UnArcana Stars

by Glynn Stewart

  Damien regarded the icon of the jump flare on his holographic map for several moments.

  “So, Mage-Captain Jakab,” he said slowly. “What’s the key to the Navy jumping out closer than the merchant ships?”

  “My lord?” his subordinate said carefully.

  “I’ve jumped a freighter with an amplifier from planetary orbit. Never tried it with a civilian jump matrix, but I wonder…like I said, what’s the difference?”

  “It’s the amplifier, isn’t it?” Jakab asked.

  “No.” Damien was one of the few people who could be absolutely certain of that. He was a Rune Wright, one of the incredibly tiny number of Mages who could read the power flow in a set of runes at a glance. That freighter he’d jumped had had an amplifier because he’d realized that the jump matrix and a full amplifier matrix were functionally identical, except that the jump matrix had additional runes to restrict it into only amplifying the teleport spell.

  Converting a matrix to an amplifier wasn’t easy, even knowing that. Damien wouldn’t trust anyone who wasn’t a Rune Wright to make the conversion, even if he gave them full diagrams.

  But the jump function of the two sets of runes was identical.

  “If it isn’t the amplifier, then what?” Jakab said after a few seconds of silence.

  “The amplifier is part of it. There’s an additional spell we can use to absorb some of the turbulence, and the amplifier will handle that,” Damien admitted. “A lot of it is power. The Navy, in general, recruits more powerful Mages than are generally found aboard merchant ships.”

  He smiled as his thoughts ran to their conclusion.

  “The biggest piece, however, is training,” he told Jakab. “We teach civilian Jump Mages that they have to jump that far out. It’s safer, yes, but not required.”

  He heard the Mage-Captain swallow.

  “Are we going to try and jump the convoy from orbit?” Jakab asked.

  “No. But we will jump the convoy before we are actually in danger from Wang’s missiles,” Damien replied. “That gives us time to play with. The risk of an unstable jump is less than the risk of a few hundred antimatter warheads. Don’t you agree, Captain?”

  “Having never made that type of jump with a civilian matrix, I can’t be certain,” Duke of Magnificence’s Captain said levelly. “But I trust your judgment on these matters, my lord.”

  “We’ll be underway as soon as the last shuttle is aboard, Kole,” Damien ordered. “We’ve now demonstrated that Wang can’t stop us leaving. Let’s see if I can convince him to see reason.

  “If we can’t…well, my first responsibility is to the citizens and spacers of the Protectorate.”

  Jakab was silent for several seconds.

  “I don’t like it,” he admitted. “Coming all this way just to leave with the food these people need?”

  “I hate it, Captain. But I can’t let Admiral Wang commandeer our ships and forcibly enslave our Mages. So, we leave.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  The Republic battle group was still hours away from being able to fire on Damien’s ships. They hadn’t even crossed a full light-minute of the six separating them yet. They’d have seen Glory leave and Damien hoped Admiral Wang understood the message that sent.

  “Admiral, I have received your message,” he told the Republic officer. “I have no intention of surrendering my ships, my cargos, or myself to the Republic. If you are determined to continue your unprovoked attack on a humanitarian mission, then I have no choice.

  “Since it appears I cannot trust you to honor a ceasefire, I will be evacuating this system in the next thirty minutes. As demonstrated by the departure of my damaged warship, you can’t stop me. All you can achieve today, Admiral Emerson Wang, is to aggravate the crisis growing on the planet beneath me.”

  Damien paused, considering his next words carefully.

  “What is more important to you? The point of pride and doctrine you’re attempting to enforce or the eighty million people on Kormar?”

  “Withdraw your ships to Baghdad, Admiral, and I will continue the delivery of our cargo. Once that is done, my ships and I will leave. There is no need for this to become worse than it already has.

  “The choice is yours. I don’t want to abandon Kormar’s people, but at best, I could leave another million tons of food floating in orbit while I retreat. If we are to save these people, I need you to let me.”

  He stopped, then gestured to Rustici to send it.

  “There’s nothing more I can say,” he admitted. “Either he lets us deliver our cargo or he doesn’t.”

  “If we leave, will we come back?” the communications Petty Officer asked quietly.

  “I can’t see any reason they’d withdraw Wang’s fleet.” Damien shook his head. “I can’t justify committing an actual act of war just to deliver food, Petty Officer.”

  He’d need at least two cruiser squadrons, and preferably a battleship or three, to tangle with the battle group under Admiral Wang’s command. It was possible that with enough force, he could convince the man to stand off, but most likely, he’d have to engage and destroy the Republic force.

  There were probably at least fifty thousand people on those ships. If the only way to save the eighty million on Kormar was to kill them all, he might have to do it. But he wasn’t even sure he could pull together that much firepower before it was too late.

  “Last shuttles beginning their approaches, my lord,” McQueen reported. “Five minutes.”

  “Ten before we’ll hear back from the Admiral, at least,” Rustici told him.

  “We’re underway as soon as the shuttles are aboard,” Damien ordered. “Everything after that is up to our Republican friend.”

  Engines flared across the convoy, fifteen massive ships bringing their drives online and accelerating out of Kormar orbit. Damien watched it all in silence, his hands resting uselessly on his lap as he struggled with the feeling of failure.

  He hadn’t heard anything more from Governor Motta. He hadn’t even officially advised the planetary government of what was going on. If Wang wanted to cause this disaster, he could damn well bear that burden.

  “All ships are online, matching acceleration of two gravities,” McQueen reported. “All vectors online; we are on course.”

  Damien nodded. Somehow, he felt this moment deserved his attention and his silence. He was about to abandon eighty million people to an uncertain fate and he wished he could see another option.

  “Vector change!” McQueen suddenly shouted. “Vector change on the Republican battle group; all ships are reversing course.”

  “Show me,” Damien ordered, rising carefully from his seat and walking to the hologram.

  The three-dimensional image flickered, zooming in on the five big Republic warships. All of them had flipped in space, massive fusion engines now blazing at the same force as before to reduce their velocity toward Kormar.

  “We wait,” he ordered. “Continue on course until we hear from Admiral Wang.”

  “Passing that to Captain Jakab,” Rustici confirmed, her voice quiet.

  It took only a few seconds for an image of the Mage-Captain to appear at Damien’s elbow.

  “Are you sure?” he asked.

  “It looks like Wang is conceding, but I want to hear him say it,” Damien told his subordinate. “A few minutes now won’t make any difference to whether or not we can feed Kormar—but it could make all of the difference when it comes to getting our people out safely.”

  Jakab nodded grimly.

  “Standing by for further orders, then.”

  Damien waited. Seconds ticked by as the Republican ships continued to accelerate away from him, but he needed to be sure.

  “Incoming message.”

  “Play it,” he ordered.

  Admiral Emerson Wang appeared in the holotank again, superimposed over his retreating ships. There was something…odd to his expression. He wasn’t smiling, his face seemed as grim as it had before, but
there was a spark to his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

  “Hand Montgomery, you must understand that my orders are to intern your ships and you specifically,” he said, his voice almost conversational. “You are high on the list of people the Republic wants to have a very long discussion with.”

  Wang paused thoughtfully as Damien considered his words.

  Had Wang received orders since Damien had arrived? If so, how? For that matter, how had the Republic known he was coming? Something wasn’t right there, but it wasn’t today’s problem. Today, Damien needed Wang to stand down.

  “However, I remain a flag officer of the Republic Interstellar Navy. I understand my duty as well as my orders, and my carrier group is stationed here to protect Kormar. That is my duty and my priority.

  “Since it is impossible for me to achieve my orders in the face of your movements and you appear to be holding eighty million citizens of the Republic somewhat hostage, I see no choice. My fleet will return to our anchorage.

  “As a compromise, may I request that I be permitted to reinforce the gunships stationed in Kormar orbit? That way, I can ascertain the security of the planet I am duty-bound to protect.”

  Wang shook his head and Damien was very sure now. The smile might not have reached the Admiral’s mouth, but his eyes were dancing.

  “That would also allow me to use the gunships as fuel tankers to deliver my fleet’s shuttles to Kormar, where they can assist you in off-loading the cargo.

  “I think that the sooner we get those containers on the ground, the sooner you can leave and the happier everyone will be.”

  He paused, then bowed his head slightly.

  “Well played, my lord Hand. Well played, indeed.”

  8

  Mage-Ensign Roslyn Chambers was tired. That had been a rather default part of the athletic redhead’s life since reporting to the Royal Martian Naval Academy in Tau Ceti two years earlier. Somehow, showing up with a personal recommendation letter from a Hand of the Mage-King of Mars hadn’t smoothed her way.

  Quite the opposite. Her instructors seemed to have taken Damien Montgomery’s assessment that she’d be an amazing officer as a challenge to make her the best she could be. That process had involved a lot of coursework, formal and informal testing, coaching and work.

  To her surprise, however, she’d met every challenge they’d thrown at her and earned the grades necessary for her current posting. Every cadet had an Ensign cruise, a six-month tour of duty aboard an RMN warship to see if they were cut out for the shipboard life—it came after the first two years of their training and before the last eighteen months.

  Most of those cruises, however, were aboard ships kept in the security fleets at Tau Ceti or Sol. Only the best students were actually assigned to ships the RMN expected to do serious work—and the destroyer Stand in Righteousness was on anti-piracy patrol.

  “Ensign Chambers, are we keeping you up?” Commander Onyeka Katz asked brightly. The destroyer’s tactical officer wasn’t a Mage, which meant the black woman would likely never command a starship. She was pointed in her critique, often brusque in her manner, and crisp in her dress and deportment.

  Roslyn had also watched her manage the destroyer’s weapons through a short and ugly encounter with a pirate ship a week before and had basically decided she wanted to be Commander Katz when she grew up.

  “No, ma’am,” she replied crisply. “Scanners are clear; there’s no one out here.”

  The likelihood that any pirates were waiting for prey one jump along the normal travel routes from the Nia Kriti Fleet Base was low, in Roslyn’s opinion. Nonetheless, right now, one Mage-Ensign Roslyn Chambers was crewing Stand in Righteousness’s main sensor console.

  She realized that the Commander had crossed from the Captain’s seat beneath the semi-liquid simulacrum of the destroyer to stand behind her shoulder.

  “Shipboard life takes some getting used to,” Katz murmured. “Time will help with most of that fatigue, Ensign, though I’ll note that actually getting sleep in your bunk is also known to help.”

  Roslyn flushed bright red and looked up at the Commander. Katz winked at her, then calmly returned to the command seat. Ensign Michael Kor was on an engineering track and serving in a completely different section of the ship. They weren’t violating any regulations—she’d checked.

  Her one turn in a juvenile prison had managed not to wreck her life, mostly thanks to Hand Montgomery. She damn well wasn’t throwing away her chance in the Navy.

  Her and Kor’s shifts didn’t align perfectly, however, and the Commander was quite right. They had lined up the previous night, and she hadn’t got much in terms of actual sleep.

  And instead of making trouble about it, Commander Katz had teased her. While still making her point.

  Roslyn had seen the woman in battle and in team-supervisor mode, and now she was seeing her in counselor mode. She shook her head with a smile.

  She definitely wanted to be Commander Katz when she grew up.

  An hour later, Mage-Captain Salut Martell entered the bridge. The tall brunette strode across the runed floor with a confidence that Roslyn could only wish she shared, and settled into the command seat under the simulacrum.

  “Status report, Commander Katz?” Martell asked.

  “One freighter jumped in about thirty minutes ago,” the tactical officer reported. “She’s one of ours: on the list of ships contracted to supply the Fleet Base. ID checks out, so I let her be. She’s about thirty light-seconds out, in any case.”

  “Nice, quiet jump point. That’s how I like them,” Martell agreed. “No sign of the regular patrol?”

  “We haven’t been here long enough,” Katz replied. “If we stuck around another half-day or so…”

  Nia Kriti was a key component of the Royal Martian Navy’s deployment near the Fringe Worlds. The cruiser squadron and attached destroyers there were the backup to a dozen star systems, and Nia Kriti’s Runic Transceiver Array was where any emergency message would be delivered.

  Any star system nearby that had trouble would send a ship here, and it would be reported back to Mars and the rest of the Protectorate. Since the Navy had over twenty ships here, it would be a rare problem the Nia Kriti base couldn’t deal with themselves, too.

  Part of that task was sending ships out on long-distance anti-piracy patrols, like Stand in Righteousness’s current mission. Another was sending ships out to sweep the closest usual jump points along most routes to the system.

  Pirates learned not to show up in spots like this.

  Roslyn was keeping her attention on the jump freighter half a light-minute away. There wasn’t much else out there for her to bother with, and carefully tracking the ship with her passive scanners was good practice.

  “Mage-Ensign,” Martell said calmly. “Come here, please.”

  “Yes, sir.” There wasn’t much else a not-quite-larval officer could say in response to the Captain. Approaching the Captain’s seat, Roslyn realized that Martell had set it in jump position, lifted up next to the liquid silver simulacrum that controlled the ship’s amplifier.

  She also wasn’t sitting in her chair, standing next to it with an almost impish grin on her face as she gestured Roslyn to the seat.

  “Take the con, Mage-Ensign Chambers. The jump is yours.”

  Roslyn almost froze. She was trained to jump a starship, but she’d only jumped warships in carefully-controlled circumstances around Tau Ceti. According to what she’d read, nobody let an Ensign jump a warship of the Royal Martian Navy.

  On the other hand, no one argued with a starship’s Mage-Captain, either.

  “Are you sure, sir?” she asked, very carefully.

  “Sooner or later, Ensign Chambers, you are going to jump one of His Majesty’s starships,” Martell told her. “At some point, you may even be required to do so under fire—or even into fire. Today will be neither of those things. Nia Kriti is a safe haven, with an entire fleet on hand if something goes wrong.”r />
  She smiled.

  “There is no better time to start getting experience in the real thing, Mage-Ensign. The ship is yours.”

  Roslyn swallowed hard and nodded. She stepped past the Captain and lowered herself into the seat. The chair adjusted to her instantly, invisible scanners adapting the cushions, arms and height of the seat into perfect positions for her.

  The simulacrum now hung directly in front of her, a fifty-centimeter-high silver pyramid that exactly duplicated Stand in Righteousness, right down to the barely-visible-at-this-scale scar where a meteorite had stripped off a line of armor two weeks before. As turrets and sensors moved in automatic patterns on the outside of the ship, the semiliquid silver of the model flowed to mirror the movements of the real ship.

  In a very real sense, the silver pyramid in front of Roslyn was Stand in Righteousness. Runes formed and disappeared across the surface, but she could easily see the spots on the model where the matching runes inlaid into her palms would go.

  “Calculations are on the screen to your right,” Martell told her. “Standard one-light-year jump. No complications, nothing strange.”

  Roslyn nodded again and glanced away from the simulacrum to her hands. Silver glittered in her palms and she clenched her fists reflexively at the memory of the ache when she’d woken up after getting the runes inlaid.

  They weren’t a tattoo. The runes were a two-millimeter-thick polymerized silver inlay, carved into her skin with a knife while she was under anesthetic. Waking up afterward had hurt.

  That was a year before, but the memory stuck with her.

  Taking a deep breath and unclenching her fists, she read over the calculations on the screen. It was as straightforward as the Captain said, but no Jump Mage was going to jump without being one hundred percent certain of what they were doing.

  Certain she’d locked the numbers in her memory, she laid her palms on the simulacrum and inhaled sharply as the magic flowed into her.