He spun it out in thin air, the molten metal warming the air of the room as he drew the pattern of his rune in silver and power. The liquid metal moved smoothly to the commands of his power, and then slowly descended over his arm. This was both the most dangerous part, and the most painful
The rune hovered so close the molten metal was burning the hairs on his skin. Damien took a deep breath, and squeezed Kelly’s hand back.
Then, as quickly as he could, he slashed out with his magic. Tiny lines of force flashed along the pattern of energy and silver Kelly had painted on his skin, and blood welled as he cut open his own flesh.
Before the pain could really sink in, he slammed the rune closed upon his arm.
Damien Montgomery screamed. Molten silver sank into the wounds he’d opened in his skin, cauterizing the wounds even as his magic cooled the silver, knitting skin around it. His entire arm was alive with pain, but he focused on the magic, cooling the silver, stretching skin, stitching wounds closed.
Then, suddenly, it was done. The heat in his arm flashed to impossible intensity, and then spread through his body in a tumultuous rush that took his breath away. Power filled him, a cascading, looping, growing sense of strength like nothing he’d ever felt before.
Breathing sharply, he controlled it. His new-found strength rippled through him, but he contained it. His entire body felt full of heat and electricity, but he damped it, brought it back down to something resembling normal – as if he would ever be normal again.
He finally opened his eyes, feeling sweat on his skin that hadn’t been there before, and met Kelly’s worried gaze.
“I think it worked,” he coughed, his throat dry.
“Well, you didn’t blow up and neither did the ship,” she replied. “Think that’s a win?”
Damien found a smile through his suddenly cracked and dry lips.
“Hell yeah.”
#
Mikhail Azure was not a patient man by nature. He had learned patience over the decades while clawing together the largest criminal organization in the galaxy by hook, crook and blood, but it was still a learned skill.
And he was fresh out.
The Crime Lord stalked back and forth behind his chair on the bridge of the Azure Gauntlet like a caged panther, his eyes daring any member of the crew to so much as breathe in his direction as he waited for Wong to finish his analysis of the latest jump flare.
Finally, finally, the dark-skinned cruiser commander rejoined him on the bridge.
“Well?” Azure demanded.
“They jumped three hours ago,” Wong said calmly. “I have the location, and they’ve been jumping every six hours, regular as clockwork, since our last brush.”
“Montgomery can clearly push a jump in five,” Azure pointed out. “Will we be coming out two hours flight away from them again?”
“We should be emerging at roughly ten light seconds, three million kilometers,” Wong replied. “I cannot guarantee closer except by pure luck. It will take us one hour and twenty minutes to close to a zero velocity rendezvous at seven light seconds to allow for use the precision kinetics.”
“And if they have another crate of missiles?”
“Alissa is jumping us,” the Hunter replied. “Jourdaine is standing by. If they pull that trick again, we will evacuate again. We have time, my lord – they are still a dozen jumps from any inhabited system.”
“I see,” Azure allowed. “And if they have some other trick we don’t see coming, Mister Wong?”
Wong shrugged. “I will have Monroe prepared and update a GOTH targeting plan,” he said calmly. “If it appears that we are in severe danger, we will destroy the Blue Jay. I presume you would prefer that to your own death.”
Azure glared at Captain, but finally took his seat.
“Very well, Mister Wong. Take us after them.”
#
“Here they come,” Jenna said quietly, the words echoing in the Blue Jay’s silent bridge.
David looked at the main screen as the jump flare settled into the disturbingly familiar sharp spike of the Syndicate cruiser. They’d emerged much closer this time, less than three million kilometers from the Blue Jay.
If the Jay had managed to have the lasers he’d purchased installed, the Blue Star Syndicate ship would have regretted that decision. Instead, all he could do was watch with frustration as the warship’s sensors stabilized, and it began to accelerate for the Blue Jay at fifteen gravities.
“I’d love to watch those bastards suffer an engine malfunction,” he told Jenna, his voice cold. “There’s a reason the Navy doesn’t push their ships to fifteen unless it’s an emergency. Engine failures make very pretty white stars, for a few minutes anyway.”
“Unless you’re counting on being far luckier than we’re used to, boss, I think we need to plan for a more pro-active response,” his XO pointed out.
David nodded.
“Hell, given the tricks we’ve pulled on everyone after us, I’m half-tempted to start accelerating towards them, just to make them paranoid,” he admitted. “It would get Damien in range sooner, and make them sweat.”
“Boss, making the guys with the multi-gigaton weapons sweat isn’t conducive to our long-term survival,” Jenna told him. “Let’s just keep running, and hope Damien knows what he’s talking about.”
The Captain nodded, and activated the intercom to Damien’s quarters.
“Kelly here,” the engineer’s voice answered.
“Our friends are here, Kelly,” David told her. “How’s Damien?”
“Asleep,” she replied. “Seems like the jumps are taking less out of him now, but he did just cut himself open and pour molten metal in the wounds.”
“We have an hour until the Syndicate is in range for their kinetics. Wake him and get him down to the simulacrum chamber – then get yourself to engineering. At this point,” he admitted, “I have no idea how this is going to turn out.”
“Will do, boss.”
#
“I swear, we missed them by minutes,” Medici told Alaura, pacing back and forth on the video screen linking her office to his flag bridge. “That jump flare is fresh.”
The Admiral was agitated and worn. Twenty two hours and eleven jumps out of Darkport, pretty much the entire flotilla was in the same state. Each jump brought them closer in behind their prey, though, and even Alaura could feel the excitement in the ships she’d commandeered.
Her own focus was on Montgomery, but she couldn’t help but agree with the pleasant buzz the crew was enjoying over the thought of finally putting Mikhail Azure down.
“If they’re that close, we should be able to catch them on the next jump,” she replied. “If Amiri sorts out their destination, how quickly can you jump, Admiral?”
“We’ve been cycling the Jump Mages hard, but not that hard, ma’am,” Medici said with a bright flash of teeth. “This close, we can jump as soon as the Hunter gives us a target.”
“Understood, Admiral,” Alaura told him. “I’ll be in touch.”
Cutting the intercom, she stepped through the open secret passage into the concealed chamber with the Star Mirror.
“How long?” she asked simply.
“Same as every other jump, Alaura,” Julia Amiri said bluntly, her hands and eyes busy on the three dimensional tank in front of her. “Give me an hour, then we can take a peek through your mirror and see what we can find. I want Azure more than any of your crew, trust me.”
With a calm nod, Alaura took a seat back at her workstation. It was down to time, and hoping that the Blue Jay survived until they got there.
They’d been tracking both ships for most of a day now, and Alaura could do the calculations as well as any of her compatriots. Unless she was wrong, when the Azure Gauntlet had left this system, they’d caught up with Montgomery’s ship.
“You’re a tricky bastard, Montgomery,” she whispered aloud. “I’m coming. Stay alive.”
#
Damien was too warm. In
the eighteen hours since he’d carved the Rune of Power into his arm, he’d been feverishly hot as his body tried to adopt the new levels of thaumic energy swirling through him. The painkillers he was taking probably didn’t help, but that was the only way he’d been able to sleep.
He wasn’t on painkillers now. He couldn’t afford the dulled senses as he watched the Syndicate cruiser bear unswervingly down on his ship and hoped that everything he’d done would be enough. His arm hurt, but the heat burning through him suggested he hadn’t failed.
“They’ll try close to seven light seconds,” David reminded him over the intercom. “I’d really like if they didn’t make it that close, Damien.”
The young Mage rested the runes on his palms on the blank spaces on the Simulacrum meant for them. The power of his new rune and the amplifier linked together, and he looked at the stars through the lens of the Blue Jay’s runes.
“I won’t guarantee more than eight light seconds,” he said softly. “And if I guess wrong, it might be enough for them to realize what’s going on – which I doubt we’ll survive.”
“Let them close then,” David replied quietly. They’d been watching the oncoming ship for fifteen minutes now. “You can take him? That ship is heavily armored.”
“I have no idea,” Damien admitted. “But there’s only one way to find out now.”
#
Time seemed to crawl as the Azure Gauntlet swept towards its prey. So close to victory now, Mikhail Azure was tempted to order Wong to pour on more speed. Of course, since the Gauntlet was now decelerating towards zero relative to Rice’s ship, that would have been counter-productive, but the almost childish urge ran in the back of his mind.
Instead, he gripped the edge of his chair tightly, watching the range figures drop and glancing around the bridge. Wong had pulled the same main bridge crew who had assaulted Darkport with to this shift for the attack. The petite woman Hu controlled sensors. The mohawked gunner Monroe sat at the weapons console, two separate firing plans laid out on his console, just waiting a command to fire.
Wong sat at the center of the bridge, and now Azure could be mentally magnanimous towards the Tracker. For all of the setbacks, the ex-bounty hunter had delivered Azure’s prey to him, and shortly they would return and complete the conquest of Darkport.
Almost an hour had passed since their arrival, and barely twenty minutes and a hundred thousand kilometers remained before they would fire on the Blue Jay and capture his prey.
Something shifted. He felt magic sweep through the ship, on a level he’d never personally experienced, and then felt the ship lurch.
“What the hell?” Wong demanded. “What’s happening?”
Everything seemed to move very slowly, and Azure knew what had happened. He could feel the energy rippling through the ship as magic ripped into the mighty cruisers antimatter tanks.
“We have a critical engine breach!” Hu shouted. “Containment is failing!”
Azure reached out with his magic and slammed a single button on Monroe’s console.
Behind him, the antimatter fuel tanks feeding Azure Gauntlet’s immense engines lost containment. Hundreds of tons of matter met its opposite and disappeared in a flash of white light and unimaginable energy.
In front of him, every one of the Gauntlet’s missile tubes fired. Fifty-two missiles blasted into space, seeking revenge for their mothership.
Azure had enough time to be certain the Go To Hell launch had succeeded, and then the antimatter explosion reached the bridge.
#
“Got him!” Amiri announced. “Stealey, get in here!”
The Hand was in the Star Mirror chamber before the Tracker had finished speaking.
“Give me the co-ordinates,” she ordered, but Amiri had already thrown them up in the holographic tank.
The Hand took a long moment to review them, committing the distances and angles involved into her mind before crossing to the Star Mirror.
Holding the location in her mind, she laid her hands on the corded silver frame of the runic artifact and focused her power. Energy ran out from her, the Rune of Power on her arm growing warm as it doubled and redoubled her strength, interacting with the Mirror to do what even by magic’s standards was impossible for most.
The silver cords lit up, glowing with an inner fire as the Star Mirror opened and showed Stealey the stars a light year way. The sensor behind her whirred as its scanners drank in that far away light and the computers conjured up an image.
The image was easily ten minutes old, and it was terrifying.
The Azure Gauntlet was closing on its prey, rapidly approaching the range at which the pirates would be able to use kinetic missiles to carefully disable the Blue Jay.
Alaura regarded it for only moments before making her decision.
“Medici,” she snapped, opening a channel. “I’m flipping you scan data from our destination – can you arrange the jump so we arrive in a tight enough defensive formation around the Blue Jay to protect her from a disabling kinetic strike?”
“I’m not even going to ask how you got this,” the Admiral said slowly. “We can – but we’ll need time!”
“Do it quickly!” she told him. “The Blue Jay may not have time!”
#
The Rune had succeeded beyond Damien’s wildest dreams. With its power flowing through the Blue Jay’s amplifier he’d been able to reach out to the Syndicate cruiser and enhance the Jay’s sensor returns. Locating the cruiser’s antimatter fuel tanks had been easy, and after that, a tiny spark would have worked.
The fireball he’d conjured inside the warship had been almost overkill – and yet hadn’t been enough.
“They’re inbound at thirteen thousand gravities, running on internal seekers only,” Jenna reported grimly. “We have three minutes, maybe less. I’ve spun up the RFLAMs, but they’ll be coming in damned fast. The turrets can’t stop all of them. They might get five.”
“Damien?” the Captain asked, looking at the Mage with a scrap of hope.
“If I do everything I can think of, I might stop fifteen,” Damien told him. Even with his new power fed into some of the spells he’d learned, there was only so much he could do.
“One getting through is enough,” David said quietly. “We’re going to emergency acceleration. Do what you can.”
Moments later, Damien was crushed against the tiny acceleration platform in the simulacrum chamber as the Blue Jay accelerated at its maximum three gravities. It couldn’t do much, but even the tiniest bit of evasive maneuvering bought them time. Precious fractions of a second could let Damien or the turrets take out a few more missiles.
It wasn’t enough, and they all knew it. Damien glanced at the intercom screen, but there was nothing to say. The three of them were the only ones with enough information to know they were all doomed. Even if he could reach Kelly, to try and say something – anything! – it wouldn’t be fair to fill her last moments with fear.
“I’m sorry,” he said quietly. “I tried.”
“You did all you could – hell, you did more than anyone else could have, and then some more,” David told him. “It’s been a good run, kid. I’m sorry we dragged you into all of this.”
“Came in with both eyes open, Captain,” Damien replied. “I didn’t think you were desperate for a Mage for no reason, after all.”
He laid his hands back on the Simulacrum and reached out with his power. He could start trying to pick off the missiles from here – might only take out a few more, but it was worth a shot. Any spell he could think of that would wipe more than one or two from space would wipe him out completely even now.
Pulses of coherent light began to flicker through space as Jenna opened up with the laser turrets, and Damien sank into the amplifier, flickers of fire lashing out into the emptiness around them. Missiles began to die, but only by the ones and twos – and the survivors grew closer.
At a hundred thousand kilometers, with the missiles barely thirty second
s away, Damien reached for the attack spell he’d used in Excelsior against the boarding pods. He might get dozens of them – but there were dozens left. And it was all he had. He reached for his power, and then –
“Jump flare!” Jenna shouted, and the white radiation flare of multiple jumps blinded Damien as the sky around him lit up.
Seventeen ships materialized out of nowhere – eight monstrous cruisers, each a match for the Gauntlet he’d just destroyed, and nine more destroyers. An entire fleet of Protectorate warships burst into existence around the Blue Jay.
Seconds passed, ticking away as Damien stared at the impossible ships in shock, and their sensors stabilized.
Then their turrets opened fire. The Gauntlet’s missiles died by the dozens: the salvo that had utterly doomed their modified freighter vanishing like ice in sunlight.
Damien stared at his screens in complete shock, and then a visual transmission popped up. He wasn’t sure if someone had overridden the Blue Jay’s systems or if Jenna had just accepted it without saying anything.
An older woman, clad in a black uniform and a golden chain with an open-palmed hand, stood ramrod straight, staring levelly into the screen.
“I am Alaura Stealey, Hand of the Mage-King of Mars,” she said calmly. “I am here to speak with Damien Montgomery.”
“We are not your enemies, but I will prevent you from jumping,” she continued. “I will board your ship with one companion. Please meet me in your shuttle bay.”
#
Alaura recognized David Rice from the case files from his encounter, long ago, with the Blue Star Syndicate that had triggered much of the current mess, though age had not been overly kind to the heavyset Captain. Damien Montgomery, on the other hand, didn’t look like he’d changed in the slightest from the photos from his imprisonment in Corinthian. Until you met the youth’s eyes, anyway.
Starship's Mage: Episode 5 Page 8