“You enjoy poking the beast a bit too much,” said Crivreen. The commander hated being on the screen before all the crew, but I wanted everyone to hear what he had to say. I refused to accept his arrogance and lack of respect for my crew.
“Hello,” I said as he came on the screen.
“Where have you been?” he demanded.
“Around and about, handling another mission,” I said.
“For whom? I didn’t authorize any missions!” he exclaimed.
“This wasn’t for Phareon. Now, do you want to tell us about this mission or should we go on our way?”
“As special agents, you report to me; but we’ll deal with that later. Dock, and the station staff will get you loaded up. As soon as you’ve restocked, you’ll join with one of our fleets for immediate departure. They can get you to the target in two jumps.”
“What exactly is the mission?” I asked.
“The fleet will stop within one jump of the station and stay there. You will jump in and find out what’s going on. The setup is the same as before: this station is a secure military facility which was well-defended and suddenly stopped communicating with us. A team of five magi were sent in, but haven’t been heard from since,” he said.
“What was on the station?” I asked.
“Top secret weapons research. Do you think the necromancer could have returned?”
“No. Even if he could, he wouldn’t come out here. The Wizard Kingdom has become active in this area, and he was here to hide from them. No, if he is active again it’s elsewhere. This must be a new threat.”
“Very well. Obviously we’d like to have the station back, but the primary objective is to identify this new threat and deal with it.”
“Understood,” I said and wrapped up the conversation. “Crivreen, has Raquel called Hospital Station yet?”
“Yeah. I helped them set up an encrypted channel once we were in range,” he said.
“Okay, see to the reloading. I’m going to get an update,” I said.
I found Raquel, Marcus and Purwryn in sick bay. I hesitated, feeling that it wasn’t my place to barge in; however, before I could leave Raquel called me in.
“Zah’rak, they want to see Marcus for a full checkup,” she said.
“We’re months away and about to leave on a mission. How critical is it?” I asked.
“Zah’rak! Good to see you again,” said Dr. Hawthorne. “It’s not critical, but the sooner the better. Can you head here after your mission?”
“Sure, but it could mean months of travel for our little ship,” I said.
“When you’re ready, contact me and I’ll see if any friendly fleets are nearby,” he said.
“Will do. Oh, there’s someone you should meet,” I said, and then sent privately, “Shira, please come to sickbay.”
“On my way,” she replied.
“She should be here shortly,” I said.
“While we wait for her,” said a woman whom I didn’t recognize, “did you get the message about Resden?”
“Yes. As you probably guessed, they’re after Marcus, but we don’t know why,” I said.
“Dr. Leslie, Marcus has the full protection of the Wizard Kingdom,” said Raquel. “I’ll contact the Resden ambassador and tell them to stand down.”
“Okay. Is it just Marcus?” asked Dr. Leslie.
“No, Purwryn also, but he’s a citizen of the Wizard Kingdom with full protection,” said Raquel.
“I don’t envy you dealing with him, and I’m glad to pass on the task,” said Dr. Leslie.
Shira came into sick bay and said, “I’m here, what’s up?”
“Shira, I want you to meet Dr. Hawthorne,” I said. “Raquel, could you clear the room for a moment?” I sent privately. I wished I’d thought about this sooner so I could have prepared the ground.
Raquel seemed taken aback but ushered Marcus and Purwryn out of the room.
“Shira! It’s great to see you! How are you feeling?” asked Dr. Hawthorne.
Shira looked at me with obvious confusion.
“Shira, Dr. Hawthorne is the person who performed the surgery to remove your slave implant.”
“Oh,” she said, looking back at the screen. I couldn’t judge her feelings. Human skin is much more reactive than Zalionian scales, which makes it harder to read. There was confusion there, and maybe some apprehension; whatever she felt, though, I was glad she hadn’t run off right away.
I took my leave to let the two of them talk. Out in the hallway, I told Raquel what I was doing. “She never talks about the implant or the surgery, so I’m hoping this will give her an opportunity.”
“Why do you think she’ll talk about it now?” asked Raquel.
“Because Dr. Hawthorne will ask, and she never had a post-op checkup,” I said.
Raquel considered the matter and said, “Maybe they’ll talk, then.”
“Was that a bad idea?” I asked.
“I don’t know. It might have been wise to ask her about it first.”
I sighed. All I wanted to do was to see Shira happy again, the way she’d been for a little while in the forest. “Okay; while we wait, I’ll brief you on our new mission,” I said and told them what the commander had said.
“Why doesn’t the military just send in a boarding team to take the station?” asked Marcus.
“Because they’re afraid this might be like the previous stations where their boarding teams were wiped out,” I said, and summarized our earlier missions for him.
“Wow,” was all he managed to say. His expression briefly showed genuine shock but quickly reverted to a more neutral look, as if a picture had changed in an internal slide show projected onto his face.
“Why are we still working with him?” asked Purwryn.
Raquel turned back from watching Shira through the window. She said, “We haven’t told him yet about the new arrangement, partly because the Wizard Kingdom also has a vested interest in finding out about this station.”
“Do you think the necromancer is back?” asked Purwryn.
“No, but he’s not the only one from my era that I expect will waken. It’s too soon to tell, but I anticipate more sorcerers waking up and operating out here,” she said.
“Why out here?” I asked.
“When the wizards tore reality to end magic, the effect rippled outwards. Most magi fled ahead of the effect, hoping to find a safe place to wait out the spell. So all around the edge of this galaxy there are likely to be many sorcerers and wizards, those who managed to escape the impact long enough to slip into a timeless sleep as Narcion and I did, and I expect they will start making themselves felt soon enough.”
Shira came out of sickbay and smiled weakly at me. She said, “Zah’rak, they’d like to speak with you.”
“Okay,” I said and went in to see them.
“Zah’rak,” said Dr. Hawthorne, “thanks for arranging that meeting. Shira seems to be doing well, but when you bring Marcus, I’d like to give her a checkup too.”
“Well, sure - but isn’t that up to her?”
“Yes and no. She had an implant removed from her brain, which even in the best of cases can lead to impairment. Until we can fully evaluate her to make sure everything is functioning correctly, she needs a guardian to oversee all medical decisions.”
“And that’s me?” I asked.
Dr. Hawthorne nodded. “Yes. I assumed you had both discussed it already. We asked her and she named you without hesitation, and we thought it a good choice; unless, of course, you prefer to decline?”
“No, of course not,” I said. She was my responsibility, and there was no way I would hand her over to someone else. “Whatever I can do to help her, just let me know.”
“Excellent. We’ll look forward to your call after your current mission,” he said, and closed the channel.
Raquel came in and said, “While we have this opportunity for normal communication, I’ll
arrange everyone’s citizenship of the Wizard Kingdom and call Resden.”
“We probably don’t have much time left. Our Phareon handler is in a rush to get us underway,” I said.
“It won’t take long.”
“Okay, go ahead,” I said and left her to do what she needed to. I almost hoped it would take too long, so that I’d get the opportunity to defy the ‘good’ commander’s orders once more.
Chapter Thirty-Three
As much as I had thought I’d prefer to get away, it was good to be back with Zah’rak and his team. Sitting once again as the primary pilot on the Night Wisp felt like coming home. Crivreen had taken Marcus down to engineering with him, figuring he would make a good backup engineer to Crivreen. Zah’rak hadn’t give up any of his leadership when he’d joined the Wizard Kingdom, and Raquel seemed content to let him call the shots.
“This will be the last jump with the fleet,” I said. We had been traveling with what Zah’rak called a jump fleet. It was a group of warships assembled specifically to get us to the primary mission objective as fast as possible.
“Purwryn, lock in for jump as normal, but don’t use our jump drives at all,” said Zah’rak.
“Okay,” I said. Our mass was too small to matter on the scale of the fleet, so it was smarter to conserve our power in case we needed it. Once we’d cleared jump space I checked our status and said, “Zah’rak, we’re well within jump range of the station and well within detection range of the station’s sensors.”
“How much time until they see us?” he asked.
“We’re a little less than a light day away,” I said. While jump drives allowed space craft to travel faster than light, and jump space repeaters did the same for communications, there was still a very real limit on passive and active scanning. Jump space allowed ships and messages to skip over normal space, but scanning needed to travel through normal space in order to do its job effectively and was therefore limited by the laws of nature. That meant we would have at least a day before passive scanners picked up the fleet, twice that for active scanners.
“Good. They’ll certainly notice this fleet,” he said. “Check with them to make sure we have the most recent data and then jump in. Let’s try to stay ahead of their scanning.”
“Do you want me to try to connect to the station’s computers from here first?” I asked.
“No; that’s sure to fail, and I don’t want to tip our hand just yet,” he said.
I wasn’t so sure it would fail, but it would definitely give away our approach. When we jumped, we would go to the station alone. The fleet would hold back, ready to assist if we should call them. The Phareon government couldn’t risk having another whole fleet eliminated; their recent losses were just too great.
“Zah’rak, the fleet has begun an active scan of the station,” said Ragnar.
“What? How?” he asked.
Raquel moved to Ragnar’s side and looked over the displays. “Clever. They’re using the jump space repeater near the station to relay the scan signal.”
That made sense, since we had a fixed point in space to scan and not a wide area. “Then our hand is tipped.”
“No,” said Raquel. “They can’t know the origin of the scan beyond the specific repeater, and since it’s coming via the jump space network they’ll probably assume it’s from a Phareon fleet and not a lone ship like us. Heck, for all they know it could be coming from anywhere in the jump space repeater network. If it were me I’d assume someone close by, but who knows how they think?”
“Should we jump now and try to get ahead of their response?” I asked.
“No. Let’s wait for the results of the scan,” said Zah’rak.
“It’s coming in now,” said Ragnar. “It looks as if the station is fully operational.”
“That’s not good. Any indications of a fight?”
“Nothing in these scans,” said Ragnar.
“Zah’rak, the fleet commander wishes to speak with you,” I said.
“Okay, put him on screen.”
The commander was a Zalionian like Zah’rak but much older and his face was split in half by a large scar, making the normal hiss of a Zalionian voice much worse. “Special Agent Zah’rak, have you seen the scan reports?” he asked.
“Yes, sir. If it comes down to it, do you have enough firepower to take on a fully-operational station?” replied Zah’rak.
“No, and it will be at least a week if not longer before we can get sufficient forces out here to do that, should it become necessary.”
“Have you communicated with Command yet?” asked Zah’rak.
“Yes, but it will be some time before we receive a reply. What are your plans?” he asked.
“Unless we’re told otherwise, our orders are to find out what’s going on. We can’t do that from here, so we’ll continue as planned.”
“Understood. Good luck, and let us know if we can help,” said the fleet commander.
When they had wrapped up the call, Zah’rak turned to me and asked, “What are our options for sneaking up on them?”
“We can go in under low power, but if they are actively scanning the area we’ll be detected even if we turn the whole ship off. We’re not a stealth ship by any means,” I said.
“How did we hide from those pirates, then?” Zah’rak asked.
“What pirates?” I asked. I’d apparently missed a fight.
“That was my doing. I have a rune that causes misdirection,” said Ragnar.
“What does that mean?” Zah’rak asked.
“It hides something by causing anyone looking for you to look anywhere but at you,” he said.
“Interesting. So you’re hiding in plain sight, then,” commented Raquel.
“Exactly,” he said. “It’s very tiring to keep up for long because every time a person looks at you it uses power to redirect their gaze. It’s not foolproof, either. A person can consciously override the subconscious prompt to look elsewhere, and if they do they’ll spot you.”
“Would it work against the station?” I asked.
“Sure, but I could only hold it up for a very short period of time against something like a fully-operational space station,” he said.
Zah’rak thought about that for a bit and then he activated the ship-wide comm. “Everyone, meet me in the mess hall.”
Once we were all assembled, he brought everyone up to speed and said, “We need a way to find out what’s happening on that station. Any suggestions?”
“I could do it,” I said.
“What do you mean?” asked Zah’rak.
Everyone was obviously surprised that I’d volunteered. As Felix I never would have; it was too dangerous. But as Purwryn I wanted to start a new life, to be a team player and support this ragtag group who were my family now. “We jump in and use Ragnar’s cloak to hide the Night Wisp. Then I use my jump suit and fly over to the station while you jump out. In the jump suit I’ll be too small for their sensors to care about, making me practically invisible even if I wasn’t a magus, and I have plenty of experience with breaking into places.”
“I don’t like the idea of you going in alone,” objected Zah’rak.
“I’ll go with him. I might not be a magus, but I can avoid detection in my own way,” said Marcus.
“But we’ll have no way to get either of you out if you get into trouble,” said Zah’rak.
“I can gate them out,” said Shira.
“Don’t you need a marker or something?” I asked.
“I can use you as a marker. It’s a bit tricky, and I have to be quite close to do it, but I should be able to use your senses via a telepathic connection to open a gate at your location,” she replied.
“Since your range is limited, we’d have to stay in the area for you to gate them out,” said Raquel.
Shira was about to say something but Crivreen beat her to it. “I can solve that. If Ragnar can buy us even five minutes, we s
hould be able to get into the sensor shadow cast by the station and park on its outer hull. We should be completely undetectable there.”
“They would still see our jump exit,” said Ragnar.
“Nothing can be done about that,” said Raquel.
“So we jump in, disappear, and expect them to assume we left?” asked Zah’rak.
“What if two ships jumped in?” asked Marcus. His comment was met with general incomprehension and he continued: “We get the fleet to send a cruiser in with us; it jumps in, does a scan sweep and jumps out. If we jump in with it and hide, they should assume the cruiser was the only thing that came in.”
I thought about that for a moment. It was a clever idea, and not one I’d heard anyone suggest before. “That might work, if we came out of jump space just a moment ahead of it and cloaked right away. They would still see us briefly, but if we got the timing right they’d assume the second cruiser was all they had detected.”
“Ragnar, how fast can you cloak our ship?” asked Zah’rak.
“It will only take a moment or two, but I can’t be more precise than that,” he said.
“Okay. You work with Crivreen to get the best timing you can, and contact the fleet. Purwryn, you and Marcus get ready. As soon as we clear jump space, you go. That way, if we fail and leave you still have a shot at completing the mission.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Marcus and I were waiting in the airlock, preparing to deploy. The fleet commander thought the plan was brilliant and decided to send three cruisers with us, in slightly staggered jumps.
“Marcus, are you sure you want to do this? There’s a very good chance one or both of us could be captured or killed,” I asked.
“Purwryn, I’m a Cyborg. That makes me a bit of a superhero, and all I’ve ever used these parts for is winning bets and bar fights. It’s about time I put them to good use,” said Marcus.
I chuckled a bit at that. “I suspect you did very well in those bar fights.”
“Yep, at least until the police arrived,” he said, unconsciously rubbing his shoulders. “Those electrified clubs leave a mark!”
That they did, a mark I knew all too well. It was probably best that I hadn’t known Marcus back in my bar days. No doubt we’d have gotten into a lot more trouble as a team than we ever could alone.
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