Starcaster

by J. N. Chaney

  “Don’t look that fatal to me. You know, to the aliens and all,” Rodie said darkly.

  Streya just stared. Her narrowed eyes told him she was unconvinced. “A game?”

  Thorn waved everyone to the table. “A game. But not just any game. We need something to overcome a threat so vast and deep that only one power in the universe can vanquish it.”

  “I…um, I’m listening. I think you’re full of shit, but I’m listening,” Streya said.

  “Rodie?” Thorn asked.

  “Y-yes?” Rodie’s reply was nearly a squeak.

  “What kind of booze can you get me?” Thorn asked, idly.

  “What kind of booze do you want?” Rodie crossed his arms against his chest, showing Thorn that he was still defensive, but at his core, a hustler. Thorn respected that.

  Thorn clapped his shoulder. “That’s the spirit. Look, at a certain point in every unit’s existence, you gotta do something more than run and puke and snore. We don’t have time to forge bonds over years. So we’re going to cheat, the old-fashioned way.”

  “Go on,” Rodie said, head tilted in interest.

  “We’re going to get shitfaced together,” Thorn announced. “All of us.”

  “Ooo,” Streya said, catching on first. “Count me in.”

  “Me too. Be right back,” Rodie said, and he scampered away with renewed purpose.

  Moments later, he was back—out of breath, but triumphant.

  Thorn wasn’t sure how he did it, but Rodie managed to procure a gallon of rice alcohol so potent the fumes made Thorn see his dead relatives. After a cautious sniff, Thorn packed a canvas bag with the liquor, playing cards, and chocolate bars, then they headed to the medwing. It took some creative skill to find their way into the intensive care unit without being seen by the orderlies. Somehow, they made it even with Drigo bumbling through the hallways. Thorn had a sneaking suspicion he and Rodie had already shared a nip, but it didn’t matter—their infiltration was successful, if spiked with the occasional soft curse or laugh.

  Val nearly killed them all when they crashed into her room, until Rodie pulled a chocolate bar from the canvas bag. Her eyes lit up and she mumbled something about forgiving everyone around the first sweet, decadent bite. As she chewed, her eyes closed in the first truly happy look Thorn had seen in weeks. Years, maybe, given where he’d come from. When she leaned to take another bar from the bag, the tube between her ribs pulled hard, snapping medical tape away from skin still marred by deep bruises.

  Wincing, she pulled back and swore at Rodie in a language Thorn couldn’t identify—but they all comprehended the meaning through her tone. Rodie retreated, tossed the bar into her lap, and stooped to hide behind Drigo. Val filled her cheeks like a kid with stolen candy and then her face went still.

  “Rodie.” She held her hand out for him to come and hold it. “You know that I don’t blame you for any of this. It was an accident.” She pulled him in close and whispered, “Besides, I didn’t like you before you crushed me. Nothing’s changed.”

  They laughed together and Thorn could see the weight lifting from Rodie’s shoulders. This was how it should have been all along, but he’d been too busy finding ways to avoid the inevitable—they had to be a team, and he could either help stitch it together, or be part of the problem.

  And the war was out there, waiting.

  The card game hadn’t lasted long before they were found out. Val’s rattling cough had alerted the overnight nurses, and the bunkmates were sent scrambling through the door with dark threats chasing them. They weren’t reported, and as a result they weren’t given a punishment for the list of articles they’d broken—but two days training without sleep had been punishment enough.

  Even through the exhaustion and pounding headache, Rodie was holding his head a little higher than he had the day before. Streya appeared less neurotic. And Drigo strutted with his old swagger.

  Under every action, they all regarded Thorn a bit differently. He was known to them now. They were bonded, and they had a purpose.

  Thorn found his mind drifting even as his body moved through the motions. Despite his raw exhaustion, he was keeping up—challenging the limits of each exercise, even, fueled by depths he hadn’t suspected. He wondered if it was possible that he had finally adjusted to the physicality of training. That, or he was so dead on his feet that he’d lost all feeling in his extremities.

  Okay, so not unseen depths. Just stubborn as hell. That was good enough.

  After training their bodies, Thorn pressed himself against a smooth-barked tree and hoped for a few minutes of shuteye. His head nodded forward as exhaustion washed through him, arms and legs heavy, but a catnap wasn’t meant to be. Tuck’s primal growl snapped him to attention. He leapt to his feet just in time to see the blonde demigod of a man gathering a vibrant green glowing orb behind the ginger instructor’s back.

  Frantically, Thorn dove through the recruits, eyes a furious grey as dark matter materialized from the sheer force of magical will. Just as Tuck threw his orb, Thorn’s own shield spell streaked forward to blunt the attack—but even so, Burnitz was thrown forward into the climbing bars at the edge of the training course. The instructor’s body came to a sickening halt against the unforgiving steel, limbs bent at angles that no one conscious human could achieve. To Thorn’s relief, Burnitz groaned, rose, and shook his head slowly, blood spooling down his chin in a crimson stream.

  “Everyone freeze. Do not move,” Burnitz said. “At all.” A background hum of building magic began to fuzz the air around them, and the recruits obeyed. Even Tuck, who had the good sense to avoid eye contact with anyone at all.

  Narvez strode up without a word. The tension grew, if such a thing was possible, and the only sound Thorn could hear was a brave insect trolling for daytime lovers. Its call ended under Narvez’s booted foot as she pivoted in front of Tuck, inches from his face. “Dismissed, with two exceptions. Tuck, on my left. Thorn, on my right. March.”

  Narvez and her mechanical, long strides guided him to Commander Schrader’s office. Every step was intentional, the pace without any deviation at all. She didn’t speak. She didn’t move her eyes.

  In moments, they were standing outside the Commander’s office, and she still hadn’t said a word.

  Narvez rolled her wrist, knuckles out, and rapped against the solid oak door with the eagle claw.

  “Enter.” A muffled voice came from within.

  Narvez pushed the door open with that same robotic precision, then waved the recruits forward. Commander Schrader sat behind his desk. He pressed his thumb and forefinger into the bridge of his nose and said nothing.

  Lieutenant Ashworth abandoned his leather throne in the corner, choosing instead to stand at-ease near the Commander’s desk. Ashworth was, in some ways, a shadow—a cipher who existed to enforce Schrader’s will, and do it in a manner that left no room for mistakes. Kira was there in an opposite corner, but she too rose, moving smoothly across the room to grasp Tuck’s elbow while maintaining a look of such neutrality that she looked artificial. It was a rare moment in which Thorn had no desire to break the punishing silence.

  Beads of sweat prickled at Thorn’s forehead in anticipation. He could have been summoned to this meeting for any number of reasons, not the least of which being a suspicion of criminal collaboration. Attacking an officer ranked among one of the few unforgivable infractions. There were no deliberate codes set for collaboration of the offense, but Thorn was sure they would come up with a sentence equal to the crime.

  Schrader rubbed at his temple, giving a clear indication of the headache this troop had caused. “Burnitz, recount the events of this afternoon.”

  “Commander Schrader, sir.” Burnitz stood rock solid as always, but his voice was lower than normal. “Training commenced as usual. In consecutive sparring sessions, I disarmed Private Ander with ease, as he was not fully engaged or devoted to our matches. I placed the man on his back and instructed him to remain seated through the f
ollowing match with Private Rodie. I told the private that we would reconvene once his rear end was no longer sore and gave him the reasonable option to join his girlfriend in the medwing. At that point I engaged in self-defense training with Private Rodie and was hit with a blast from behind.”

  Commander Schrader looked up for the first time. “You did not see the attack?”

  “No, I did not, sir,” Burnitz said with barely repressed anger.

  Schrader directed his attention to Thorn. “Stellers, did you witness this exchange?”

  Thank the proverbial gods, they aren’t assuming collaboration. Thorn felt a ping of guilt at his relief while Tuck still awaited his fate. “Not entirely, sir.”

  The Commander steepled his fingers. “I implore you to be truthful, Private Stellers. The charge for omittance is just as heavy as it would be for deceit.”

  Maybe he wasn’t completely out of the ringer. “Commander, sir. I was…inattentive…at the beginning of this exchange. I did witness Private Ander cast toward Instructor Burnitz.”

  “And you are certain that Private Ander was the caster?”

  “Yes, I am certain.” There were no two ways around it, and Thorn hated himself for speaking against his bunkmate.

  Schrader nodded in acknowledgment and turned to Tuck. “Do you deny these charges, Private Tuck Ander?”

  Tuck set his jaw. “No, Commander, I do not deny the charges. I—Burnitz, he stepped outside of his rights and attacked me as a human. As a man.”

  Schrader’s voice boomed as he rose from his seat and loomed above the tall man. “You have not earned your manhood, Private. You certainly, with this display of stunning idiocy, have not proven to me that you’re a human, let alone a mage.”

  Thorn recognized danger when it was near, even if the Commander wasn’t yelling. He didn’t have to. A storm was gathering, right there in that room.

  The Commander’s features softened. “Were you given the chance to review your new recruit handbook, Ander?”

  “Sir?”

  “Your new recruit handbook. Were you given a chance to review this material?”

  “The pamphlet we were given upon arrival at Code Nebula?” Tuck’s Naunetian accent struggled through the soft vowels of ‘Code Nebula.’

  “Yes, Ander, the pamphlet.” Schrader sighed in frustration. Tuck wasn’t the brightest recruit, but what he lacked in intelligence he made up in heart. He’d had no other dream from the day he took his first steps than to become a soldier in the Orbital Naval Forces.

  “I was given a pamphlet, sir. I am not certain if I read it.”

  “Lieutenant Narvez, recite the punishable offenses, page six, number four.” The Commander lowered himself into his seat once again. He pulled open a hidden drawer and removed a bottle of liquor with a glass. His fingers held it lightly, the bottle swaying with inertia as the liquor moved. The bottle was nearly full and sparkled with dust. A rare event that it left his desk drawer at all.

  Narvez looked pleased to be faced with an answer she could provide without hesitation, given the legal and moral quandary before her. She projected her voice as though they weren’t all confined in the same office with the door shut. “Commander, the section reads: ‘a soldier shall not strike an officer outside of designated combat training.’”

  “Oh, yes. I know the punishable offenses, sir. These are reviewed nightly.” Tuck pulled his arm against Kira’s hand. His nerves were making their presence known.

  “And do these punishable offenses clarify that a soldier shall not strike an officer unless said officer has insulted his humanity, or, if we’re being truly archaic, his manhood?” Schrader waited longer than a Commander should for a response.

  “No, sir, they do not.”

  “Narvez, what is the sentence for committing the crime of striking an officer?” Schrader poured the liquid amber into the glass and held it up to his face in open admiration, and perhaps, under it all, a touch of resigned dread.

  This time, Narvez was more subdued in her response. “The crime of striking an officer is punishable by hanging. Sir.”

  Tuck tore his arm away from Kira and faced Narvez, his mouth hanging open as he struggled to find words in the common tongue. His shock was so complete, so instantaneous, that his next statement was a burble of harried Naunetian, the words slurred together in horror.

  Burnitz’s head hung so low that his newly trimmed beard rested against his chest. Thorn saw a pain in his eyes he hadn’t thought existed in the hard-set instructor. It was—

  No, not pain, Thorn knew. The man was angry at the waste of it all. Not at the attack. It was a senseless waste.

  Tuck surged toward Burnitz, red-faced with fury. Kira and Narvez scrabbled to cling to his massive arms and held him mere inches away from the weapons instructor. Burnitz kept his chin tucked and eyes down, which only seemed to make Tuck nearly incandescent with rage.

  “You! This is your fault! I will not go to the gallows for another man’s faults!” Tuck spat in the tongue that they could all understand.

  Schrader sipped from his glass and waved consent to Lieutenant Ashworth. The sullen officer lifted his hand in the air, and Tuck was suddenly suspended within a cloak of energy, the curling wisps of magic lithely wrapping him in an instant.

  The Commander stood. “Luckily for you, Ander, despite your inappropriate outburst in the presence of a Camp Commander, the ON is still learning to grow with the addition of the Starcasters. And there is some measure of truth to your words.”

  “What does this mean, Commander?” Tuck regained the ability to speak, sensing something other than death was possible—if he could find some measure of control.

  “It means that the glossary of naval terms defines ‘strike’ as the laying on of hands or attack with physical weaponry.” Schrader drained his glass, then leaned forward against the desk. “It does not currently define magic as a strike. It is only because of this that we have the option for a small amount of lenience. Naval law is unflinching in the eye of insubordination, and when such insubordination includes a direct attack on a naval officer, there is no option for a reduced sentence. This play on words allows us to sidestep the current law. When my hand in this is found out, the law will be rewritten, and you will be to blame. The next time someone is executed for stupidity of your flavor, it will be done under the aegis of Tuck’s Law. Congratulations. You don’t die today.” Schrader glanced at the clock overheard and added, “Yet. The day’s young.”

  Tuck calmed, but that peace was replaced by the reality of his actions—and just how close he’d come to death. As his body began to slough away adrenaline, he gave a single nod of thanks to Schrader. In that instant, Ashworth released the spell, allowing Tuck to land easily on his feet.

  Then Tuck staggered, his legs betraying him, if only for a second.

  Schrader tilted his head down, shoulders lowering almost imperceptibly.

  “Thank you, sir, I—” Tuck began.

  “Don’t thank me just yet. We’re not done,” Schrader said.

  Tuck noticed he hadn’t been addressed by anything other than his name. The realization flickered over his features, caught by everyone in the room.

  Especially Schrader.

  “You will submit yourself to depletion and are hereby discharged dishonorably from the Orbital Navy Starcasters.” Schrader’s sentencing resulted in a collective gasp. Even Ashworth betrayed emotion, if only for a fleeting moment. Schrader flicked his wrist for Tuck to be removed from his chamber. Kira and Narvez escorted the depleted man from the room.

  Thorn had begun to follow them when Schrader addressed him. “Stellers, you will take accountability for Private Ander’s reporting to the medwing for his sentence. And Burnitz, the soldier was not incorrect. This young man’s life is worthless now, thanks to you.”

  “Yes, Commander. This is my fault. I should have done more to—to shape these recruits before I built their strength. I saw the power they have, and a part of me felt an excitement I haven
’t experienced since my days in the field.”

  Thorn wondered when the right time would be to slip out the door as Schrader walked from behind his desk to stand directly in front of the instructor.

  “Are you losing your edge, soldier?” Schrader asked.

  Thorn stared at the wall ahead of him. He wished he could drown the sound out entirely.

  “I may be, sir,” Burnitz admitted.

  “You’re the finest weapons master I’ve had the pleasure of laying eyes on in the field of battle, Caleb. And your mental strength is unmatched. These are the skills our recruits need if they have any chance at survival against the Nyctus. You know exactly what will happen if they wield their power before they are broken. If they truecast before they are forced to rebuild themselves—they can’t. Do you understand? They’ll cook off from the power of unbridled magic, and we don’t really know what the hell will happen. We don’t have data, or history, or even a good guess as to what we’re crafting, here. So, I repeat—do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir, I do.” Burnitz took a deep breath. “Which is why I would like to request a transfer to Camp Xeron, sir. I can teach weapons history to the intel troops and serve my purpose there.”

  “Caleb, there is no other cadre I would trust to mold my battalion than you. You are what these soldiers need if they have any hope of survival. So if you care for these privates, you will shape them in the way they must be—or we’ll lose this war before it truly begins.” Schrader turned to face the wall that Thorn had been studying as if it held the secrets to universal peace. “Dismissed.”

  Burnitz avoided locking eyes with Thorn as they both retreated from the office.

  Thorn found Tuck sitting, lifeless, on the edge of his bunk. He pulled the golden-haired man up by his elbow and shook his limp hand before escorting him to the medwing to report for his depletion. Even the word sounded like a violation—which it was.

  “Why am I here, sir?” Thorn asked an officer he didn’t know. The man was so blandly average, he may as well have been wearing a sign that declared him to be naval intelligence.