Starship Magic 2: Imprisoned

by Mark Brandon Powell

  The bridge is silent until Graven walks in. He says hi, and then it goes back to silence. The monitor shows the small moon of Starz getting closer. Once they get out of view of both groups Kat and Whisper are going to fly the ship at top speed to the planet’s southern magnetic pole to enter the atmosphere there. Kat is nervous. She hasn’t entered a planet going that fast before, but it’s the only way to not get picked up by sensors.

  Rounding the moon, the sun of the system comes into view as the ships around the planet start to disappear. Kat takes in a deep breath, letting it out slowly, she closes her eyes and tries to concentrate on the way the ship feels in her hands. She blocks out all of her thoughts about her oily hair, Graven, her paradise, and goes blank. It was something that she learned while working for her psycho ex. All the things that she had to do while undercover, and especially in the covers, that she didn’t want to do. She had to do something to protect her mind from going crazy, even if she still has nightmares.

  Fury says, “Engines coming online now. Shields at full, weapons online. Stealth systems rerouting and storing heat.”

  Whisper says, “Everything’s green, just waiting for your orders Kat.”

  Kat takes one last deep breath. “Whisper, Fury, lets roll.”

  5

  Felicity’s magitech engine hums to full power as Kat is pushed back into her chair. She has roughly thirty-seconds before she needs to do an all stop on while aiming the nose of the ship at the pole preparing for entry. She is almost positive that if she was piloting one of her regular fighters from the Earth Empire, this maneuver wouldn’t work. This is where trusting Felicity and Whisper comes in.

  The ship rattles having the engines go from a crawl to full. She knew what she had to do, but hopes everything stays in one piece.

  “Full stop in five.” Kat says bracing herself for the shift, squeezing her hand around the controls. “Two, one, full stop.”

  The inertia as Felicity’s back end sways to line up with the pole makes Kat’s stomach flip over as she rocks against her belts that have her strapped in. Through it all she somehow stays focused on controlling the ship.

  She says, “Whisper, anyone notice us?”

  “No activity with the Guild, and I’m now connecting to the Foremid.” There was a short pause, “Nothing there either, we’re clear. Now hurry up and enter the atmosphere you deformed biped before they do spot us.”

  “I’m going to wipe your memory and change your settings if you don’t watch it.”

  Graven jokes, “Wait till we get out of here to do that.”

  Kat just looks at him and then rolls her eyes. She lines the ship up and proceeds to enter. The stealth system will only give them two to three-seconds before it overheats and their entry lights up the atmosphere. They could have tried to go in quicker, but it runs a high risk of ripping the hull apart. Even with the magitech shields Kat doesn’t think Felicity would hold together through that. It might have been an APC, but it was made for stealth, not speed. Kat takes a deep breath and counts in her head as she watches the console, one one-thousand… two one-thousand. The ship begins to shake as they hit the atmosphere. The heating coils indicator starts to creep up on the console reaching its max.

  Whisper says, “Stealth offline and venting. Sensors on both sides sensors are now picking up a large thermal fluctuation, but they haven’t reported us yet.”

  Graven says, “Great, now lets hope no one is watching the sensors.”

  “Too late, a message has been sent to all Guild ships requesting the ID of the landing spaceship on the planet. Kat do you want me to disrupt it?”

  Kat says, “Just try to mask our ID. We won’t need long to unload, thirty minutes tops. Keep monitoring them.”

  “Obviously.”

  Breaking through the upper atmosphere smooths out the ride. The sensors on Felicity pick up all the local channels, which were silent before they entered the planet. Every channel was filled with distress calls asking for help, food, or medical assistance. Kat listen in on one of the channels. A mother pleading to save her child, Kat on the next a leader asking for rescue because everything was destroyed by the Gluttons. The next few channels were more of the same, and she just turns them off.

  Graven places his hand on her shoulder. “It’s ok Kat, we can’t do anything for them right now. Lets get the supplies to our buyer and at least help them out.”

  Kat nods and places her hand on his, “You’re right, one thing at a time.”

  Things like this always ate away at her. Why a government would ever let their people die, starve, get sick, or be fodder in a war. It was just like during the rebellion, civilians caught in between just trying to have a life. It makes her sick. The powerful fighting for power while the people suffer. Some of her feelings about this came from her time with Ryker. It was the only good thing he opened her up too. He was one of the leaders of the Conglomerate, and explained to her how everything was wrong in the universe. How the Empire, Guild and Conglomerate were ruining everything. Most of his talking was just bs, for other people to think that he really cared about the little guy. When all he really wanted was all the power for himself. That’s why he placed himself with that mage woman, and started a rebellion.

  There was a five minute flight time to their client from where they entered. Whisper chimed in a couple of times saying that the flesh-bags were starting to get smart. They didn’t accept the fake ID and they are trying to find the anomaly in their systems. They were only going to have an hour before the attack started, and then they might be stuck planet side for however long that takes. Getting caught planet side would have been the worse case scenario for Kat. She tells Whisper and Fury to keep the engines running and FTL drives warm while they are unloading because once they are done it’s going to be a quick escape.

  The town they land near is next to destroyed. The landing pad is the only thing that isn’t in rubbles. A tall man in a long brown coat with a white beard comes out of one structure that has less damage than the others. Kat calls her buyer on the radio and confirms white beard is him. His name is Jon. Kat lands Felicity on the landing pad, and a few dozen people come out of the building behind Jon. They are all wearing tattered clothes, and have a look of desperation. Its at times like these Kat always gets nervous. She doesn’t know the people, they’ve just been attacked, and she would put money on them being desperate enough to try something stupid. That makes a bad situation for them if things do goes south. Graven calms her down, like he always does right before they land. He pulls up his shotgun blaster hanging from his hip stands near the cargo hold door and smiles at her.

  As the cargo door opens Jon walks up and waves. Kat’s heart rate jumps as the men start to pile up behind him. Without Whisper on her wrist she feels naked. She had gotten used to having her around. Since they need to be ready for a quick escape Kat had to leave Whisper on the bridge. Sure she could have just wirelessly controlled Felicity, but it just never works the same. With at least four hundred ships surrounding this planet, there can’t be any room for error. Which means her personal feelings about having protection for the drop get put aside. There was always the blaster she kept hidden under the control panel for the cargo door if she needed it.

  Graven walks ahead and down the ramp to shake hands with Jon. They exchange a few words, and Kat watches. Graven never taking his left hand off the butt of the blaster. Thirty men come in and out of the cargo hold grabbing the boxes and carrying them out. One of the few perks of being the captain, not having to unload. With all the cargo unloaded, she walks over to Jon and exchanges introductions. Something she always like to do when things go right.

  After that she says, “Jon there’s something I’ve been debating telling you but I can’t keep it to myself. Also don’t worry, I’ll give this one to you free of charge. The Guild is planning on attacking the Gluttons in about thirty minutes. If you have shelter underground, get you and your people there.”

  Jon says, “We’ve been in the
shelter since the Gluttons got here. Its good to here The Guild is finally taking some action.”

  “You’re not worried about the fall out?”

  “We have more than a few talented mages here, so we should be just fine. Now that we know there is even less need to trouble yourself over us. Thank you for the warning. Most of the delivery crews I run into wouldn’t have given up information like that.”

  “I would hate to see these supplies go to waste, or lose a new customer. Plus there isn’t much else I can do. I don’t even know if we can get off the planet at this point. But I’ve never missed a delivery and wasn’t about to start.”

  Jon laughs, “No matter what the reason, thank you. We couldn’t get The Guild to answer our SOS after the Glutton attack, and then there was the communication blackout as the fleet got here. It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”

  Kat wondered if Jon had ever heard of the Gluttons called the Foremid. If he was a Guild mage or he had Guild mages in his colony someone might have said something. It would be nice to know anything that might help them escape. Whisper was sure about getting past the Guild, but if the Foremid really were aliens, then Whisper might not be able to do anything. Might as well try and hedge her bets, but she can’t figure out a way to softly ask the question. There are just some things she isn’t good at, and asking round about questions is one of them.

  She asks, “Jon, I’m not sure the best way to ask this, so I’m just going to ask it. Have you heard the Gluttons called the Foremid before?”

  Jon looks at her through squinted eyes. “Where did you hear that name?” His look makes her fell uncomfortable, like there is second set of eyes watching her now. Judging her.

  She replies quickly, “Just over the com channels. I was monitoring them trying to see what was happening on the surface with the blockade.”

  Jon lets out a breath, and crosses his arms. His gaze no longer threatening, “No I haven’t, and I would keep that information to yourself. There are things you don’t want to get mixed up in. I have heard of people going missing when curiosity gets the better of them.”

  “What does that have to do with anything? I was just asking the question if you have ever heard them called that. Which I would say now is a yes.”

  “Like the old saying goes curiosity and cats. That name is something you don’t want to dig into. That is all I will tell you. So now that you have delivered my goods please leave and forget that you ever spoke to me. About the shipment and your question. I do not want my people here in danger.”

  Kat shifts her stance and crosses her arms. There was no need for him to get so rude. She was sure of it now, that something was up. This was something see needed to look into later, and Jon might just be seeing her later.

  She says, “That was the plan. I was just looking for a helpful tip or two so we can get out of here safely. No need to get cryptic.”

  “Good.” Jon bows his head slightly, and says something in a language she didn’t understand.

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m sorry, old habit. It means safe travels. I hope you get out of here alive, and that we never have to meet again.”

  Kat parts ways with Jon, and walks back into the cargo hold waiting for Graven to get back on board. She watches as he and Jon say a few words to each other, and Graven shakes his head no to him. Jon nods, and gives one last wave goodbye before Kat closes the cargo bay doors. Graven is laughing to himself as he walks by.

  Kat asks, “What did he say to you?”

  “He asked me if I wanted to stay with them. It was really weird, he even called me a jinx. Then he apologized and just waved. Weird right?”

  “Weird doesn’t even describe it but lets not worry about that, the next thing that we have to do is get off this planet. We don’t have much time to do that in.”

  Whisper says over the intercom, “Kat get in here now!”

  “What is it Whisper?”

  “Just hurry up the Foremid are attacking me and I need you to get me out!”

  Kat looks at Graven and they run to the bridge. She runs through the door first, hopping over the lip around the cockpit and lands hard in the seat.

  She asks, “Whisper won’t that turn off the ship if I just pull you out?”

  Whisper doesn’t answer. She had never pulled her out while the ship’s engines were running. Sure the power wouldn’t go out, but if the engines stop, the FTL drives will shut off. It takes time to cool and then turn back on. Time, Kat was sure of, they didn’t have.

  Kat asks, “Uhh Whisper, did you hear me?”

  Whisper says with a panicked voice, “Kat pull me out, NOW!”

  6

  Kat thrusts her hand into the dash where Whisper is connected and turns the controls to get her back onto her arm. Whisper separates from the dash, coming off in small blocks fitting together like legos around Kat’s wrist.

  Whisper screams.

  Kat says, “Whisper what’s wrong?”

  “Is… is it gone?” She asks with a shaky tone.

  “Is what gone?”

  “That giant yellow sphere gobbling up all my data.”

  “I can’t see what you see. What happened to you?”

  “I was leaving false code everywhere like I normally do, because you apes never seem to pick up on it. Then I got a bite from the automated defense software on the Foremid side, it started eating up all of my code I was dropping. Then it started to predict where I was going, and pretty soon it was so close, chomping and chomping.”

  Kat says softly, “It’s ok Whisper.”

  Whisper snaps back, “No! It isn’t ok. I’m an A.I., there shouldn’t be any kind of automated defense made that could track me.”

  “Alright, alright. We still need to get out of here before the attack starts. Can I plug you back in now?”

  “NO!”

  “Then how are we going to take off?”

  “I can do it remotely. As long as I’m remotely connected I have a buffer if that thing comes after me. I don’t want to get plugged back in until I do a sweep of the ships servers.”

  “What about Fury?”

  “He’s fine, I think.”

  “If you’re sure, whatever you think. Lets get out of here.”

  Graven agrees, “I would prefer that we don’t get stuck on this planet. So that sounds like a wonderful plan.”

  Kat smiles and takes the helm plotting a heading for the North pole. Since they entered in on the South, they didn’t want to exit that way. Both poles are being monitored by now, because they have the most magnetic interference, making it the best place to get past scanners. There are probably more eyes on the South pole since that was where they came in. She picks up speed as she nears the pole, knowing that it’s dangerous to get too much speed within the atmosphere, but does it anyway.

  Kat says, “Ok Whisper, this is the point where you tell me you did something so they won’t shoot us right as we break orbit.”

  “I know the Guild won’t, not so sure about the Foremid.”

  Kat readjusts herself in the seat, making sure her harness is tight. “That would have good to know before we launched.”

  “I didn’t really have time to set everything up. I was being chased by a flapping yellow maw trying to eat me. Deal with it primate.”

  Kat aims the ship for the moon, hoping to use it again, only this time as a shield on their way out. The clouds begin to fade, and the blackness of space wraps around the ship again. Felicity’s engine hums to full power as the FTL drives get read for their jump. A small laser fires at the ship, hitting the shields and rocking the ship to the side. Kat turns the monitor toward where the blast came from. It was a small Foremid ship. It had a rectangular back, with two thrusters, one at the end of each wing. The bridge was just a triangle piece stuck to the front. It looked like a hundred year old freighter that might be in a museum of space history. A small blue light from under the bridge fires another three bursts toward Felicity hitting the shields.r />
  Kat says, “Whisper, get us out of here.”

  “I’m trying, but those shots are disrupting my calculations for the jump.”

  “Just get us out of here, I don’t care where, as long as we’re in one piece.”

  Graven says, “It’s charging up another blast.”

  The blue light shines brighter than the previous. It goes through the shields, shattering them. Alarms sound off and Kat’s consul blinks with warning lights. Hull damage, pressure loss, shields.

  Fury says, “Shields down and shield generator is offline.”

  Kat says, “What? How did that happen we were at a hundred percent?”

  “The Foremid ship must have hit us with an exact match of force. The magitech shield protects against everything but itself. How they figured out what our exact output was in four shots would be something only I or Whisper could do.”

  Kat panics, “Whisper, get us out of here now.”

  Whisper says, “Just stay still or all you're sloshing around in that sack you call a body is distracting me. I’m trying to contain the air leaks and calculate the jump.”

  Graven says, “Three more ships are closing in. Let me correct that, fifty more ships are closing in.”

  Kat pleads, “Whisper. Now.”

  Whisper says, “Almost done, twenty-seconds.”

  Graven says, “All the other ships will be in range to fire at us in eighteen-seconds. They’re charging their weapons, and a few already have locks on us.”

  Fury says, “Arming weapons. Attaining targets now. Ready to engage in three.”

  Kat says, “Don’t fire unless I order it.”

  “Understood.”

  “That’s all we need is to start a war.”

  Graven says, “Kat, I love you.”

  Kat turns her head and says angrily, “None of that last good bye talk, but I love you too. Now focus on the weapons.”

  He nods, “Right.”

  Whisper says, “ Leaks stopped for now, and calculations complete. FTL jump in three… two…”