Mission Pack 1: Missions 1-4 (Black Ocean Mission Pack)

by J. S. Morin

  “The rifles are halfway between us and them,” Tanny said. “We can’t even get to them. I sent Roddy down to see if he can get us engine power for a breakaway.”

  “Good idea,” Carl said, nodding.

  Plasma bolts continued to come intermittently, the invaders conserving their power, trying to time a shot as someone poked a weapon at them. They had nothing but time on their hands, as far as they knew. Carl snapped a few shots around the doorway, then winced as a bolt of plasma caught his blaster. Composite plastic shards sprayed from the shattered weapon. He clapped a hand to the side of his neck where it felt like a bee had stung him.

  “Carl!” Tanny shouted. “You’re hit.”

  He gritted his teeth as he put his back to the wall and slid down to a seated position. “I noticed that.”

  “Shit, you’re bleeding,” Tanny said. She turned toward the crew quarters, just a few meters away. “Esper, get out here and help him; he’s cut bad.”

  Mriy’s ears flattened against her head, and she hunkered back against the side of the refrigerator. “Death comes.”

  “Come on,” said Carl. “Let’s not write me off just yet.” Mriy shook her head and pointed.

  There was a thump of wood on steel, and then another, a drumbeat of calm menace playing counterpoint to the frantic shriek of the klaxon. They turned and saw what Mriy had seen. Mort emerged from his quarters clad in black robes, a chain of heavy silver links around his neck, bearing a graven pendant. The thumping was the staff he carried as a walking stick. His scowl carried the weight of storms; his eyes promised fire. With casual disdain he slammed the head of his staff against the wall, and the klaxon stopped.

  “Mort,” Carl grunted as he tried to hold back the flow of blood from his neck. “What are you doing?”

  “Mort, no!” Tanny warned. “We’ve talked about this. We need the ship’s tech to stay alive.”

  “Mordecai The Brown will not meet his end cowering behind the paltry protections of science. If this is to be our end, let there be a reckoning in blood and fire. I’m going to show these fuckers something very, very old.”

  He strode past the three defenders at the door. None tried to bar his path as he presented himself in full glory before the open door. He leveled his staff at the invaders that only his vantage allowed him to see, and cursed in that harsh, guttural language that spoke of demons and angels. From the staff came fire, and the lights in the common room went dark. By the time the soft, red emergency lighting came on, Mort was gone, disappeared down into the cargo hold, and perhaps beyond, to do battle with the crew of the Viper.

  The door to Chip’s old quarters opened. “Stay put,” Esper said, speaking back inside as she peeked out. “What’s going on out here?”

  “Carl took a piece of shrapnel to his neck,” Tanny replied. “Go find the med kit.”

  Esper closed the door behind her and hurried to Carl’s side. She saw the blood seeping from between his fingers where they covered his neck. Kneeling down beside him, she turned to Tanny. “I don’t know where it is. You go; I’ll stay with him.”

  “I need to cover the—”

  “I heard Mort’s little speech. And I don’t hear any more shooting. Just go.”

  Tanny glared at Esper, but didn’t argue the point. Carl managed a weak smile as she left. “She hates getting the fun taken out of her hand … I mean gun.”

  “Just you relax,” Esper said. “Now take your hand away.” To reinforce her point, she tugged gently at the hand that was staunching the blood. Instantly it spurted forth, but she covered the wound with her hands. Carl grimaced, and grunted in pain as she pressed down.

  Through squinted eyes, Carl saw her lips moving. She had her eyes closed. In the dim crimson light, she looked unhallowed, like someone had come and replaced Sister Esper Theresa Richelieu with a creature of magic and darkness, performing a foul ritual. For a moment, Carl thought it was his imagination, exacerbated by blood loss. Then a stabbing pain clenched at his stomach and latched on. He doubled over in pain, and Esper let go of his neck.

  “Get him something from the fridge,” Esper ordered Mriy. The azrin looked at her with narrowed eyes, uncomprehending. “He needs food; his body just used up its reserves healing itself.”

  “Gah,” Carl grunted. “What’d you do to me?”

  “I sinned, but I may have saved your life,” Esper replied.

  # # #

  The crackle of flames and a whiff of brimstone in the air hearkened back to the battlefields of Mort’s ancestors. Too often he felt bottled up, squeezed into a tin can in the vast Black Ocean, unable to unleash his magic for fear of fouling the bedratted technology that kept them afloat. Putting on his formal Convocation robes had seemed like vanity at first, but as fire leapt from his staff and his voice boomed thunder, the old confidence returned. A pained groan from the floor told him that one of his would-be killers was still alive. Mort jabbed the butt of his staff down at the half-burnt pirate; the wood tip never touched the man, but the deck plates beneath buckled at the force of an unseen blow. He left the corpse in a shallow depression newly formed in the floor.

  He stumbled. One footstep was too light as the ship’s gravity wavered for a moment, then reverted to normal. Mort’s eyes narrowed. Someone was fiddling with the ship’s gravity stone, and he had a fair guess of who it might be. A ship the Viper’s size ought to have had its own mechanics aboard for both scientific and magical devices. The poor slob of a science mechanic could have been any of a number of corpses littering the ship, but he had yet to run across anything resembling a wizard.

  In theory, Mort knew precisely where he was heading—the ship’s gravity stone, nestled somewhere below him and roughly fifty feet to his right. The problem was that the ship was made by engineers. The layout was nonsense. Mort spent the better part of five minutes punching buttons on a door-side control panel to no avail. After melting a hole through the door made from a not-quite-metal scientific material, all he found beyond was a lavatory.

  “What bumbling nutter locks a loo from the outside?” he muttered.

  Three melted door-holes later, the found the stairs down to the lower level. The air was growing foul with acrid smoke from dead bodies and the strange substance the doors were fashioned from. Despite the stale, processed smell below, it was easier to breathe as he went down. Fortunately, once he was on the same level as the gravity stone, it was easier to find his way. One door opened at his approach, startling Mort, and one more yielded to magical coercion.

  The room inside was thick with science, but arcane energy thrummed beneath. At the far wall was a set of crystal and stone rods held together in a lattice of wires—the Viper’s star drive. In the center of the room, set atop a scientific steel pedestal, was a sphere of pure, Earth-quarried granite—a gravity stone. It was not the decorative, mineral-veined granite found in bar-tops and decorative flooring, but the plain, serious sort used in ancient headstones. Standing between these two wonders of modern magic was a sniveling excuse for a wizard.

  “Stay back,” the Viper’s star drive mechanic warned, his hands resting on the gravity stone. “I can crush you where you stand.”

  Mort felt a twinge. You are heavy, the universe told him. You are being crushed into a tiny ball centered just behind your navel. The sensation was that of a giant mitten closing around him—soft, smothering, and firm. It was a sign that this pissant wretch of a grav-jockey was adept at his business—Mort was surprised to feel anything at all.

  Like hell I am, Mort replied to the universe, asserting his own self-image through an act of will. Quit bothering me if you know what’s good for you. He had never shied from threats made by the greater universe around him, and was not about to stand idly by while it tried to convince him he was a source of gravity.

  Mort jabbed a bony finger down on the surface of the gravity stone. The granite split in twain with the crack of a sledgehammer’s strike. “Care to try that again?” he asked with a smile of feigned sweetness.
>
  “Wh-who are you?” the star drive mechanic asked, backing away from the ruined stone. Though the Viper’s gravity still functioned, it was bleeding away and in no shape to be used as a weapon. When Mort took a step forward instead of answering, his staff thumping on the deck like a funeral bell, the mechanic threw up his hands in surrender. “I’ll serve; two years indentured. You’ve got me.” Mort took another step. “It’s bad luck to kill a wizard.”

  “That’s because the Convocation used to send wizards like me after the ones who killed them,” Mort relied. “I am Mordecai The Brown, former holder of the Eighth Seat, Guardian of the Plundered Tomes, and current persona non grata with the higher-ups in the Convocation, so I’m not registering any apprentices. But if you mention my name in the afterlife, I’m sure there’s a support group for wizards I’ve killed.”

  The star drive mechanic gave a choked gasp. Without the Viper’s gravity stone objecting, it was a simple matter to convince the universe that it was the mechanic whose body was the wellspring of gravity aboard. The mechanic crumpled into the fetal position in mid-air, while a datapad and the contents of a toolbox leapt to press against him. Mort didn’t drag things out; this wasn’t personal, after all. He squeezed, and the lights went out in the ship. A few crackles and pops, and he allowed the mechanic’s body to flop to the floor with a wet splat. “Kirash,” he whispered, and the end of his staff glowed with enough light to see the mass of twisted and broken limbs at his feet.

  Mort coughed. The air was getting worse. The whoosh and hum that was the undercurrent of any ship’s environmental controls had gone silent. It was not the sort of thing Mort typically took note of, but its absence shouted alarm to him. Stumbling through a haze of magically illuminated smoky corridors, he made his way back to the Mobius before he passed out.

  # # #

  In the wake of most battles, the smoke cleared. When Mort stumbled back into the common room, coughing and batting the smoke from his robes, there was no functioning life support system to disperse it. Carl slammed the common room door closed behind the wizard. Everyone who had EV suits had already changed into them. Tanny, Mriy, and Carl were waiting in the common room for Mort to return, while Roddy was down in the engineering bay, trying to see what he could patch back together. Esper, Adam, and now Mort were all without environmental protection.

  “Boss,” Roddy came over the comm in Carl’s helm. “We got a whole lot of nothing. Good news: nothing looks beyond repair. Bad news: this isn’t gonna be quick.”

  “You’ve got to come up with something for the life support,” Carl replied. “We’re short three EV suits for a long-term plan. Even the life support in the crew quarters aren’t—”

  “I’m the one who told you, remember?”

  “Just … go fix something,” Carl replied. “Life support first … salvage stuff from the Viper if you need to.”

  “It safe over there?” Roddy asked.

  Carl relayed the question to the wizard. “How would I know?” Mort replied. “Starships are inherently unsafe. I tell you this much, there’s no one over there in enough pieces to point a weapon at you.”

  “Yeah, Roddy. It’s all clear.”

  “Wait,” said Tanny. “What if we stashed them in that damned albatross of an escape pod you can’t get rid of?”

  It was hard to give a withering look through the smoky plastic visor of an EV helmet, but Carl gave his best effort anyway. “After all Mort just did … you can’t tell me that piece of junk took all that?”

  “Do lights and blinky things mean it was working?” asked Mort. It was an astounding observation on his part, on par with the time he managed to use the ship-wide comm. “Because it had things blinking.”

  “Let’s get Adam and Esper something to cover their faces to make a run for it,” said Carl.

  “… and speaking of things not working,” Mort continued. “I thought you were bleeding out your last drops just a few minutes ago.”

  “Ask Esper about it,” Carl said. “You three might be cooped up in there a while.”

  “Me?” Mort scoffed. “But I don’t—”

  “I offered you an EV suit years ago, and you didn’t want one. Time to live with that decision. Now get moving; air’s a wasting.”

  # # #

  The door swung shut and latched with a quick hiss of compressed air. They were sealed in. Mort slumped down into one of the four seats in the escape pod with a huff, folding his arms. He brought with him more of the smoky smell that had only started to dissipate as the pod’s life support system worked to filter the air. He harrumphed.

  “Looks like we’re stuck here a while,” said Mort.

  Esper nodded. She couldn’t think of anything she wanted to say to the wizard. She kept as far from him as the tight confines of the escape pod allowed.

  “How comes this thing still works?” Adam asked. “Just about everything else broke.”

  Mort scowled. “How should I know? Far as I can tell, most of this stuff shouldn’t work in the first place. It’s all plastic and wires and whatnot with tiny sparks of lightning chasing each other around inside. But then, that’s science at work for you; never makes a lick of proper sense.”

  “Don’t you go filling the boy’s head with nonsense,” said Esper. “Science works, and if you took the time to study it, you’d see how, too.”

  Mort waved a hand in her direction and looked away. “I’ve heard it all before. The professors, the researchers, the would-be science evangelists. They pull out Newton and Einstein and Hawking, and tell me those tidy little equations make it all work. I counter with del Braham, Miang, and Copperfield. It all goes round in circles ‘til everyone’s hackles are up and no one’s convinced anyone of anything.”

  “But science works,” Adam said. “I mean, there’s proof.”

  Mort shrugged. “Never said it didn’t. Just not my preferred modus.”

  “No, you prefer blasting things with fire,” Esper snapped.

  Mort chuckled. “Is that what has your snoot in a snit? I figured a science fanatic would approve. I took a big problem and reduced it to smaller pieces.”

  “I’m not a science fanatic,” Esper protested. “But misusing God’s power is a sin.”

  “I used my own power. God’s got plenty of His own,” said Mort. “And like hell I sinned. I saved all of us. From what I’ve gathered, you have a bit of your own.”

  Esper swallowed. She had hoped to avoid this conversation. “I learned that trick a long time ago, before I heard the calling. Even for good cause, it was a sin, and I’ll do penance for it.”

  “Long time ago? A long time ago your parents hadn’t met. You haven’t got a long time in you, period,” said Mort. “You saved Carl’s life, and you’re ready to throw yourself up on a cross for it. I killed nineteen people just a few minutes ago, and I’m feeling pretty damned heroic, if I must say. Which one of us has his priorities straight?”

  “Their priorities,” Adam said.

  “Huh?”

  “You presupposed an answer with the masculine pronoun,” Adam replied. “It’s a nasty trick. You asked a question with just one answer.”

  “He didn’t mean to—” Esper said, but Mort cut her off with a laugh.

  “Guilty, I admit. We could make a wizard out of you yet, boy.”

  Adam frowned, but that just caused Mort to laugh anew.

  “So how’s a sweet, spoiled thing like you learn a bit of magic, anyway?” Mort asked. “Your parents have retrogressive views on education, or something?”

  “I’d rather not talk about it.”

  “Suit yourself,” Mort replied. “But we’ve got nothing to do but wait out the repairs, and if Carl’s in a helpful mood, it might be a while. If you ignore the boy, you could even consider it confession. Not like you’re going to find a more sympathetic soul when it comes to magic.”

  “Confession isn’t about sympathy; it’s about compassion and understanding the temptation of sin, and the cleansing of the so
ul afterward.”

  “There are only seven real sins, you know,” Mort said. “Convince me which you broke, and I’ll admit you sinned in saving Carl.”

  Esper remained quiet. He was baiting her. Wizards were devilishly clever by training and by nature, and Mort wouldn’t have asked if he wasn’t prepared to counter her answers.

  Mort leaned forward. “Did you know that Earth is the only world to hear God’s word and think he meant for us not to use magic? The Seekers have shown it’s all the same religion, all the same root, and yet Earth is the only place where you’re a heretic for practicing the ancient ways. Among Mriy’s people, you’d be revered. Roddy’s would consider you duty-bound to use that power of yours to help people.”

  “I’ve never met a Seeker,” Esper replied, hanging her head. “I was raised in the One Church. We didn’t consort with those sorts.”

  “You should,” said Mort. “Otherwise, you’re doomed to self-loathing and self-flagellation for doing what your heart tells you is right. A man who tells you he has all the answers is lying to himself and to you. A man who admits he knows nothing is a man you should turn to for advice. Whoever taught you that trick of magic was a proper saint.”

  Esper snorted. “I never thought I’d hear anyone called Tamra Dawson a saint.”

  Mort raised an eyebrow, and Esper sighed. “We were just kids, really,” she said. “I was fourteen, maybe fifteen at the time. I’d just gotten these.” She bared her perfect white teeth in neither a smile nor a snarl. “Mine weren’t straight, and even if they got straightened, they weren’t shaped just right. My mother had them replaced with ceramite implants. They only let me use painkillers the first few days, but the pain lasted weeks. Tamra’s parents were the same way with her; she’d gone in for more upgrades and adjustments than I ever had. She’d picked up this trick, you see—never told me where. It speeds up your body’s own healing. I didn’t even realize it was magic at first; I just thought it was one of those hokey ancient get-well-by-thinking-well mantras. But it worked. I got good at it. I’d come back from the cosmo half patched up—natural healing’s supposed to make the results look smoother. Next day, I’d be fine, but I’d eat my way through a week’s meals.”