Star-Born Mage

by David Estes

  He pressed the button and slipped inside, his large eyes easily able to see in the darkness, glossy with night shine. The door closed, and he faced the hyperdrive.

  He cracked his knuckles and then got to work.

  Chapter 32

  Sabotage

  “What’s taking so long?” Dacre asked, growing more anxious by the second. He didn’t want to spend another minute in this godstar system, especially now that he understood the raw power wielded by the Gremolins. If they changed their minds and wanted their weapon back, all they’d need to do is form a glyph in the dirt with their bodies inside their creepy mage circle and they could hurtle entire mountains at their star-rig. Then again, after the last powerful spell they’d conjured, he suspected they might need to rest for a long time.

  Kukk’uk clicked out a rebuke. Patience! The hyperdrive is charging. A rig isn’t a toy. A few more minutes and we’ll be ready to jump.

  Dacre sighed and turned away, once more inspecting the strange weapon. Anything to take his mind off his conversation with Vee. He couldn’t help replaying it in his head, however. She’d distracted him, allowing Miranda to gain a position of strength, preventing them from lifting off. But then…

  She helped us. He’d watched it all in the viewscreen, how Vee had fired a spell at Miranda and given them just enough time to lift off and escape.

  Why? Now Dacre was analyzing everything she’d said, whether any of it was true or just meant to keep him talking. If so, why would she help them in the end?

  He feared for her, too. Miranda was not a woman to be trifled with, as he’d learned himself. That was one of the main reasons he’d made only half-hearted attempts to reunite with Vee after their fallout. For her own protection.

  Fat lot of good that did, he thought. Despite his efforts, she was in more danger than she probably understood, practically sharing a bed with a venomous viper.

  She can take care of herself, he thought, simultaneously realizing he was still lost in his own thoughts and that Clay Coffee was staring at him.

  “What?” Dacre said.

  Coffee shook his head. “I asked you a question.”

  “Can you repeat it?”

  “I already did. Three times.”

  “Sorry. I’ve got a lot on my mind.”

  Coffee flicked a surreptitious glance toward General Kukk’uk, who was watching the hyperdrive’s progress on the screen. 88%...89%... “Like what?” Coffee lowered his voice such that only Dacre would be able to hear it. “Saving the world?”

  “Shh,” Dacre said.

  Coffee chuckled and made a face that Dacre thought said, Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with me.

  “Why are you still here anyway?” Dacre asked.

  “To ensure you don’t cheat me. Trillions of Vectors, remember? A deal is a deal.”

  Dacre sensed something off in the man’s tone. That’s when he remembered the path of the Grem’s massive spell. “Look, I’m sorry about the asteroid field. I know it was your—”

  “Livelihood? Home? It was a prison. An addiction. Its destruction was good for the galaxy. And for me. I only wish I could’ve warned all those people.”

  Despite the certainty in the man’s words, Dacre sensed the falsehood. “So you’re not just here for the money?”

  “What? I can’t be a hero too?”

  “You’re homeless.”

  “That has no bearing on my decision. Well, maybe a little.”

  Dacre managed a chuckle. Although he knew Coffee was the scoundrel of all scoundrels, he quite enjoyed his company. It was sure as Hole better than the Cir’u’non, except maybe General Kukk’uk. “You’ll get your Vectors. I promise you. Enough to build a whole new asteroid field with a defense system that will keep Alliance inspectors out for eons to come.”

  Coffee opened his mouth to respond, but clamped it shut when the rig made a strange sound, a clank clank clank that drew a curse from Kukk’uk. The hyperdrive image on the status screen now showed 0% with the word “MALFUNCTION” flashing in bright red letters.

  “What happened?” Dacre asked.

  I don’t know, Kukk’uk clicked. But it’s not good. He twisted the ropes into auto-pilot position and then stepped down from the pedestal. Dacre and Coffee followed him from the control room and down the corridor to the engine block. The door opened soundlessly, darkness spilling from inside. Kukk’uk switched on the lights with one of her claws and clicked something that Dacre’s implant couldn’t translate but which sounded like a curse.

  Smoke curled up from the hyperdrive, which was a mess of severed wires and mangled mechanisms.

  “That’s a Hole of a malfunction,” Coffee noted.

  It’s no malfunction, Kukk’uk clicked. This is sabotage. We have an intruder in our midst.

  Chapter 33

  Spell it out for me

  After helping Minnow to the med-bay so the med-bot could get to work, Vee made her way into the control room to find Frank.

  Empty. The control ropes were covered in cat fur, but there was no feline wizard in residence.

  He’s a cat, Vee thought. Cats like to sleep. He’s probably on one of the beds.

  She checked. He wasn’t.

  Just as she was heading back to the control room to conduct a more thorough search, Miranda stormed up the gangway. There was a hole burned in her outerwear, tinged purple around the edges. “You bitch!” she said, murder in her eyes.

  She tried to grab Vee, but she twisted away, hooking a leg behind the woman’s knee and using her momentum to slam her to the ground. Face to face with the Centaurian, she said, “I’m really not in the mood.”

  “We had him,” Miranda said, her lips contorting into a snarl. “And you let him get away. No, worse than that. You helped him. You’ve doomed us all.”

  “Have I?” Vee said.

  Miranda frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  Vee shoved off her and rose to her feet. “Dacre implied you’ve been lying to me.”

  “And you believe him?”

  Vee didn’t believe anyone. Well, except Minnow and Terry. And Terry was somewhere in space, their only hope left to catch up with Dacre and the Jackals. “I didn’t say that. But I don’t believe you either.”

  “I told you—”

  “I know what you told me. But you’ve also lied to me a dozen times in my life, most of them recently. You’ve been using me from the start, do you deny it?”

  “Yes. Well, no.” Miranda’s tone softened. “I know I’ve done bad things. But for the right reasons. I swear it on the godstars.”

  “Not on your precious mothership? The Demonstrous?”

  Miranda hung her head. “Once, yes. Not anymore. I’m not that person anymore.”

  “I should send you out an airlock, but you’d only land in the dirt. I can’t find our damn pilot.” Vee strode away, back toward the control room. She heard Miranda give chase.

  “Vee…”

  “Stop. I need to think. And I need to find Frank Stallone.”

  In the control room, she searched the nooks and crannies, anywhere a cat might curl up for a long sleep. Thankfully, Miranda helped her silently. They met back in the middle of the room, scratching their heads. “The bunks?” Miranda said.

  “Already checked. And the med-bay only has Minnow and the bot.”

  “Ask the A.I.”

  Vee felt foolish for not thinking of it herself. The starship was in rest mode, but a simple command to, “Wake up, Layla,” caused the screens to flash on and the control ropes to glow blue.

  “Where’s Frank?” she asked.

  Howdy, ya’ll. He’s here. He’s been nippin’ fer the last few hours. Nippin’ and nappin’.

  “What the Hole does that mean?” Miranda asked, stealing the question right from Vee’s lips.

  Catnip. He said he was bored, so he raided his stash.

  “By the godstars,” Vee muttered.

  A groaning rawrrrr emerged from somewhere above, followed by a thr
oaty chuckle.

  Vee looked at Miranda. “The mage seat,” they said at the same time. Vee was the first to clamber up the ladder, peeking over the edge to find Frank on his back in the mage seat, stretching. His eyes were lazy and unfocused.

  “You’re back,” he drawled. “Took you long enough.”

  “We have to leave. Now.”

  “Humans,” the once-human said. “Always in a hurry. Gimme a few hours and I’ll be right as acid rain.”

  “We don’t have a few hours,” Miranda growled, barging in beside Vee. “Now get your mangy cat ass to the control ropes before I throw you there by your tail.”

  Frank winced, snapping onto all fours. His eyes weren’t focused exactly, but they were sharper now, his retinas shrinking. “Tell me what happened.”

  Vee glanced at Miranda, then said, “It’s not important, we need to—”

  “Spell it out for me.”

  “Frank, seriously, there’s no time for—”

  “Cast the info my way.”

  Oh godstars, he’s making bad puns. Can this get any worse? “Frank.”

  “Vee.”

  “There was a worm monster. A big one. Lots of mouths trying to eat us. Minnow got chomped on. Now the big worm is dead. Satisfied?”

  “Was that so hard?”

  Vee rolled her eyes. “C’mon.”

  Miranda slid down the ladder and Vee followed. Frank jumped down with one leap, landing on all four paws and bounding away, retaking his position at the pilot’s controls. The engines droned to life a few seconds later. “Where’s Terry?” he said, looking around. “Got chomped too?”

  Vee shook her head. “Not exactly.”

  “Then where?”

  “He might be on a ship carrying a powerful Grem weapon full of Jackals and outlaws and a certain ex-fiance of mine headed for godstars know where, Hole-bent on destroying us all.”

  “Might be?”

  “Assuming he hasn’t been discovered and shot in the face with an aura-laced dart.”

  “You know what they say about those who assume,” Frank said, watching one of the viewscreens, which displayed the takeoff area set before them. From where Vee was standing, it looked to be about two hundred meters too short for a starship, which didn’t have the fancy vertical thrusters used by Dacre’s rig to blast straight up.

  “Can you turn around and takeoff in the other direction?” Vee asked.

  The A.I. interjected before Frank could answer. No more than a pig can resist a mud bath. The canyon’s width is shorter’n a line for a veggie burger at a backyard barbecue.

  “All you had to say was ‘we can’t turn around’,” Miranda said. She had her mag-rifle out and was beginning to take it apart for cleaning.

  We cain’t turn ’round, the A.I. twanged.

  If anything, the A.I.’s new accent was worse than the last, something Vee wouldn’t have believed was possible. “So what’s the plan, Frank?” she asked.

  Frank seemed to be playing with the control ropes, batting at them with his paws. Without looking at her, he said, “Strap in and pray to every godstar you know.”

  Chapter 34

  Caught

  Terry watched from the shadows. Not that he needed to. He could be caught in the brightest of lights and he would only become the color of light, fading into the background. His custom-made clothes, which were wired into his body via a port in the back of his neck that all Chameleots had implanted when they were seven, changed color with him. Only someone who knew to look for him—and how to look for him—would be able to spot him.

  Especially when he wasn’t moving. Like now.

  Still, the Jackals, with their clacking claws and restless wings and surly temperament, made him uneasy. For no reason at all, he held his breath. Logically, he knew his tiny exhalations couldn’t be detected without a special device used at political gatherings attended by the highest-value targets in the Godstar Galaxy. Still, he felt like every breath would give him away. When his chest grew tight, he slowly let the air out and then slowly brought some more in, holding it as long as he could.

  And watching. C’mon c’mon c’mon, he thought. Surely Vee and the others were airborne by now. Any moment they should breach Urkusk’s superheated atmosphere and enter the void of space. He waited for the rig’s warning sirens to blare to life, alerting everyone onboard that they were being pursued.

  Instead, all he heard were curses in three different languages as the crew members tried to repair the damage he’d done to the hyperdrive while others searched the ship. If he’d had more time, he might’ve sabotaged the complicated device beyond repair. As it was, however, he’d been forced to take the quickest approach: pounding it with a wrench and cutting each and every wire he could gain access to.

  Terry was fortunate the ship’s A.I. was a crappy off-the-shelf product that wouldn’t know it if he’d walked right up to the mainframe and hacked the processor.

  More cursing and arguing about the best way to reconnect the red wire or the blue one.

  Dacre Avvalon, who apparently had no skills that could help with the current situation, stood watching, his lips pressed tightly together. This was a man Terry hated. He knew the little girl he’d watched grow up before his eyes was now a strong woman capable of taking care of herself, but that didn’t change the fact that this man—who wasn’t a man at all, was he?—had hurt her, ripping out her wires and pounding her with a wrench much the same way Terry had destroyed the hyperdrive.

  The temptation was there now. He could slip in behind him, catching him unawares. He could wrap his long amphibious fingers around his neck and squeeze.

  He breathed in and out, sliding silently to the left, careful not to brush up against the magium wall and make a sound. Dacre’s back was to him, his hand casually resting on the mag-blade sheathed at his right hip. His thumb absently ran along the edge of the spellhilt, like a nervous habit.

  A step closer. Another.

  His target was tall. He would need to clamber up him quickly and then fall back, using weight and momentum to topple him as he squeezed. For what this man had done to Vee, the target deserved it. Not to mention his plans to fire the most powerful magical weapon the world had ever seen.

  One more step and then a leap. No one was paying any attention, their focus on the hyperdrive. The kill would be perfect. Over before anyone was even aware it had happened.

  Terry stopped, realizing what was happening. What he’d promised would never happen again. His training and instincts had kicked in so naturally he hadn’t even been aware of what was happening. He was thinking like a hired assassin, something he’d been in one of his many lives. The person in front of him wasn’t a person anymore, not Dacre Avvalon, not human or Centaurian or whatever he was. Just ‘the target.’ Something to be eliminated, scratched off a list so he could move onto the next one.

  Terry breathed in, the air doing little to quell the feeling of breathlessness that had come over him.

  This isn’t my choice to make, he thought. For he knew about the child. He knew this man was her father. If the time came, and Dacre needed to die, it had to be Vee who made the decision.

  So he melted into the shadows, his skin and clothes instantly changing color to match the darkness. A moment later, the cursing and grunting stopped, and one of the Jackals issued a click that sounded higher and more positive.

  Dacre said, “Status?”

  The human man who seemed to be the leader of the outlaws from the asteroid field turned and said, “It’s a temporary fix, but it’ll get us to Jarnum.”

  No, Terry thought. If they managed to jump from the system before Vee and the others could catch up, they wouldn’t know where to look next. He edged from the shadows, invisible, the pad of his broad toes noiseless. If he managed to sabotage the drive one more time, surely it would give Vee the opportunity to make her move.

  “That’s all we need,” Dacre said. “Are you certain you don’t want us to drop you off somewhere?”
<
br />   The other man laughed. “Like where? The middle of what used to be my asteroid field? There’s nothing here for me. Not anymore. The Grems made sure of that.”

  What is he talking about? Doesn’t matter. All that matters is disabling the hyperdrive.

  He crept closer.

  “Okay. Your choice. But if you’re vaporized in a magical explosion, don’t blame me.”

  Why aren’t they leaving? Terry wondered. The drive was fixed. They could make the jump.

  “I won’t,” the man said. “C’mon. Let’s get this beast the Hole out of here.” He motioned for most of the group to leave, except for two, a pair of sizable Bronzians, who he ordered to guard the hyperdrive.

  Terry almost chuckled to himself. As if a couple of metalheads can stop me.

  He crept closer as the others shuffled from the room. On the edge of his peripheral vision he noticed one who hadn’t left.

  Dacre Avvalon. And he was staring right at him.

  Terry frowned, tensing, but then Dacre’s eyes roved past him to the Bronzians. “You alright here?” he asked.

  “We’ve been guardin’ Coffee’s Alley for longer than you’ve been alive, kid. We don’t need you to tell us how to do our job.”

  Dacre laughed. “Fair enough.”

  Terry slipped between the overconfident guards, his fingers already reaching for the patchwork mess of repaired panels and wires. A few tugs and they would spend another hour doing fixes.

  Something flashed in from behind and then a weight hit him, sending him sprawling. His chin smashed into the floor, his arms too slow to cushion the impact. “Gotcha!” a voice said as strong arms pinned him down. “Terry, is it? The famous Chameleot barkeep? Vee always spoke fondly of you.”