Tech Mage

by D. L. Harrison

  Actually, they could, or they used to be able to. I was compelled to follow the NDA I’d signed, but of course trying to kill me had just broken it, and I’d make them regret it. How long had they planned this? I suspected it was Diana that put in the final nail by figuring out reactor production, they hadn’t needed me anymore, my last useful task had been to protect the general if the aliens attacked.

  I was also beyond furious, and I was imagining all sorts of ways to exercise my rights to self-defense.

  I was accelerating at the same rate as the shuttle, which meant I wouldn’t catch up to them for a little over five hours, until they started to decelerate for the second half of the trip. After they started breaking, I’d rendezvous with them very quickly.

  Make that intercept, rendezvous was for allies, interception for enemies, bastards.

  My skin slowly numbed, and my mind came into focus. It’d take a lot longer for the nanites to repair the burns, but at least the pain was gone. I’d have to leave the suit on for a couple of days at least, I’d need sleep, but I’d have an alternate power source in just under five hours at that point.

  I took the time to go over my plans that I’d made in the shuttle. Not that I gave a shit about protecting the government that just tried to kill me, but my sister, Diana, and I lived on Earth too, damned right I was still going to fight. Apparently, I’d be doing that without the dubious help of the United States.

  I had no idea what we might be facing, but knowing we had a month before we were attacked helped to work a lot of details out. I also had to adjust things, knowing the government would be working against me as well.

  The rage I felt cooled over those five hours, but not so much I wouldn’t see justice done. Or vengeance, whatever.

  Chapter Ten

  When I’d narrowed the range to the shuttle to a few hundred miles, they opened fire. The beam partially hit me, but I was flying at them superman style and presented a very small target, the shields absorbed the part of the energy beam that hit me.

  My suit had beam technology as well, but not nearly powerful enough to break through the fighter’s shields. I started to jig randomly, which was partially effective. It was very hard to target something a foot wide and two feet long, and I hoped they were shitting their pants as the range closed.

  As soon as I was within a hundred yards, my magic raced ahead and connected with the ship. The controls in the cockpit melted into the floor, though I didn’t cancel their deceleration they wouldn’t be able to fire at me anymore.

  I was pissed again, full on anger as the agonizing pain of five hours ago was revisited in my mind, and the betrayal of a team I’d worked hard for, even if I hadn’t fully trusted them.

  I also wondered if my death was the real reason Diana had been left behind, I had no doubts in my mind she wasn’t in the know, and I wondered what they’d planned to tell her.

  The ship sucked me in the same way I’d been sucked out, without breaching the hull, as the nanites moved to my will, and not the will of the pilot. I’d also closed off the empty cockpit, so for the moment I wouldn’t have to deal with Cassie. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I was going to kill her yet, I’d been waffling on it for the last five hours.

  Immediately the suit was surrounded in the fire of a powerful elemental sorceress, but my suit shields held. I lifted my hand slowly, and I fired an energy beam at the bitch. It also made me feel a lot less conflicted about vengeance, she’d immediately gone for the kill, pure self-defense.

  She screamed, her magical shields holding back the majority of the attack, but enough heat leaked through that the skin on her severely beautiful face bubbled and her clothes started to smoke.

  I did to her, what she did to me, and hit her hard with telekinesis, the agony of her burns kept her from deflecting it. The ship’s hull turned to what looked like liquid metal, as she went flying out into space. Unlike me, the murderous bitch didn’t have a suit.

  The general sat heavily into a chair, a resigned look on his face as I turned to him.

  “Why?” I demanded.

  The general scowled, “You’re weak, and you have far too much power. You allowed yourself to be coerced and worked with a twisted man just to save your own skin.”

  I laughed, but there was little humor in it.

  “Did the president order it?”

  The general snorted, “No, it was on my authority.”

  “So, you decided to kill a civilian, a citizen, on your own authority?”

  The general scowled, “National security.”

  “Do you know why I laughed general?”

  The general shook his head.

  “Because general,” I threw his words back into his face, “you’re weak, and you have far too much power. You allowed yourself to be coerced by me, into answering my questions, just to breathe a little longer. Turns out you’re just human too, huh?”

  The general turned red in the face.

  “Are you going to kill me?”

  I nodded, “Yes. You’re guiltier than Jemma was, you gave the order. Plus, as soon as I let you go, you’d use Diana and my sister against me, for national security. Let’s just say I’m going to set an example, for your successor.”

  I hesitated a moment, it was self-defense. I knew if I gave him a chance, if I let him live, he’d come at me with everything he had and from angles I might not even see coming. There’s no way in hell anyone would hold him accountable. I couldn’t turn him over to the cops, or even expect any kind of trial for attempted murder of the first degree. He was a general in charge of black ops, that just wouldn’t happen.

  If it was just me, I might’ve taken my chances, but it wasn’t. My sister and Diana would be drawn into it, not to mention the Earth would have a much better chance of defending from an attack in a month with me helping.

  I was merciful, he didn’t even cry out. It was over before he knew I’d even attacked, the pinpoint energy beam between his eyes switched him off like a light. Despite my anger, and self-justifications, I felt like I was going to throw up, and collapsed into one of the chairs.

  I sent my magic out to go over the rules and the download. There were hundreds of inter-stellar races, about half of them offered trade of some kind, the other half were isolationist. The rules of their sick game were very simple, exactly how he described them.

  With a thought, I opened the wall back up to the cockpit, and brought up the controls so Cassie could fly it.

  She was no threat, at least not at the moment. She could snap my neck in the blink of an eye, or mesmerize me by looking into my eyes, at least, she could do that if I wasn’t in my suit. There was no looking into my eyes, they were covered, and I saw through a display and her strength was nothing compared to what the suit gave me.

  “It was the plan all along, wasn’t it? That’s why you held me at arm’s length, no point in getting to know a man who’s already dead. It’s also why Jemma was so out of shape about Diana and I getting together, she feared the consequences of my death if Diana learned the truth.”

  Cassie tilted her head, “Yes. When the general figured out just how powerful you were, that data systems and technology were your bitch, he decided you were too much of a risk to ever let you go. Even on our team and under our scrutiny, you scared the shit out of him. Am I next?”

  I shrugged, “I don’t know, have I made my point? You need me, or do you really want to risk the world on what you all can build without me? Not that I’m on the team anymore, or what’s left of it. I’m going to borrow fifteen of the scouts, but I’ll return them before the month is out. I’m going to build some warships. I also have recommendations.”

  Cassie smirked, “I’m listening.”

  “Scrap the scouts, they’re worthless now that we know the realities of our galaxy and neighbors. The last thing Earth needs is anyone leaving our territory with a ship with weapons, the only society with scouts are the ones that came up with the game, to watch over pre-FTL societies. We should concen
trate on nothing except warships to defend Earth. If you combine three together and reconfigure them for the quarter mile sized warships, they’ll build out within the month grace period. Fifty small warships is nothing to sneeze at.

  “All warships should be locked down once their configuration is decided on, if you don’t go with cigars, so they can’t leave the solar system in case a captain loses it. I’ll be locking down what I build, not completely of course, but the designs for wormhole drives will be inaccessible and not built in the ship.

  “My second recommendation is we need to spread out to the other eight planets as soon as possible, it will make us a less appetizing target for those that might wish to expand their empires. It would be far more problematic preventing any ships from reaching the grays to report an infraction if we were in multiple solar systems.

  “My third recommendation is limited sharing with the rest of the world. We don’t have time for world war three anymore, the human race can’t afford it, or an imbalance of power between nations. We also have eight new planets to split up, that should satisfy most sane people.

  “Fourth, the small ships, the one we’re on now, can still be somewhat useful as shuttles, but if you include anti-matter missiles, they could probably carry six or eight of them under the wings. That’s nothing to sneeze at if we have thousands of them around Earth. That said, I think the small, medium, and large warships would be more useful for defense, and stick to the smaller ships for shuttles.

  “Fifth and last, leave my sister alone, and Diana too. You need Diana anyway. I don’t have to remind you how dangerous I am, politicians who give orders behind desks will be held accountable for any foolish orders. Work with me to protect the Earth or attack me and degrade our ability to defend. Those are your choices, I hope you’re very persuasive when you brief General Schaefer’s replacement.”

  I paused a second, “Oh, and assemble crews for warships, I can build them, but I can’t fight them all. If you can’t agree to that I’ll have to find crews somewhere else. I’m sure Russia or China would be thrilled to work with me.”

  Cassie asked, “How many?”

  “Ten I think, the mile sized ones, that can support sixty beam weapons and hold hundreds of thousands of missiles. Four times bigger than the ones you guys can make, but they’ll be sixteen times the mass. Your ships will only support twelve beam weapons, and sixteen times less missiles. I’m also going to build a gas station, a fleet that large will go through a lot of hydrogen.”

  Cassie said, “What if we combine eight of them instead of three, and use all the spare reactors, then we’ll have… sixteen of the big ones.”

  “Not enough time, we only have a month, with sixteen reactors it’d take three months. I’m going to be making a lot of reactors to make up the shortfall, enough to cut the build time by a quarter for all ten. You’d need sixty reactors for all eight to build them in under a month. Plus, variety is probably important, but a general or admiral would probably give better advice there. Eighteen big ships, verse ten big and fifty smaller warships would probably give the Earth better coverage.”

  Cassie nodded, “That actually makes sense. A gas station?”

  I nodded, “Sure, basically a space station. It’ll be a temporary measure most likely, although it’d be convenient to refill by Earth so maybe not. You could get it from the source, send ships out to Jupiter to fill up the tank, which is at least a two-day trip there and back. My rates will be reasonable.”

  She laughed, “Rates?”

  I said, “Got to make money somehow, and it looks like I just lost my job. I considered the idea of charging for the ships I build, but they self-replicate, so that’s a dead end one time fee, and I’m not going to blackmail the world to save it either. Eventually, I could see a population on the space station, stores and restaurants, tourist traps. I’m also considering making unarmed ships for trade at some point, assuming we win in a month, and those I’ll sell. They’ll be totally locked down so they can’t arm themselves or duplicate themselves.”

  Cassie said, “We could make our own.”

  I nodded, “Free enterprise. The government can make their own and trade with other worlds, but what about companies? Cruise lines to the other human settlements, personal space yachts, and all that. Those ships will be locked down as I said, and they’ll be made to order. I don’t know, my future plans are all a little fuzzy and I’m focused on the next month right now, but I figured it was probably best to put some distance between us. Living on a heavily armed space station seems like a good idea. I haven’t even worked out how to do supply runs yet.”

  Cassie asked, “What about Diana?”

  My heart lurched at that.

  “I don’t know, hopefully she’ll visit, I could pick her up in a shuttle, similar to the smaller craft but unarmed. If she’s still interested that is. I’m almost positive the general’s replacement won’t want me anywhere near a top-secret base or space command. I also expect we’ll both be far too busy for the next month. What do you think?”

  Cassie smirked, “She won’t be hurt or threatened, but I wouldn’t be surprised if her and her teams are moved to a new undisclosed location and she’s prevented from communicating with you. That won’t be forever though, the general dying won’t endear you to anyone.”

  I nodded, “No, but my only option is fear, and to meet deadly force with deadly force. Anything less will get me killed, as I’ll always be classified as a national security threat, and men in charge of national security will never believe I’m safe enough if left alone. Hopefully they’ll be happy knowing I’m in space, where I can’t get close enough to read their top-secret computers and plans.”

  Cassie replied, “You’re right of course, you didn’t really have a choice. I’ll work on getting those crews, I’ll also recommend we leave you alone. We’ll see what happens. The president should’ve already told the world about the aliens, so we’ll see what happened with that when we get back.”

  Wait, what?

  “Seriously? It’ll cause a panic when people find out the truth, or when he suddenly becomes tight lipped about the outcome.”

  Cassie shrugged, “That’s inevitable. I’ll pass along our conversation, and I’ll let you know about the crews. I’m a little surprised you didn’t kill me.”

  I frowned, “Someone has to deliver the message, and we need to cooperate at least for the next month. Plus, you didn’t give the order, and you didn’t try to kill me.”

  She laughed, “I opened up the hull, but I won’t argue with you.”

  The conversation trailed off there, we sort of had a plan, or at least an outline of one.

  As soon as we got in range of Earth, I sent a message to both Jayna and Diana to let them know about the whole mess. It also felt selfish, but I did let Diana know she was welcome to join me if she wished. I doubted she’d make that decision, but I knew I’d always regret not asking if I hadn’t.

  I also scoured the news sites, the president had addressed the U.N. So far, there seemed to be shock, and a lot of speculation. I expected if the truth got out, that we were most likely going to be attacked in a month, then people would panic.

  Of course, when the president heard about it, I was sure the press release would have a lot of spin on it, a part of the truth, but not the full truth.

  As we got close, I launched some nanites off the ship and attached them to one of the communication satellites. It was a device I’d built in the last hour that connected to my suit via entangled particles, and I didn’t share that tidbit with Cassie. I had plans to leave the Earth for almost a month, and I wanted to have a communications access point where I could monitor things and stay connected, even make phone calls, from Jupiter.

  I didn’t waste any time, I packed up some clothes, my personal care products in my bathroom, and went right back to the hangar. I had some time, Cassie was on board with my plan, and it would take her time to fully debrief. She’d promised me an hour’s head start, as they�
�d start with the alien’s conversation and the download of the rules and our defined territory in space.

  I don’t know why I trusted her, but I was depending on her sense of self-preservation, ten giant warships would make a huge difference in the battle before us. After… if we survived, I doubted she’d be at all trustworthy.

  My magic raced from me and started to reprogram fifteen of the ships, which joined and melted together. It wasn’t hard, I’d had a lot of time to design it on the way back to Earth. I also changed the permissions on the nanites, the ship couldn’t be changed or controlled by anyone but me. I made the hull very thick, and I filled in all of the empty space on fourteen of the ships as they combined, and on that last ship I made two compartments, one for thirty reactors, the other pretty much a bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom, though everything was metal but the reclining leather flight seats.

  Nanites were awesome, and could create anything I could imagine, but not something soft, like a bed or blanket.

  In short, the ship I created was fifteen times the mass, but not fifteen times the size. It was only about three times as wide a cigar shape, a little over forty feet in diameter, but still two hundred feet long.

  I immediately started all thirty reactors building more reactors, even before I got on the thing. They could each build five at once, each one taking twelve hours. Which meant I’d have a hundred and eighty reactors in twelve hours, of course I’d have to put one hundred and fifty of them together.

  Between what was left energy wise in the thirty reactors, it was more than enough to fly the ship.

  I got on and flew… to a Super Walmart in a small town in Tennessee. No icky paste for me. I left the ship hovering about fifty yards in the air, and I jumped down in my suit. I got a lot of strange looks, but no one challenged me as I went into the store. I bought enough food to last me for several months, and while I was at it, I bought a small day bed with a thin mattress.

  There was quite a crowd outside, including several police, as I left with six carts of groceries and a bed. The employees that helped me out looked a bit nervous, but I didn’t stick around for questions. The ship snagged me and all my groceries, and then lifted us back into the ship.