross the distance between them, and for the return to reach them as well.

Hunts relaxed,
slightly, from her iron-locked position when they received the transmission and one of her officers gave her a thumbs-up. She made an almost concealed hand gesture, and the
Broadsword
’s acceleration cut by three quarters - back to a more reasonable single gravity, but still heading towards the
Jay
.

“
We don’t see a lot of unscheduled jumpships, Captain,” Hunts finally said. “You’re a long way from your last port of call, too – what brings you all the way here from Corinthian?”

“
I was asked to come directly here as a favor for a friend,” David told him. “He told me that a contact of his needed a jumpship transport as soon as possible.”

Seconds ticked by, and the
gunship commander nodded slowly.

“Understandable,” she answered.
“You’ll forgive me, I hope, if I require you to tell me who you were supposed to meet?

Her
tone suggested that whether or not they forgave her was utterly irrelevant.

“
I was asked to meet a man named Bryan Ricket,” David replied.

This time, Damien
recognized the
exact
moment when Commander Hunts received David’s reply. The Legatan officer physically twitched when she heard the name. Damien wasn’t sure anyone else saw it, but the woman clearly recognized the name.

“Mr. Ricket may indeed be able to use
your services,” Hunts answered, leaning back slightly in her chair. “You are aware, Captain Rice, of the regulations in this system with regards to Mages and runic artifacts?”

“Yes,
Commander.”

“An updated version
of the regulations is being sent to you regardless,” she continued. “Make certain your crew – and
especially
your Mages – obeys it.”

The tone of voice in which the officer said the words ‘
Mages’ made Damien very glad he wasn’t openly on the call.

Legatus’ orbit was busy. Of the almost two thousand thermal contacts that the
Blue Jay
had picked up in the inner system, each representing a spaceship under engine power, almost eight hundred were in orbit around the system’s main habitable planet.

The ships were the least of
it, though. The sheer scale of the orbital infrastructure dwarfed the surrounding vessels. No less than fifty space stations, each a rival for Sherwood’s Prime station or the Corinthian Spindle, were scattered in various orbits, servicing the ships that filled the system. The two largest, originally captured asteroids, anchored the immense tethers of two space elevators.

David had seen bigger and more impressive infrastructure twice in
his life – around Earth, and around Mars. Each of the Sol system’s two main worlds outclassed Legatus, and combined the system out-produced almost the entire rest of the Protectorate combined.

“
Wait; are those what I think they are?” Jenna asked out loud, distracted for a moment from the delicate process of inserting the
Blue Jay
into the whirling maelstrom of a Core World’s orbital traffic.

David followed
her questioning gaze and swallowed at the sight she pointed out. Orbiting in neat ranks, just above one of the two massive counterweight stations, was over
sixty
gunships similar to the one they’d encountered in the outer system.

“
I see,” he paused, checking the system count, “sixty four gunships. Looks like the other Counterweight has a similar flotilla playing guard dog too.”

Jenna whistled.
“That’s a
lot
of gunships, boss.”

“Mars has almost as many Navy
destroyers
in orbit,” David pointed out. “Plus the only full squadron of battleships in the galaxy.”

“But that’s
Mars
.”

“And to these people, Legatus is just as important,” the
Captain said quietly. “Do we have docking clearance yet?”

Jenna checked
her instruments.

“
We just received a course from the automated traffic system – we’re cleared through to Interface Station,” the stocky officer adjusted some of the controls on her screen and David felt a slight pull as the ship re-directed. “It looks like we’re staying well above most of the traffic and stations.”

“Makes sense,” David replied.
“From what I’ve heard, they don’t like letting jumpships close to the planet – something about not trusting Mages.”

“
You’re not making me feel better about this,” his First Officer replied. “Have you seen what they want me to dock with?”

A slip of
his finger across the touch controls brought Interface Station up on the screen. Suspended in a high orbit, further out from Legatus than Luna was from Earth, the station was a simple ring, roughly five kilometers across, which continually rotated to provide gravity.

“There’s no steady docking section,”
she pointed out. “I have to match the rotational velocity.”

“
It’s five kilometers across,” David told her calmly. “It’s barely rotating once every three minutes. Should I get Narveer up here to fly us?” he asked dryly.

“The only other people qualified
to fly this heap are you and Damien,” she retorted. “And he’s barely out of school, and you haven’t touched the controls for something this complex in a decade. I’ll get us in.”

“Of course
you will,” David agreed. “It’s why I hired you.”

“Great.
Now shut up,” his First Officer ordered. “This is
not
as easy as you want to make it seem.”

One impeccably executed docking later; David Rice climbed a ladder against the centripetal acceleration now providing pseudo-gravity into Interface Station. The hallway he entered, a personnel access way never intended to hold cargo or supplies, appeared to be little more than an ordinary station corridor, with a series of arrows marking where people boarding the station should go.

As David set off down the
corridor towards customs, he realized that someone had taken the time to actually decorate the plain metal of the corridor. It was small things, a few curving lines not part of the directions here, a subtle mural worked into the metal on the wall there, but it was more than he’d usually seen outside of the luxury docking points reserved to passenger liners and yachts.

The
corridor passed by another seven hatches, marking docking tunnels like the one he’d entered from, before he emerged into Legatus Customs Five. The corridor widened into a large room, blocked by a series of security gates watched over by the re-hinged bones of a Legatus Megarex.

The fact that the room was tall enough to
fit
the bones of the five meter tall predator should have been a shock on its own, but the looming bones were something he’d never expected to see aboard a space station. Named for its resemblance to Earth’s pre-historic Tyrannosaurus Rex, the Megarex was Legatus’s top predator before man arrived – and like most planets’ apex predators, it was near extinction now. The bones were likely a century or more old, and easily worth millions.

“
Captain Rice?” a voice interrupted his shocked gaze at the dead lizard, and he turned to his gaze to a young, dark-skinned, gentleman in a plain gray working uniform. “I am Customs Officer Ryan Shallot,” the man introduced himself. “I see that Maggie Five has made her usual impression.”

“
Maggie Five?” David couldn’t help asking.

“Somehow, the first one of
them they brought up was nicknamed Maggie,” Shallot shrugged. “Since we ended up with one in each customs section, they ended up just being numbered by the section they watch over.”

David nodded
his understanding as he gestured for the young officer to precede him. Shallot led him to a small cubicle next to one of the security gates. Each gate had a cubicle, though six of the eight gates were closed.

As
they approached the cubicle, a second figure appeared out of a semi-hidden alcove next to it. The woman was tall, towering over David’s stocky solidity and Shallot’s slim averageness alike, and moved with a grace that belied the heavy black armor she wore locked over her limbs and torso.

The guard wore
only one piece of insignia: a golden cog with a lightning bolt carved into it pinned to her collar.

“Hold out
your arms,” she ordered flatly. David looked into her eyes as he did so, and blinked as he saw her square pupils and the tiny blinking red light behind them as she looked him over. The woman hadn’t used any kind of scanner to check him for weapons. She
was
the scanner.

“
Captain Rice, this is Augment Talia,” Shallot introduced the cyborg.

“
He’s clean,” she reported sharply, ignoring the introduction. “No weapons, no unauthorized thaumic signatures.”

David dropped
his arms and inclined his head. “Greetings, Augment Talia.”

Reputation
said the Augments were trained Mage-killers, born, raised and cybernetically
modified
to identify, track and destroy Mages who tried to operate in Legatus. Reputation also declared them soulless robots, but David swore he saw a spark of appreciation for him and Shallot treating her as a person in Talia’s strange eyes as she returned his nod.

Entering
the office, Shallot opened a drawer and removed a chip tray, lowering a mass data interface over the chips as he interfaced the personal computer wrapped around his arm with the cubicle’s systems.

“What is
your business on Legatus, Captain Rice?”

“
I’m looking for cargo,” David explained calmly. “I was given a man to make contact with who I was told was looking for reliable carriers.”

“Not a lot of
jumpships come to Legatus on spec, Captain,” the Customs Officer observed, making entries on his computer.

“
It’s a favor to the man recommending it as much as anything else,” David lied smoothly. “He said it would be worth going this far out of my way.”

“
I never tell a man how to run his business,” Shallot replied cheerfully. “Now, I can run a pass for just you, or any member of your crew you wish. What is your plan?”

“
I’m planning on allowing my crew to take a day or two of shore leave while I track down my contact,” David told him. He slid a chip containing the data on his crew over. “If we can get passes for everyone to Interface Station, and myself and my First Officer down to the planet, that would be best.”

“Of course.
You wish a pass for your Mage?” the youth asked, looking questioningly at David. “Those are quite expensive, and come with a large number of conditions.”

“
I and Mr. Montgomery are aware of them,” the Captain replied firmly.

Shallot nodded
wordlessly, hitting a command on his computer that beeped at him. The data transfer array over the chip tray starting blinking a progress light.

“Passes will be ready in a moment,” the young man told David, then blinked as
he glanced at something on his personal computer. “We have a physical package for you,” he continued, sounding surprised. “Give me a moment.”

The Legatan returned a minute or so later with an archaic paper envelope, just as the chip tray beeped
its completion. He pulled the tray from the writer and passed it and the letter to David.

“Each chip is marked with the name of the individual
it’s a pass for,” he explained. “They will all allow access through the security gates here after a basic security scan. Only the ones for yourself and Miss Campbell will allow you aboard shuttles away from Interface Station, but we have most amenities aboard the station itself.” He glanced down at the letter in David’s hand. “I’m honestly not sure what the letter is for,” he admitted. “It arrived shortly before you docked.”

“Thank
you Officer Shallot,” David told him. “I’ll be back shortly once I’ve turned the passes over to my crew.”

He
shook hands with the Legatan and walked away, aware of the eerie eyes of the Augment guardian on him until he’d made it around the corner.

Curious and concerned,
he juggled the tray carefully to allow him to open the envelope and remove the single sheet of paper inside it. The text was very short.

Captain Rice.

Meet
me at the Silver Lion Restaurant at 19: 00 tonight. Come alone.