Mage-Provocateur

by Glynn Stewart

  “Now, I can get Mage Soprano and Mage Wu out of here, but they might be safer inside a DesSec station until the cargo is entirely out of Red Falcon’s hands.”

  “I suppose having you teleport back is out of the question?” Rice asked wistfully.

  Maria chuckled.

  “We could,” she pointed out. “But it would require detailed information on the station spin that I don’t have and time for the calculation.”

  “And Captain Han might object to our abusing her hospitality so,” Wu noted.

  “Oh, I know,” the Captain agreed. “I’m sending a team of Skavar’s people to keep an eye on you, but I think Mr. Caron is right: stay put until morning.”

  “At least DesSec will feed us,” Maria concluded with a sigh. “All right, boss, Mr. Caron. We’ll be good.”

  “I apologize for all of this,” Caron told them. “Money makes people stupid.”

  Maria nodded. It was almost nice, for her at least, to end up in trouble over something as simple as money as opposed to criminal syndicate actions or potential civil wars.

  She was realizing, however, that David Rice was an absolute magnet for trouble.

  Despite the thousand and one reasons they had to suspect something to go wrong, Maria and Wu spent the night in Captain Han’s district office without any trouble. The detention room wasn’t exactly comfortable, but they were used to living on starships.

  It could have been much worse.

  “I apologize for the inconvenience,” Han told them. “As I expected, SS has failed to produce a warrant calling for your arrest, and Mr. Caron has produced a writ of habeas corpus. Since I have no grounds to charge you, you are being released.”

  She waved a long-fingered hand delicately at the waiting room.

  “There is a collection of ‘security officers’ in my station who couldn’t scream ‘ex-Marine’ any louder if they were actually shouting it,” she continued. “I’m going to guess they’re yours?”

  Maria glanced past the police captain to the waiting room. The four troopers in plain fatigues were, in fact, Red Falcon Security.

  “Yes, that lot is ours,” she confirmed. A fifth individual was sitting with the troopers, she realized as she stepped out, but wasn’t security.

  Mike Kelzin wrapped Wu in a tight embrace and held the much smaller woman for several seconds.

  “Kelly’s keeping the ship together,” he told the two Mages. “She asked me to make sure Xi was okay.”

  “I’m fine,” Wu replied, but she interrupted herself to give Kelzin a fierce kiss. “It’s good to see you.”

  “I also have a note from the Captain for you,” Kelzin told Maria. He tapped his wrist-comp to hers, transferring the file. “I didn’t read it, but he told me not to expect to be going right back to the ship.”

  He coughed.

  “We have a shuttle standing by at a bay nearby,” he noted. “It’s not…one of the more dangerous ones, but we found ways to make up for that.”

  If Maria was reading between the lines correctly, that meant that Kelzin hadn’t brought an assault shuttle but almost certainly had brought exosuited Red Falcon security troops for backup.

  It could be worse, she supposed. Red Falcon had a full suite of boarding torpedoes, after all.

  “Let’s get out of the police station and see what the Captain has for me,” she told them, glancing around.

  She seemed to have acquired an entourage. The degree to which starship crews were protective of their Mages always amused her—even the least powerful Mage was more capable of protecting herself than the five armed crew escorting her and Wu.

  It was a sign, she supposed, of respect.

  Once they were away from the station, she opened the file Kelzin had bounced to her. It was a video file, David Rice’s face appearing on the tiny screen of her wrist-comp.

  “You can guess why this is being hand-delivered,” he said dryly. “It appears our Mr. Wu is being spectacularly paranoid. He refuses to do business over the system network and demanded that I not transmit anything to do with this deal.”

  Given that Wu was apparently under watch for smuggling—and was trying to smuggle gems out of the system—Maria could understand his paranoia. Even if it was a headache for them.

  “Of course, he can’t meet with me,” David continued, “as the Captain meeting him would be too obvious that there was something special going on.”

  The tiny image of Maria’s Captain shook his head.

  “But he’ll meet with you or Kelly, no problem, and…” He shrugged. “Kelly is more than living up to expectations, but I’m not sending her into this kind of cloak-and-dagger bullshit negotiation. Which makes it your problem, Ship’s Mage.

  “Address is attached to the file. You’re expected.”

  The message ended. There were some text details on what Rice was expecting her to negotiate—the fact that Red Falcon needed to take this cargo to Snap for their own reasons wasn’t something they could allow others to realize.

  That meant that despite the fact they had to take Wu’s job, they also had to be seen to haggle.

  Some days, Maria regretted ever agreeing to be a spy.

  The address Maria had been given turned out to be a surprisingly respectable-looking office in an upscale portion of the station. The corridors there were double-width, with upgraded lighting and murals painted along the walls.

  The occupants had probably been going for “welcoming” but most of what they were managing was “here is where money lives.”

  The scattering of neatly uniformed young men and women from a private security force didn’t help with that impression, even if they were being perfectly discreet to anyone who wasn’t feeling paranoid.

  No one interrupted her cavalcade as they arrived at the office with the tasteful gold plaque declaring it to be Wu, Lee and Wong Import/Export. The door opened into a quiet reception area decorated with heavy viridian carpets and carefully selected art.

  The young man behind the desk probably hadn’t been picked because his green eyes matched the carpet, but the subtly green-hued fabric of his suit definitely had been.

  “I am Carl Lee,” the youth introduced himself, implying, most likely, a relation to one of the main partners. “You would be Mage Soprano and…party?”

  “I am Maria Soprano, yes,” Maria agreed. “We are here to meet Mr. Wu?”

  “Of course. Zhao Wu is expecting you in his office,” Lee confirmed. “May I ask that your escort remain in the waiting room?” he asked delicately.

  “If you’re concerned for your personal security, realize this entire neighborhood is guaranteed safe by Platinum Cerberus. No threats will be tolerated to anyone’s safety.”

  Maria didn’t exactly trust the local mercenaries to protect her from the system government, but she also wasn’t expecting Wu to try and stab her in the back—literally or figuratively.

  “All right, people, have a seat and get comfy,” she instructed. “I don’t know how long this will be, but I’m sure Mr. Lee will be glad to make sure everyone has drinks and perhaps some breakfast?”

  The young man smiled, flashing brilliantly white teeth. “Of course. There is a deli around the corner; I’ll have them bring sandwiches for everyone.

  “If you’ll follow me, Mage Soprano?”

  Mr. Zhao Wu rose when Maria entered his office, bowing to her with an old-fashioned courtesy she’d rarely seen in her life. He didn’t look as old as she’d expected—he was, in fact, not much older than Lee on the front desk, which led her to an interesting conclusion.

  “I’m guessing that Mr. Lee is not the receptionist,” she observed as the door closed behind her.

  “Astutely observed, Mage Soprano,” Wu confirmed. Like Lee, he wore a subtly green-hued suit that matched the expensive surroundings. “We take turns holding down the front desk when important guests are coming through. It allows us to make certain we don’t do business with anyone at least two of us haven’t met.

 
; “And, well”—he made a fluttering gesture with his left hand—“it’s always educational to see how people treat the receptionist.”

  “So, did I pass?” Maria asked.

  “A middling B,” Wu told her with a smile. “Good enough for our needs of the moment. Tea, Mage Soprano?”

  Somehow, she got the impression that playing along with the exporter’s games was going to be a requirement of this job. She nodded and took a seat as the man puttered about, finding a pot and pouring cups.

  “You understand, Mage Soprano, that WLW normally deals with a very limited selection of shippers,” he finally told her. “We have reasons for that, but we now find ourselves in an unfortunate position of not having any of our shippers available…and having, bluntly, run out of time.”

  “Whatever your cargo is, Red Falcon can carry it,” Maria said confidently. She couldn’t tell Wu, after all, that she knew exactly what his cargo was. “And with antimatter engines and four Mages aboard, we can get it wherever you need to go faster than anyone else.”

  “And that is why we are speaking,” Wu confirmed. “But, as I told your Captain, this cargo has now been impounded for thirteen weeks. DesSec has failed to find any grounds to keep my cargo locked down and it has finally been released to me.

  “I want to get our cargo underway before they change their minds, and, bluntly, your ship is the only one in the system capable of carrying it all.”

  “Conveniently, we are for hire,” Maria said. “And DesSec has not…enamored us of them.”

  Wu chuckled.

  “I have heard. I hear you need to leave the system quickly?”

  “We could, of course, go to another nearby system and find a new cargo,” she said lightly. “While no one likes to run empty, it’s often true that no deal is better than a bad deal.”

  Wu chuckled again and leaned back in his chair.

  “We have a seventeen-point-five-million-ton cargo of raw ore destined for transshipment at Junkrat Orbital in the Snap System,” he said calmly. “There are an additional ten containers that will be loaded onto the transporting ship that will not be part of the official manifest.”

  “I see. Which means, I suspect, that DesSec was correct in impounding the shipment. Just what are you transporting, Mr. Wu?” she asked.

  “Suffice to say, not anything worth impounding the cargo over,” he said shortly. “This is a no-questions-asked arrangement, Mage Soprano. If you are not capable of meeting that criterion, then we can, if we must, wait for another ship.”

  She smiled, leaning back herself.

  “No need to be hasty, Mr. Wu,” she told him. She was glad that Ishmael had filled them in. Rice did not do no-questions-asked, but since they needed this cargo…

  “So, you want a cargo delivered twenty-six light-years,” she continued. A bit more than a three-day trip for Red Falcon. “You want it delivered discreetly, I presume, since you’re sending us to Junkrat, and you want no questions asked.”

  “Speed is of the essence.”

  “There is no one faster,” Maria told him. That wasn’t technically true—most Navy ships, for example, carried five or six Mages—but there certainly wasn’t anyone around to haul his cargo who was.

  “But for speed, discretion, and no questions asked…each of these things comes with a premium, Mr. Wu. As does carrying cargo that doesn’t hit the official manifest, since the cost for those containers is added on to the rest.”

  Wu winced, but made a “come on” gesture to her.

  “I can’t see us taking on this contract for less than five times normal carriage rates,” she concluded. That, on seventeen and a half million tons of cargo over twenty-six light-years, was enough to make her brain refuse to calculate the total number.

  The exporter exhaled, nodding as he studied her.

  “You clearly have some flex in that number,” he noted. “Especially since, as we discussed, you need to leave this system almost as urgently as my cargo does.”

  “Five light-years to the Carmichael System,” Maria replied. “Six point five to Sherwood. Less than thirty-six hours to either. We can run empty that long to find a good deal.”

  He chuckled.

  “You won’t find five times carriage rate in Sherwood or Carmichael,” he pointed out. “You won’t find that for anything. I’ll pay three point five.”

  She smiled.

  “It’s such a shame we’ve wasted each others’ time,” she told him. “My Captain doesn’t like no-questions-asked, Mr. Wu. We might be able to do four and a half if we knew what we were carrying, but to keep secrets like this? Five.”

  Wu studied her for several long seconds, seeming to weigh her with her eyes.

  “You’re aware we’re supposed to meet somewhere in the middle, right?” he observed with a chuckle. “You’re asking a lot of money.”

  “And you’re demanding a lot of secrecy,” Maria told him. “You know our reputation. You pay the price, we’ll deliver with discretion. If you don’t…” She shrugged. “How many ships does Desdemona see that can haul eighteen million tons?”

  “Fair,” he allowed. “We do see enough six-million-ton ships that I can get the cargo where it needs to be soon enough. Fine. Four, Mage Soprano. Not a penny per ton higher.”

  She smiled sweetly.

  “And you’ll tell us what’s in the ten extra containers?”

  They held each other’s gazes for a long time, and then Wu laughed. Years sloughed off his face, and she was suddenly certain he was at least ten years younger than her. The exporter had done well for himself in a relatively short time.

  “Four and a quarter, Soprano. No questions. I’ll personally guarantee there is nothing in those containers that will harm anyone. Sound fair?”

  Rice had actually authorized her to go down to three and a half.

  “Done,” she allowed. “If you can have your cargo aboard inside twenty-four hours.”

  The exporter swallowed, hard, but nodded.

  “We’ll make it happen.”

  13

  No one on Red Falcon’s bridge—most likely, no one aboard the entire freighter—was sorry to see Puck Orbital in their figurative rearview mirror.

  Kelly LaMonte guided the big ship out of the chaos of the wrecked world with the same skill she’d guided them in. Bringing the ship in had been terrifying. Bringing the ship out…

  Well, it was still terrifying. The fragment density was up about fifty percent, and even fewer of them seemed to be charted this time. Falcon’s sensors were as far above the norm as the rest of her, however, and that was enough for even a relatively rookie pilot to maneuver her way through the mess.

  Almost.

  The ship almost imperceptibly shivered as Jeeves pressed a button on his console, one of the RFLAM turrets spinning to fire three times.

  “Thank you, Mr. Jeeves,” Kelly said gratefully. She’d picked up the medium-sized, uncharted meteor too late to be able to avoid it without hitting something else. Fortunately, the gunner had been paying attention.

  “Part of the job, ma’am,” he replied brightly. Given a week aboard Red Falcon to slot himself into his new teams and remain freshly showered and shaved, Jeeves looked much less concerning to the XO than he had when he came aboard.

  There appeared to be a solid officer under the grime after all.

  “Can we flag the leftovers and pass them on to Puck STC?” she asked.

  Jeeves had the grace to look almost embarrassed.

  “Yes, ma’am; should have thought of that myself,” he replied.

  “Are you flying based on their debris charts?” Kelly said. “No. Why would you think of it?”

  She tapped the controls, flaring Falcon’s antimatter engines to drift them past a properly charted meteor.

  “But make sure STC gets the mass and vectors you left behind,” she continued. “Might save some other poor pilot an actual collision.”

  “On it.”

  Kelly glanced back at where David Rice con
tinued to hold down the command chair at the center of the bridge. If the Captain had any advice or comments, he was keeping them to himself.

  Most of her attention was on the debris around them. It took over two hours for them to be clear enough of the debris field to point the ship at empty space and engage the engines at full power.

  The gravity runes Mage Soprano’s people maintained smoothly absorbed the acceleration as the big freighter leapt ahead at ten gravities.

  “Clear of the debris field; now accelerating at full power,” she announced. “Estimate seven hours to clear jump space.”

  “Thank you, XO,” Rice replied. “You can stand down. I’ll handle the rest of the flight.”

  “Sir?” Kelly asked slowly. That wasn’t normal procedure, but Rice was smiling at her.

  “Kelly, your girlfriend nearly got arrested and kidnapped, and I don’t think you’ve had time for more than a quick hug since,” he pointed out. “Our visit to Desdemona has been a complete shit-show.

  “Go visit with Xi. She’s last on the jump schedule this time. Go. Shoo.”

  The entire bridge was grinning at her as she shook her head at her boss and rose.

  “With your permission, Captain.”

  “Get off my bridge,” Rice told her with a laugh.

  Kelly rapped on Xi’s door when she reached it, then paused. After a moment, she knocked again.

  “Who is it?” Xi finally replied.

  “It’s Kelly.”

  “Damn, sorry. Come in, come in! Door, unlock.”

  The verbal command unlocked the hatch, allowing Kelly to step into her lover’s quarters.

  She realized Xi wasn’t alone immediately, mostly because the Mage was basically naked and pulled her inside instantly, closing the door behind her.

  “Door, lock,” Xi ordered. “Hi, Kelly,” she added with a smile. The smell of candles and warmed oil filled the quarters, and Mike Kelzin was sprawled on the bed in a pair of shorts. “Mike was giving me a massage.”