Roslyn had received a battlefield commission at the same time, so that made sense. A lot of ships had fled from the overwhelming Republic surprise attack under the command of junior officers.
“It is the considered and weighted opinion of a board of eight senior officers that your actions on Sorprendidas were in the highest and best standards of the Protectorate of Mars and the Royal Martian Navy.”
Daalman snorted.
“Five out of eight officers on that board admitted that they would probably have given up and used lethal force on a massive scale to secure the city. I think that they may be doing themselves an injustice, but that you chose another course remains to your credit.
“A quarter-million people are alive today because of you. They are receiving medical treatment that will allow them to return to their lives at least physically restored. While they will all require immense mental-health assistance over the years to come, it is thanks to your determination that they were as innocent as everyone else that they are alive to receive that help.”
Daalman smiled thinly and delicately pushed the box a few centimeters closer to Roslyn.
“Take the damn insignia, Commander Chambers. You’re still going to be my tactical officer, and we have work to do.”
52
“I hear congratulations are in order.”
Roslyn couldn’t keep herself from touching the new insignia on her collar as Bolivar spoke, then shook her head at the Guardia officer.
“I think it’s more on the order of the ‘the reward for a job well done is another job,’” she told him. “I hear they’re considering you for Commissioner.”
“Maybe,” Bolivar said. “There are half a dozen Captains who distinguished themselves after Commissioner Petrovich died.” He paused. “Most of us didn’t even know he was dead. Communication in the Guardia was pretty rough there, even before you EMPed the city into the Stone Age.”
“Everything’s up and running now, though?” she asked.
“Full networks, full databases, the Guardia is back online and running,” he agreed. “That’s part of why I made contact.”
“How’s the treatment going?” Roslyn said.
“Better than expected,” Bolivar told her. “We’ve got the first ten thousand out of the hospitals already. They’re still going to need to be monitored for weeks at least, but they’re walking and talking and remember who they are.
“Can’t ask for more after everything that happened.”
“Thank god,” she said. “I can’t imagine the nightmare they’ve been through, though. It was bad enough from our side.”
“The doctors are setting up long-term psych treatment plans for, well, the entire city,” Bolivar told her. “We’re in control, but it’s still a mess. Power is expected to be back up everywhere tomorrow, but we’re not even entirely sure we’ve found all the bodies yet.”
She grimaced.
“Forgive me, but I’m glad I’m up here running air control instead of doing that,” she admitted.
“That’s fair,” he said. He shook his head. “I’ve got a few requests on that front, but first…I did manage to find the guy you were looking for. Sort of.”
“You found Killough?” Roslyn asked. “Thank God.”
She’d thought he’d been taken by whatever ninja/Mage/hacker had stolen the Orpheus files.
“Like I said, sort of,” Bolivar replied. “I guess…his family is almost lucky this mess happened. We normally only keep John Doe bodies on ice for about four weeks before they go in a pauper’s grave.”
Roslyn’s train of thought derailed.
“He’s dead?” she asked slowly. Angus Killough was dead. That…hurt, even against the scale of the crisis in Nueva Portugal. She hadn’t had the people to go after him. He’d clearly been of some value to his kidnapper…
Then the timeline caught up with her.
“What do you mean, he’s been dead for four weeks?” she demanded.
“I was wondering about that myself, since you weren’t here then,” Bolivar admitted. A file photo appeared on the screen next to the attractive Guardia officer. “John Doe One-Three-Five-Six,” he reeled off. “Pulled from the beach thirty-seven days, a bit over five weeks, ago.
“No evidence of trauma; autopsy suggested death by drowning. It looked like he’d been thrown off a boat with some kind of weights around his ankles.”
The Guardia officer coughed delicately.
“That call was made by the fact that his ankles and feet are missing,” he admitted.
Roslyn was looking at the photo. It…was not the Angus Killough she’d met.
A few commands brought up the MISS file on the agent. The photo matched the dead man, a chubby, heavyset man of middle age. A few more commands brought up the man she’d been working with.
The stranger looked like Angus Killough…but an Angus Killough that had lost weight. She’d assumed that was exactly what had happened—he’d been missing for over six weeks, after all.
“Fuck,” she said softly. “Bolivar…the civilian we went into the Orpheus lab with was supposedly Angus Killough, a Martian Interstellar Security Service agent.”
The channel was silent, and Bolivar looked at his screen again.
“You gave us a DNA profile, everything,” he told her. “There’s no question. John Doe One-Three-Five-Six is Angus Killough. We can keep the body on ice and return it to his family—or to MISS, I suppose—but he’s definitely been dead for at least…forty days. Maybe more.”
“I’m not doubting you, Victoriano,” Roslyn said. “It’s just…if this is Angus Killough, who the hell did I lead into the Orpheus lab?”
53
The last security hatch shredded under the force of three fully trained Combat Mages. Black-exosuited Nemesis troopers surged through ahead of Mage Kent Riley, penetrator rifles firing as they engaged the holdout Augments aboard the space station.
“Remember,” he said calmly. “We need Dr. Carpenter alive.”
“Room is secure, sir,” a trooper reported.
There were no names here. Kent Riley had adopted that from his mentor, the man he’d eventually known as Winton. Roslyn Chambers had known him as Angus Killough—and he did not miss the facial prosthetics for that disguise, though the young Mage had impressed him.
Among people who knew what he was, even his closest people only knew him as “Kay.” Everyone else knew him as Nemesis One, the only leader the organization had left now.
Those who even knew that much. With Winton’s death, they were doing everything they could to make sure the Protectorate thought Nemesis had died with their founder.
Kent walked into the room, flanked by two other ex–Royal Martian Marine Combat Mages. One of his black-armored troopers was being treated for a gunshot wound that had gone through the exosuit, but all of his people had survived the breach.
None of the Augments had been so lucky.
In the middle of the space station command center was the man those Augments had died trying to protect.
“Dr. Damir Carpenter,” Kent said calmly. “Project head of the Orpheus Project.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Carpenter said, glancing nervously at the rifles pointed at him. The penetrator rifles could go through exosuit armor. What they’d do if they hit the unarmored scientist was indescribable.
“You were the mind behind the Orpheus nanotech system,” Kent told Carpenter. “Initial concepts were developed here, on this station, and then forwarded to a secret lab on Sorprendidas when you realized you needed more test subjects than you’d be able to source in an uninhabited star system.”
“This is a private corporate research facility, registered with the Protectorate out of Legatus,” Dr. Carpenter insisted. “This is an act of piracy and murder!”
“All of that is true, yes,” Kent said cheerfully. “But it does not change that your operation—and the corporation that is the registered owner of this station—is funded by money
Samuel Finley defrauded the Republic of before its fall.
“You could play all the games you want about authority and legal proof and suchlike if I was with the Martians, but I’m not,” he told Carpenter. His own exosuit loomed over the suit-clad doctor.
“My people are already placing thermonuclear demolition charges throughout this station while others are stripping your databases of anything useful. They’ve already told me that the files here are a disappointment.
“The Sorprendidas lab made it further than you did. The test subjects were important, I guess, for all that their acquisition doomed you.”
“Who are you?” Carpenter asked.
“I am the man charged to see that humanity survives the inevitable,” Kent told the scientist. “And everything that has been done on this station and on Sorprendidas alike is an atrocity I would love to execute you out of hand for; do you understand me, Dr. Carpenter?”
“We lost contact with Sorprendidas,” Carpenter said grimly.
“Yes, six months ago, when one of my agents destroyed the covert Link facility you were operating,” Kent agreed. “The Protectorate finished the job after that. I’m afraid your wife is dead, Dr. Carpenter. Mage Lafrenz was killed resisting arrest when the Navy came for her.”
“Bastards,” Carpenter cursed.
“You are not one to talk,” Nemesis’s leader snapped. “Your life now hangs on one very simple question, Dr. Carpenter.
“If I can provide you with Rune Scribes to work on the matrix, and all of Lafrenz’s notes and experimental data, can you complete the Orpheus nanotech?”
“The Orpheus weapon is—”
“I don’t give a fuck about the weapon,” Kent cut him off. “It’s horrific and frankly impractical. I am charged with the task of preserving humanity, Doctor. A planetary-denial weapon that only works on humans is useless to me.
“No, Dr. Carpenter, you only get to live if you can complete the original Orpheus System. Can you or can you not complete the mind-control nanotech?”
Thank you so much for reading A Darker Magic. The story will continue in Mage-Commander, due out fall 2021. For all the Glynn Stewart news, announcements, and more, join the mailing list at GlynnStewart.com/mailing-list
Read on for a preview of The Terran Privateer, book 1 in the Duchy of Terra series, or click to check it out in the Amazon store.
If you haven’t already, check out the Starship’s Mage: Red Falcon series, starting with Interstellar Mage, featuring David Rice and crew.
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Preview: The Terran Privateer by Glynn Stewart
Enjoyed A Darker Magic? While waiting for Mage-Commander, why not try the alien invasion space opera series Duchy of Terra, starting with The Terran Privateer, available now!
Earth is conquered.
Sol is lost.
One ship is tasked to free them.
One Captain to save them all.
When an alien armada destroys the United Earth Space Force and takes control of the human homeworld, newly reinstated Captain Annette Bond must take her experimental hyperspace cruiser Tornado into exile as Terra's only interstellar privateer.
She has inferior technology, crude maps and no concept of her enemy, but the seedy underbelly of galactic society welcomes her so long as she has prizes to sell and money to spend.
But when your only allies are pirates and slavers, things are never as they seem and if you become all that you were sworn to destroy, what are you fighting for?
1
Admiral Jean Villeneuve of the United Earth Space Force charged off of his shuttle like an aggravated bull. He hated the Belt Squadrons inspection tours: days crammed into a tiny ship flying out from Earth, followed by weeks of squeezing through obsolete ships, many lacking even artificial gravity, to make a show of the UESF caring about its back-of-beyond postings—and their role in dealing with the increasing level of outer system piracy.
Now the Space Force’s chief supplier of warships had decided to demand a detour at the end of his trip, bringing him to this strange space station even he, the Chief of Operations for Earth’s spaceborne military cum police force, hadn’t been aware existed.
Villeneuve was a tall man, with the distinctive pale skin of someone who’d spent their entire adult life in space. His once-black hair was almost pure white now, still cropped close to his scalp to allow for the spacesuit helmets of his youth.
Today he stalked into the Nova Industries Belt Research Station in his full white dress uniform, with its gold braid, its silly little half-cape, and the four gold stars of the only full Admiral Earth’s Space Force had.
The station looked older than he’d anticipated when he got the “request” to meet someone from Nova Industries here. Most new stations were built as rough spheres, maximizing interior volume now that Earth had artificial gravity. The research station had clearly started as the massive ring of a centripetal gravity facility—and Villeneuve was sure Nova Industries had never reported this station to him!
As he reached the edge of the shuttle bay, a trio of white uniformed aides trailing in his wake, the blast-shielded doors retracted to reveal a single man in a crisp black business suit. The man was young—far too young to be Villeneuve’s contact.…
And then Jean Villeneuve’s brain caught up to his eyes and he stopped hard, staring at the frustratingly young features of Elon Casimir, chief executive officer of Nova Industries—and a man who had no business being a week’s flight from Earth!
“Welcome to BugWorks, Admiral Villeneuve,” Casimir told him cheerfully. “I think you’ll be very pleased with the little demonstration we’ve pulled together for you today.”
“You little connard,” Villeneuve snapped at Earth’s youngest multibillionaire. “If you’ve delayed my trip home for some stupid stunt…”
Casimir held up his hands defensively.
“Please, Admiral, I am many things—but I am never a waste of your time.”
“BugWorks? Seriously?” Villeneuve asked the CEO half an hour later. Casimir had taken him to a surprisingly well-appointed private office and served up small glasses of the Admiral’s favorite French brandy. He could tell he was being played, but the man whose company manufactured the hulls, engines, and missiles that made up the UESF’s spaceships was usually worth his time.
“In the grand tradition of SkunkWorks and EagleWorks,” Casimir confirmed. “They wanted to use Bug-Eyed monster, but it took too long to say.”
“‘They,’ Elon?” the Admiral demanded, eyeing the younger man. Casimir did not look the part of a multibillionaire CEO. His suit was the latest style, but his brown hair was long in a way that was currently out of fashion and his face was chubby, his eyes a warm blue. He looked like everyone’s favorite cousin.
“BugWorks has been Nova Industries’ main research facility for about fifty years, Admiral,” Casimir told him. “She was the first of the big ring stations built outside Earth orbit, arguably before we really had the capability to do so.”
“Why wasn’t I aware this station existed?” Villeneuve demanded. “Mon dieu, Elon—if something had happened out here…”
“We…may have allowed the UESF to think the station was decommissioned,” Casimir admitted. “We’ve never really hidden it—the Facility is on all of the lists—but when we switched her to artificial gravity, we let your people think we’d scaled it back.”
“All right,” the Admiral allowed slowly. “Why? That was a dangerously stupid thing to do—even underestimating the population out here could have caused problems!”
“We had our own resources here if needed,” Casimir said calmly. “And…well, your people have been anything but supportive of research the last few years.”
Villeneuve winced. There was a s
trong feeling amongst the Captains and Admirals of the Space Force that the weapons and systems available to them were good enough. Combined with a worry that major advancements would invalidate their own skills, they’d stubbornly resisted supporting research.
The Chief of Operations disagreed, but he was just one voice. Even with the increasingly disturbing pace of losses to piracy outside the belt, the Chief couldn’t convince the Governing Council to fund research when all of his subordinates didn’t think it was needed.
“Bluntly, the only research that the UESF has funded for the last ten years has been the hyperspatial portal system. We had a lot more that was really promising,” Casimir noted. “This facility was where we developed the artificial gravity tech, so we had a giant pile of engineers and scientists out here anyway, most of whom had been working on various Space Force or privately-funded research anyway.”
“Qu’est-ce que tu as fait, Elon?” Villeneuve asked slowly. Even at seventy years old—a hale late middle age in 2185—he still slipped into his native French when aggravated and speaking to people he knew understood him. Elon Casimir spoke twelve languages fluently. Another thing to be jealous of the man for.
“Ten years ago, my father sold our board on BugWorks,” Casimir said quietly. “He had the opportunity to fully explain it to me before he had his stroke.”
Even twenty-second-century medical technology couldn’t save someone dead on arrival with a thumbnail-sized blood clot in their brain. The elder Casimir had been brilliant, eccentric, and rich beyond belief—none of which had saved him when his body had betrayed him.
“Since we believed the technologies we were working on had major military and civilian applications, and since the United Earth Space Force was refusing to fund the research, Nova Industries—aided by a significant application of the Casimir family’s personal fortune—completed the research ourselves,” Casimir continued, his voice still calm and quiet. “You’re lucky we did, too,” he continued. “You know we’ve been testing hyperships. Without some of the tech that came out of BugWorks, those ships would be impossible.”
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