Their eyes locked just as had happened with Darius. It was then I realized that this probe was different from what I’d gone through back at graduation. In that probe, Master Gafar merely glanced around the room, and I felt him in my mind only briefly; however, with both Darius and Shea, the probe seemed much more intense and definitely lasted much longer.
Eventually Master Gafar broke off their stare and said, “Welcome, Battle Wizard Seventh Rank Shea!”
A look of shock passed over Shea’s face, but soon it turned to joy. She ran over and gave me a hug, saying “Thank you,” repeatedly with tears of joy. I was not sure what I was being thanked for, but it sure felt nice to be in her embrace.
Once she settled down, Master Shadow asked her what role she thought she could fill on the Dust Dragon, and she asked without hesitation to take over the hydroponics and all food production. In addition, Doctor Leslie asked her to serve as a nurse in sickbay, and she agreed.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
“You did well, Admiral,” said my aid as I came off the stage. I hated this part of the job, above all things. As leader of the offensive against the Scorpion Gang and primary liaison with Alpha Academy, I was expected to hold regular press conferences to update the nation on how things were going. It was a massive waste of my time and a tremendously stressful balancing act. Somehow, I had to tell the press enough to keep them off my back and yet not tell them anything that would help our enemies.
The worst part about this was that it was sometimes necessary to feed them misinformation. I hated this with even greater passion but, in the end, it was the best way to feed bad information to the pirates. I think they watched our news broadcasts with far greater attention than our own people did.
“Yeah, thanks,” I said as I pushed my way out to the rear exit of the room. I had to do something to relieve the foul mood this whole thing put me in, and staying here was counterproductive to that goal.
“Sir, with all due respect, you can’t leave just yet,” started my aid.
“Watch me,” I said as I exited the conference room.
“But sir, you are scheduled to do an interview in ten minutes,” he said.
“Tell them something came up. We are at war after all,” I said. I was struggling not to curse at him, but I knew he was doing exactly what he was supposed to do. The president had assigned him to me with the hope that he could improve my public presence.
“Sir? I was not aware of anything … ” he started, then gave up and started trying to contact whomever it was that cared about my interview to reschedule it.
I headed into the secure section of the space station where our military outpost was and barged through the gates while the guards did their best to jump to attention and look sharp for their supreme commander and his stressed-out aid. For my part, I ignored them, knowing that I was in no mood to deal with the deck of cards and dice I saw them try to cover up as I passed them by.
Once past security I made for the officer’s lounge. I slipped up to the bar, and the bartender immediately dropped my regular in front of me. My aid was trying to say something about how it was not a good idea for me to be drinking right now, as I had an image to maintain, so I bought him a drink.
I really felt bad for him. His job was to take a crusty flight jock and make him into a shiny clean public figure. He worked very hard at his job with a dedication that should shame many of my soldiers. The problem was that if he did his job well, he was always trying to correct my public behavior, and thereby getting on my nerves.
“Look, I just need to clear my head a little after that,” I said to him. “Try to relax for a few minutes. It will do you good.”
He sat down at the bar and shook his head slightly. I wondered what he thought of me. Was I some kind of grand challenge that he relished, or was I the worst assignment he’d ever had? Before I could get too far with that thought, an old man approached us. He stuck out because he looked nothing like an Aleeryon Naval officer. He was too old, for one thing, but there was something else wrong about him. There was something I could not quite put my finger on, something in the way he carried himself. His presence spoke of great power, and my instincts were screaming at me to run, but I could not figure out why.
“Please pardon my intrusion, Admiral, but I had to deliver this message in person. It is just too important to risk anything else,” said the old man.
“Who are you?” I demanded.
“Just a friend who wants to help you,” he said as he put a datapad down in front of me.
It was then that I noticed the room seemed to be frozen around us. No one was moving. It was as if we were in jump space, except that the old man and I seemed to be able to move about freely. I cautiously picked up the datapad without taking my eyes off the old man. “What is this?”
“The key to your victory, of course,” he said and then walked out of the room.
No, that is not quite right; it was as if he walked out of existence. He turned, and seemed to begin to walk but instead just faded away. As he disappeared, the room around me came back to life as if nothing had happened. My aid was trying to explain to the bartender that he only wanted water because he was on duty, and countless other conversations were continuing around the room as if nothing had happened.
The only indication that anything had happened was the new datapad in my hand. I stared at it for a minute, trying to decide what to do with it. Eventually I decided to turn it on and see what it said.
What I read on there was impossible, so impossible that I dropped my drink and ran from the bar. I had to get to my comm center and find out if there was anything to this information. Things like this do not happen in real life; they only happen in stories. No one just walks into a bar in a secure naval base and hands this kind of information to the head of the Navy. It just does not happen, and yet it just did.
When I burst into the comm room, I called out, “Get me Stealth Wing Six, maximum priority!”
“Sir, they are in deep. It might … ” started the officer on duty.
“It doesn’t matter! Get them, and get them now!” I interrupted.
“Yes, sir!” he said and then turned to his comm unit and started working the controls.
I knew it could take a while to reach them regardless of my orders. That was the nature of a stealth fleet, but this was too important to let sit. If the information on this datapad was legitimate, we might only have a very short window to exploit it. I had to get it verified and Stealth Wing Six was the only one that I trusted for so critical a mission. They were not only an elite wing, but also the best of the best.
I told myself not to get excited over this information; there was no way it could be real. I told myself again that this kind of thing does not happen in real life, but I could not shake the memory of that old man. There was definitely something about him which made me believe that he was someone who could actually have this kind of information.
Just then, my aid came running in, huffing and puffing. “Sir?”
“Looks like something actually did just come up, so cancel all my appointments,” I said.
“For the rest of the day, sir?” he asked.
“No, for the rest of the trip,” I said. “And you might want to pack. We are heading to HQ ASAP.”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
I was working with Spectra and Darius trying to find a clue as to where the third tear might be, or even if it really existed. We were not making any significant progress; there were simply no other areas standing out in the data. I was about to suggest we widen our search to an even greater area, when Shadow sent, “Dusty, Spectra, please report to the bridge,” over the telepathic network. Then over the comm he said, “All hands, we are moving out. We have found a potential target and will be investigating it under maximum stealth. Please minimize all power use until we are clear.”
With the new crew additions, Shadow had divided us into two groups of wizards. Spectra, Flame, Pho
enix, and myself were command staff, and Darius, Shea, and the doctor were crew, while Shadow stayed as captain. He allowed only the command staff on to the telepathic network for now, but I was not sure why. He also reinstated the use of the ‘Master’ title. He said that if the crew was going to continue to grow like this, we needed a firmer rank structure to ensure that everything operated smoothly.
“Well, Spectra, we’d better get to the bridge,” I said.
“Yes, Darius, we can continue this later, as I suspect Master Shadow will want you in engineering in case we find trouble,” she said.
“Master, in case? I get the impression that trouble follows him wherever he goes,” said Darius.
“There may be some truth to that,” I said with a chuckle.
Spectra and I walked up to the bridge, talking about nothing at all. Ever since I came back, she had been staying closer to me and behaving a little bit more openly emotionally to me. She seemed the same as before around all the others, so I was not sure what was up. Whatever the change was, I was glad of it. I felt an affinity to her somehow. I did not really understand it, but it was there. I wondered if she felt the same towards me, or if I had merely crossed some unfathomable line and progressed from being tolerated into being a friend.
Once on the bridge, I took my station, and Master Shadow addressed us, “Okay, everyone, it seems that Dusty managed to download the location of a major pirate base in that data he acquired from the carrier. The information is at least a month old at this stage, but a base of this size is not likely to move, so it still should be there. The plan is simple: we will slip in, check things out, and then slip back out to call the Aleeryon Navy. If the data Dusty acquired is correct, we will need their help to take out the installation.”
“Master, how far is it?” asked Phoenix.
Shadow then gave the coordinates to Flame, and she said, “Looks like it will take a few days to get there from here.”
“Dusty, you and I will take turns keeping the Dust Dragon cloaked. We must not be detected while we are en route. Flame, set a course in a random direction and jump. As soon as we come out, Dusty will cloak us while we wait for our drives to recharge. From there we will take the shortest path to the outpost while maintaining a cloak the whole time,” said Shadow.
“Sure thing, Master Shadow,” I said. I wondered why he wanted to make the first jump random. It did not make a lot of sense to me, but it did not seem to be worth questioning right now. I began to focus on preparing to cloak the ship.
“Shadow, we are ready to jump,” said Flame.
I smiled at that comment. Flame has never referred to Shadow as Master, but Shadow did not seem to mind one bit. I guess a different set of rules applied, since they were married now.
“Then let’s go,” said Shadow.
Soon we were clearing jump space, and I scrambled to get my cloak up as fast as I could. I needed to find a way to raise it faster. We were always exposed for a few seconds as we cleared jump space, which was plenty of time to be detected. It would be preferable to exit jump space already cloaked, but as of yet I have not found a way to do that. The transition between jump space and normal space seemed to break all spells.
Once we were clear Master Shadow said, “Now that we have expanded our crew, we can split duty during these travel periods. Dusty, Spectra, and Darius will make up the first bridge crew. Flame, Phoenix, and myself will make up the second bridge crew.”
“Shadow, that leaves you without a pilot half the time,” said Flame.
“Yes; so, before you go on, bring Darius up to speed on our controls. He has some experience as a pilot, so he should not need much direction,” said Master Shadow.
After getting Darius settled in at navigation, Master Shadow said, “Dusty, you are in command until my shift,” and then they headed off the bridge.
“Uh, what?” was all I could spit out, but Master Shadow had already left.
“Dusty, someone needs to be in charge of the bridge while he is sleeping or indisposed,” said Spectra.
“Yeah, I guess, but me?” I asked.
“Sure, why not you?” she asked.
I thought about that for a bit. Obviously, Shadow would not pick Darius; he was too new, so that left Spectra or me as options. Of the two of us it was likely he felt that he knew me much better, making me the best choice. “Well, sure, why not?”
I could not help but think about the conversation I’d had with Spectra before I left on my mission to spy on the carrier. She said that Shadow was dividing us up into teams, and I had rebelled against that idea at the time, but now that Shadow had made it official, I could see the wisdom in it. This would keep a fresh crew at the helm at all times, and I supposed if we got more crew he would flesh out two or more complete sets of crew for round-the-clock coverage.
“I guess you were right,” I said to Spectra.
She gave me a coy little smile in response and said, “I won’t hold it against you.”
“I wonder, then, are Doctor Leslie and Shea taking turns in sickbay?” I asked.
“Probably not, Master, since no one currently needs help,” said Darius. “I would guess Shea is probably still working on converting a section of hydroponics into a reagent farm, and the good doctor is studying everything she can.”
“That would fit their pattern so far,” said Spectra.
“I suppose, then, when we get to our target, everyone will be on hand?” I asked.
“Yeah, even if we had a full crew complement, flying into a hot zone usually means all hands on deck, Master,” said Darius.
That made a lot of sense. Besides, if the ship was in active combat, I doubt anyone could sleep. “Darius, please just hold us at this speed, and I can keep us cloaked until Master Shadow takes over.”
“Understood, Master,” said Darius. “I take it, then, the more power we put out, the harder it is for you to cloak us?”
“Pretty much,” I said. “I can cloak us at full power, but it is significantly harder.”
The rest of our shift passed uneventfully. It was nice to be able to sit back and talk with Darius and get to know him a little better. He was a bit odd, but not really in a bad way. He just seemed to have a very different perspective on things than the rest of us did. He was much older than I was and, unlike most of us, an experienced war veteran. I wondered if he resented being the lowest-ranking officer on this ship, since with the exception of Master Shadow he was the most experienced.
Chapter Sixty
I woke a little early for my turn at the bridge. Flame was curled up next to me and sleeping soundly. At some point along the way, I had decided to accept our marriage as real, and the very night I mentioned that to her she moved into my quarters. I was not sure that was really proper, but it sure was nice to have her with me. As soon as this mission was done we would fly back to Alpha Academy for a formal ceremony, but that could be a very long time. Until then, I was happy enough to call her my wife and carry on.
I slipped out of bed and headed over to my desk to get some work done. I was too awake now to go back to sleep, and I wanted to use the time to work through all the data we had. Dusty’s datapad proved to be a real treasure trove of random information, but none of it had any context. That made it quite the puzzle to work out what the information was and if it was any use to us.
The oddest part of the data was that finding the pirates’ primary headquarters location was suspiciously too easy. Most of the data was very fragmented, but within all the fragments there was one solid block of data, just one. That one contained quite a bit of information laid out in a very well-organized manner. It was still somewhat fragmented, but looked more like someone was trying to make it look that way rather than being fragmented because of the rushed nature of its acquisition.
Dusty had done an excellent job as a spy on that carrier, but before sending him in again we needed to work out a way for him to get data from a terminal without exposing himself. Ot
her than that, I was very impressed with how much information he acquired in a very short time. The problem was that, even given his skill, there was no good reason the block of information containing the coordinates and other data about the pirate base should be there. It had to be planted, but by who and how?
While in the other realm Dusty had made highly-detailed logs of everything that happened to him there and everything he discovered, and from what I could tell the datapad had never left his sight. That meant the data must have been planted in the carrier’s computers themselves, just waiting for Dusty to log on and download it.
I did not like that thought at all because that meant that whoever planted this information knew exactly what our plans were and stayed a full step ahead of us the whole time. That would be a very bad thing, but should also be impossible. It was obvious by the reactions of the necromancers and the pirates that they had no idea what we were up to, and no one else was around.
While I sat there staring at the data trying to make sense of it, Flame walked over and started rubbing my shoulders. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Still trying to make sense of this data, that's all,” I said.
“You think it’s a trap, don’t you?” she asked.
“Yes, but I cannot figure out who set it, or what the trap actually is,” I said.
“Maybe you’re just thinking about it too hard. Since we are up anyway, let’s get an early breakfast and hit the gym. Maybe that will take your mind off it for a bit.”
“Sure,” I said as I turned off the view screen. Once we were dressed, we headed down to the mess hall to get a meal. When we arrived Shea was already there, cooking something that I could not identify.
“Good morning, Masters,” she said as we came in.
“Good morning, Shea! What are you making?” asked Flame.
“Master, it is Parrinian Delight. It should be ready for dinner later,” she said.
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