Starship's Mage: Omnibus: (Starship's Mage Book 1) (31 page)

“We have arrived in Amber,” Damien told the bridge after a long moment. The teleportation spell took a
lot
out of him, though he’d been making minor tweaks here and there throughout the amplifier matrix to make it a bit easier.

“Running scans,” Jenna announced.

The screens of Damien’s simulacrum Chamber showed a visual view of the space around the
Blue Jay
, but he could also bring up any other function of the ship’s computers. The Chamber’s interior was the largest computer screen on the ship. Bringing a copy of the XO’s sensor data and translations up was easy.

“Is that a Navy destroyer?” he asked, his gaze picking out a data code he remembered from their
last
encounter with the Royal Navy of the Mage-King of Mars.

“It’s
a
destroyer,” Kellers told them over the intercom from engineering. “That’s the
Osiris
, the flagship of the Amber Defense Co-operative – and their only functioning jumpship. They also have a couple dozen home-built corvettes that don’t have amplifiers or jump matrixes, just some godawful lasers.”

The engineer’s voice was bitter.

“They’ll hail us in about a day as we approach,” he explained. “There are docking fees to be paid to both the ADC and the station owners. Refresh of oxygen or fuel will cost extra, as will entering the station. This is Amber –
everything
has a price.”

The intercom was silent for a moment.

“If anyone needs me,” Kellers finally said, “I’ll be in the bar on Rib A. Trying to forget why I
left
this place.”

“Welcome home, huh?” Jenna said a minute later, the scans throwing more detail up of the orbitals of Amber. Warned what he was looking for, Damien picked out seven corvettes, larger and blockier than the gunships they’d transported for Legatus, but similarly dangerous for their size against a ship without an amplifier.

He was helping Jenna collate data on the orbiting stations – eight fragile looking collections of gantries and work modules that were what passed for shipyards in Amber, and one very functional and ordinary looking spinning wheel orbital station that operated as a space dock – when LaMonte drifted into the Chamber.

“Hey Damien, Kellers is inviting everyone up to the Rib A bar,” his girlfriend told him. “He apparently has some special liquor he had saved up for if he ever came back to Amber.”

“Is it poisonous?” Damien asked dryly. Given Kellers’ apparent enthusiasm for his homeworld, he wasn’t sure anything the Chief Engineer had saved up for this occasion would be safe to drink.

“Well, it’s
from
Amber, so I’m not sure it’s
safe
, but he seems determined to drink it,” the younger engineer told him.

“We can finish this later,” Jenna told him over the intercom. “From the sounds of it, I should check up on Kellers myself. Amber liquor is harder than hard, to put it mildly.”

Saving and dismissing the data with a swipe of his hand, Damien turned to Kelly and smiled.

“It looks like you’ve found a hidden override on our ship protocols,” he told her. “My time is yours, my dear, what’s the plan?”

#

Agreeing to share Kellers’ Amber Fire Liqueur ranked as one of David’s worst decisions in recent years. It had seemed fine at the time, but the next morning his pounding headache happily reminded him that Amber Fire Liqueur was
illegal
in a good half of the Protectorate.

The bridge of the
Blue Jay
was quiet. Jenna was at her station, watching the sensors and maneuvering controls, but the only words they’d exchanged so far today had been grunts and a vague mention of ‘Kellers’ liqueur.’

“Heads up sir,” Jenna told him, her voice quiet. “Incoming contact – she’s on an unpowered orbit, but she’ll pass within a million klicks of us in about an hour.”

“Show me,” David ordered, also pitching his voice low to avoid making both of their headaches worse.

Jenna swiped a command on her console, and a view from one of the
Blue Jay
’s many exterior cameras appeared on the main screen, and then zoomed in.

A few billion times magnification later and it was clear the contact was the boxy hundred meter length of an Amber Defense Co-operative corvette.

“Looks like she saw us,” his executive officer told him. “Incoming video channel.”

He nodded to her and she threw the image on the main screen, replacing the grainy image of the ship.

The image was of a small but neatly organized bridge, similar in many ways to
Blue Jay
’s own, with four working consoles arranged in three dimensions around a command chair. A man with silver hair and a young face was strapped into the center command chair against the ship’s microgravity.

“This is Commander Antonov of the Amber Defense Co-operative corvette
Williamson
,” he said calmly. “Please identify yourself and transmit your cargo manifest.

“Note that if we are forced to pursue you, you or your heirs will be required to compensate the ADC for fuel and munitions expended.”

David tapped a few commands on the control screen built into his command chair, transmitted the
Blue Jay
’s registry and manifest information before opening a video channel back to the
Williamson
.

“Commander Antonov, this is Captain David Rice of the
Blue Jay
,” he told the Amberite. “We are bound in-system to pick up a cargo in preparation for a Fringe shipping run. Our pylons are currently empty, though we do have an in-system fuelling vessel we may sell in-system.”

Seconds ticked by as the transmission shot across the intervening empty space, and then Antonov nodded in response.

“I appreciate your prompt response, Captain,” he told David. “You are clear through to Heinlein Station. Be aware that there are fees for being assigned an entry vector, docking, fuelling and access to Heinlein Station that will need to be paid promptly upon arrival.”

“I appreciate the heads up, Commander,” David replied. “This is our first time in the Amber system.”

“Well, then let me be the first to welcome you to the only truly free system in the Protectorate,” Antonov replied with a broad smile. “Enjoy your time in Amber, Captain. I am sure you will find all you need in terms of cargo.”

The transmission ended and the screen defaulted back to showing the small warship continuing along its long, fuel-conserving, orbit around the system’s sun.

“Is there anything we’re not going to be charged for in this system?” Jenna asked after a long moment.

“Based off Kellers’ reaction to coming home, no.”

#

Leaving Jenna to dock the ship – Heinlein Station had a well-designed central hub that remained stationary while the outer wheel spun to provide gravity, rendering docking straightforward – Rice headed towards the shuttle bay to meet Kellers for their sojourn onto the station.

He found the engineer in the corner of the shuttle bay that had once contained a handful of armored lockers, and now contained row upon row of neatly strapped down cases and crates containing enough guns and body armor to arm and protect every member of the
Blue Jay
’s crew.

Rice stopped in surprise when he did spot the engineer, though. Normally, he saw Kellers either in a suit when the senior officers of the ship had to meet clients, or wearing a set of coveralls covered in enough muck to be as dark as his skin.

Today the black-skinned man was wearing a pair of camouflage fatigue pants and a black tank top that clearly emphasized the sharp-cut muscles of a man who worked with his hands and heavy, dangerous, equipment every day.

The sparse outfit did absolutely nothing to conceal the holster strapped to Kellers’ hip containing a Martian Armaments Caseless Six Millimeter automatic – and even less to conceal the stungun carbine in a quick release strap over his torso.

“Are we expecting a war?” David asked finally, standing at the edge of the new armory area and eyeing his Chief Engineer warily.

“We’re in Amber space,” Kellers replied. “It’s considered rude to go unarmed – and only slightly less rude to use lethal force first.” He gestured towards the solitary bench in the middle of the crates of weapons, where he’d laid out a similar set of harness and weapons for Rice.

“Is
everyone
going to be armed?”

“Yes,” the Amber native said flatly. “Most Amber children begin firearms training between six and eight years old and regularly carry an automatic like this from the age of ten.”

That took David a moment to process. Protectorate gun laws were up to the judgment of the individual planets, but generally boiled down to ‘you can get a permit for that if you have a reason for it.’ The thought of everyone going armed all the time on a planet without immediately dangerous wildlife was strange to him.

Nonetheless, he was wise enough to listen to a native guide and started strapping on the harness.

“What about the Hunters? They’re a kind of police, right?”

“Sanctioned Hunters aren’t police,” James told him. “They’re the folk charged with bringing in people who refuse to voluntarily appear in front of a court, or charged with Protectorate crimes. Since they’re basically bounty hunters, though, your right to self-defense still applies.

“It is,” he continued after a moment, “considered rude to use lethal force against Hunters – and is likely to result in them delivering you to the Judicial Co-op’s courts in pieces.”

“Wonderful,” David replied dryly, double checking the quick release strap on the stungun. “And this contact of yours? Is he going to sell us to these ‘Hunters’?”

“Keiko owes me,” his engineer replied. “We went to school together, and she’s already agreed to the meet. She runs a shipping company now, so she should be able to get us what we need.”

David nodded and re-strapped the stungun to his torso. Two magazines of the stunguns SmartDarts and four of the clips for the MAC6 went on the harness as well, and then Kellers carefully checked his gear.

“I’m not as good a shot as Narveer was,” Kellers said quietly. “I’d really prefer to avoid trouble, boss.”

“You and me both,” David told him. “This is Amber, though. How likely is that?”

Kellers shrugged.

“Even if we hadn’t pissed off the Protectorate, the Blue Star Syndicate has a bounty on us,” he admitted. “Those Sanctioned Hunters aren’t averse to collecting un-sanctioned bounties.”

“And we’re in the system responsible for building almost every pirate ship in existence,” David Rice said wryly. “Why did I think this was a good plan?”

“You didn’t,” Kellers replied. “None of us did. It was just the least
bad
plan.”

#

The access to the station from the
Blue Jay
was close to the shuttle bay. The two officers, both experienced in zero-gravity maneuvering, made it there as the docking connections completed and a personnel tube extended from Heinlein Station locked onto the airlock.

“We’re all connected up, sir,” Jenna reported over David’s wrist personal computer. “You don’t
want
to know what regular docking cost us.”

“Tell me,” he ordered. He winced at the figure she told him in response. It was roughly twice what he’d expect to pay at a MidWorld orbital station. “Understood Jenna. Keep the lights on; we should only be on station for five or six hours this time.”

“I’m guessing no shore leave?” she asked.

“If anyone wants to pay the entry fee themselves, they’re welcome to,” David replied. “No more than twenty percent of the crew at once, no more than eight hours at a time. Everyone stays in contact with the ship at all times, stays armed, and moves in pairs.”

Kellers looked almost offended as Jenna acknowledged and sign off. “Boss, for all my bitching, Amber is a civilized world. No one is going to get rolled in a back corridor. It would be bad for business.”

“I’m worried
because
it’s a civilized world,” David admitted, opening the airlock and breathing in the air of Heinlein Station for the first time. “A
lot
of people want us dead, and the Protectorate wants to arrest us all.”

His Chief Engineer didn’t reply, and David led the way down the tube. It connected to a circular corridor that could have belonged on any station in any system, with signs directing disembarking spacers to the left.

At the end of the corridor, though, warning signs advised that the next area had ‘thaumaturgically induced gravity.’ Most stations that David had been on didn’t bother with the expense of having Mages set up and maintain the runes necessary to create an artificial gravity zone – the weekly renewals ended up costing a
lot
of money.

The two spacers carefully oriented themselves according to the sign, and then ‘dropped’ onto the floor as they entered the main processing area of Heinlein Station.