"It doesn't feel like Jaron's ship anymore." She gave her husband a kiss. "It'll still feel crowded, but it's so much better than before."
Cooley groaned again but refrained from commenting.
Terrell coughed and pointed to the far wall. "We've installed a commercial grade metabolizer for you. The choices are limited, but the refill packs are in the storage area below."
An oval table filled the center of the room. It consisted of six computer consoles evenly spaced around a sloped surface, dividing the dual flat tops. She ran her fingers along the back of one of the six high-backed chairs. They were larger than the ones Jaron had, with more padding for comfort. Extra lighting had been added above the table, making it an ideal place for meetings and research.
"The bridge is pretty much as Jaron left it, but we added more seating." Landry took over Terrell's duty as acting tour guide. "Craig, Cooley, your bunks are next to the bridge."
Landry opened the central door in the wall. It opened to a six by six space in white and grey. This room held the autodoc along the right hand side, a terrain simulator filled the back area, and a weight plate and press sat to the left.
"Everything you need to stay fit on the journey." Terrell nodded toward the autodoc. "Do you want to tell her or should I?"
"The autodoc has been retrofitted with a solar distributor. The collectors are on top of the ship. If you feel the need to absorb solar energy, you can come here and do that."
"Will that work?" Her eyes narrowed. "What about when we're in the bubble?"
"Anytime you're not in the bubble and close to a star, the collectors will store as much power as possible. We're not sure it will work at all." Terrell shrugged and looked to Landry.
"We figured it was worth a try." Landry enticed her back toward the door closest to the airlock. "One more space to show you."
They stepped into the third and last room. The cream ceiling in this six by six had been paired with a soft violet. Instead of two bunks on opposing walls, one larger bed filled the back corner leaving enough space for the computer nook by the front wall.
"It's the color of your eyes when you're happy," he whispered in her ear.
"It's very soothing." Her lips turned up in a wicked little smile. "I see two lockers. Where will you keep your stuff?"
Landry laughed. "Whatever, you pack lighter than I do. Those are mine."
She turned and wrapped her arms around his waist. "We'll see."
The cousins strolled in the sun's light, leaving the hustle of last minute scrambling behind. The farewell banquet had been tedious and no place for best friends to say goodbye. They walked quietly around the garden for several minutes in silence. Landry recognized Stefan's turmoil. Fear. Sadness. Even anger. A month hadn't been long enough for him to be ready for this. He let his cousin work through the emotions.
Stefan finally asked, "You're sure you'll get there and back safely?"
"Jaron's ship is fully equipped and it's done it in the past. We've got Craig and Cooley along, so all our bases are covered. We'll be fine." Landry left the real issue unsaid.
"You need to stop calling it Jaron's ship. It's yours now."
"I guess."
Stefan harrumphed, and sat on the low wall surrounding the grounds. "I can see many benefits to this journey. The technological and the magical, but you're the only family I have left."
There it was. The hard truth they didn't want to deal with. If anything happened, this could be the final goodbye.
Landry sat on the wall too. "Do you remember the time you attended that diplomatic summer camp?"
"That was a lifetime ago. What were we? Twelve and nine?"
"Somewhere around there. Do you remember what you told me before you left?"
"That you were being a baby." Stefan shook his head and stared at his feet.
Landry laughed. "Yeah, but then you said it wasn't forever."
"This isn't summer camp."
"No. I was mad I couldn't go with you. What about you?"
Stefan considered it for a moment. "I've no desire to travel the stars. That might make me boring, but there's enough for me to do here."
Landry nodded.
"I'll miss you though. No one else will joke around with me."
"Maybe it's time you started looking for a queen?" Landry punched Stefan on the shoulder. "I'm sure there's a girl out there who won't take you too seriously."
"You said you'd be the last to tie yourself down to a woman. Now that you've slipped up, you want to bind me down too?" He smiled and Landry knew he was working his way to goodbye. "I wish you had picked a woman that didn't want to take you halfway across the galaxy."
"If we're lucky--" Landry looked over the mountain views, anywhere but at his cousin.
"I'll still be alive when you return."
"Yeah."
"I'll be old as dirt and you'll merely be a year or two older. Doesn't seem fair somehow."
"You won't be that old. Look at the bright side. You'll have kids and a lifetime of memories to brag about."
"Ha! And you'll have new worlds to share with us."
"But you'll still be a part of this one."
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Landry stretched his legs. He'd been sitting at the Nav station for almost four hours. The Vis Vires moved smoothly through the star system. It had taken a week to reach the farthest planet, Zink II, with its twenty orbiting asteroids.
The door slid open and Cooley entered. "Shift's up, Sutton. Any quirks?"
"Of course not." He stood and stretched in earnest, palms pressed into the low ceiling. "We should be clear of all planetary fields in another day. Then we can open the first conduit."
"Hopefully we won't have our brains liquefied."
Landry slapped Cooley's shoulder. "Some of us have more to worry about than others."
Cooley settled in to watch the boards, and Landry headed to the main living area. On the first day, Craig claimed one side of the conference table for his linguistic study. He currently sat there with both screens lit up as well as his personal datapad. For the last month, he'd worked with the SEF and the Royalist code breakers on the four languages found on the Dragumon ship and in the Vis Vires database. Now he concentrated on programming them into the translation chip.
"How's it going?"
"Not bad. I think I've got the algorithms worked out, but I want to double-check everything. In another day or two I'll build a prototype for testing."
"Don't we already have a working trans-chip?" Landry stopped by the metabolizer and ordered two protein shakes.
"The military chips allow the wearer to translate audio input but they don't provide a way to return communication. That makes it good for spying and not much else. My chip will reprogram your speech capabilities using nanotech. It'll be like uploading a new language straight into your brain. That's what the Dragumon did."
"Is that necessary? We only need to read the archives on Orek."
"Humor me. It's a great way to test the new tech. And we want to be prepared in case we meet one of these other species." Craig grinned from ear to ear.
"Considering the Dragumon annihilated everyone on Orek, it's not likely we'll get to use those languages. Talia below deck?"
"Yep."
Landry headed for the hatch, drinks in hand. He tapped the release button with his boot and watched it slide open. The cargo bay lights brightened as he walked the length of the ship toward the engine area. Everything was neatly organized. He passed parts for repairs, crates of metabolizer pellets, extra air and water filters, clothes, oxygen and weapons. The engine room was at the end, below the flight deck.
Talia sat on the floor, datapad in hand, studying a mess of blinking wires. She'd send all the information she gathered to a team of SEF scientists. With their help she hoped to understand why the ship would only fly with her on it. Plus, they still didn't know how the Vis Vires opened a controlled wormhole with the small amount of energy stored on the ship.
&n
bsp; "Hey." She smiled up at him.
"Are you hungry?" He held out one of the drinks for her.
"Thanks."
"Craig is trying to reprogram our brains. Don't know what I think about that."
"I'm sure he's very meticulous." Talia took a drink before pushing wires back into the console. "He won't give it to us until he's sure it's safe."
"Will you double check his work?"
"If you feel I need to."
"It would make me more comfortable about swallowing a pill to alter my mind." Landry shook his head while she put the tools and supplies away, each movement a testament to her order and routine.
"Speaking of that, how's the memory control?" She slid the box under the desk.
"There hasn't been anything out of line since we left Sendek. I've been able to pull up what I need without it overwhelming my thoughts."
"Good. I knew you could do it." She wrapped her arms around him. "Hopefully, both of our dreaming days are over."
"Somehow I don't think that's possible."
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Landry headed for the bridge. Talia didn't need his help to open the conduit, but he didn't want to miss the first test of the alien technology. He perceived Craig' and Cooley's impatience. The men barely suppressed their unease of being squeezed to a pulp during the jump, and Landry doubled his efforts to block them as he sat at the communications station.
He flipped open the COM link to the Royalist headquarters. "This is the Vis Vires. We have left the asteroid field around Zink II and are preparing to open the conduit for the first jump."
"This is Cahal. Datalinks are in place. The Zaryn satellite is focused on your trajectory as well. Good luck."
Stefan's voice came over the COM next. "God speed and good luck."
"Same to you cousin." Landry committed the moment to his memory.
Talia nodded to Craig and Cooley. "It will take five minutes for the negative mass to build up around the ship and create the warp bubble. This is your last chance to send messages to Sendek for a while."
Craig waved a hand in the air. "No one I care to talk to."
"Me either." Cooley looked out the front view screen. "What do you think the inside of the conduit looks like?"
"I don't know. Jaron always thought the sight of it would drive him insane." Landry flipped some switches and the front solidified, hiding the view of space.
"Guess we aren't taking any chances," Cooley muttered.
"Nope." Landry turned to Talia. "How much longer?"
"Three and a half minutes. We're at forty-eight percent of the required energy. The sensors indicate a weak field forming around the ship." She flipped between screens. "It'll continue to solidify until space warps around us and we're propelled the first leg of the journey."
"And we're sure this is safe?" Craig directed the question at Talia.
"Jaron did it for almost two hundred years," she answered.
"Yeah, but I heard he evaporated in a cloud of dust." Cooley tapped his fingers on the console. "Think it resulted from space travel?"
"We've reached ninety-eight percent field activation." She ignored Cooley's question and continued checking the stats.
"Well?" Landry needed to relax, but he knew he wouldn't until everyone else stopped broadcasting anxiety into the room.
Talia looked up from the screen and smiled at him. "We're in the conduit. If all goes well--"
She cried out and dropped to her knees clutching at her head. Landry reached for her, but a gut wrenching pain in his stomach knocked the breath out of him. His head pounded while a shrill ringing echoed inside his skull. He curled up on the floor, just out of reach of her hand, trying to catch his breath. The pain slowly subsided, but an intense heaviness settled on him. He crawled to Talia. Each movement required all the energy he had.
"What happened?" Cooley and Craig knelt beside them.
"I've got her." Landry frowned at Craig as he tried to help his wife up. When his fingers wrapped around hers, he felt the smoothness of her skin. The electrical current remained absent. The whispers of her mind never entered his.
"Landry?" She gasped for air. "It's gone."
He recognized the pain moving across her face, but couldn't feel it. Instead a strange nothingness lingered. "I know."
"What's going on?" Cooley stepped closer.
"The magic is gone." Landry helped her to her feet and into the chair. He pushed a strand of hair behind her ear and noticed her eyes looked bluer than purple in the dim light.
"How's that possible?" Craig asked. "Do you think it has anything to do with the conduit?"
"Maybe." Landry touched her forehead. "Wonder why your body isn't bouncing back as quickly as mine?"
"If Jaron shared his memories with you, why didn't you know this was coming?" Cooley leaned against the console with his arms folded and a scowl on his face.
"It doesn't work that way. I can search for answers if I have a question, but if I don't ask I'm at their mercy. This particular memory didn't make itself known."
"I feel really weak." She leaned into the desk. "Heavy."
"Let's get you to the autodoc. There should be lots of solar energy stored." Landry lifted her to her feet.
"Why do you want me to go there?"
"You need to gather what energy you can before it dissipates."
"Landry, I can't feel the magic so I can't absorb the energy. It would be a waste of time."
"I think you should try it anyway. If nothing else, you can rest and the autodoc will do a general bio-scan to see why this is affecting you more than me."
Craig took her other arm. "Sutton's right. You don't look good."
"I'm fine." She jerked her arm free from Craig's hold and made her way to the common room with slow shaky steps. Landry kept a hand at her elbow as she sank into another chair. She glared up at him. "Are you going to the autodoc for a scan?"
"Of course not. I'm fine, but you're obviously struggling."
"I'm not getting in either. Give me time to adjust."
"You don't have to be stubborn. I'm trying to make sure you're okay."
"I don't need you hovering over me." She hissed at him.
Craig and Cooley retreated to their room.
Landry's brow creased and his free hand fisted for a moment. When it relaxed he nodded and let her arm go. "Take your time."
She turned from him. He didn't need to feel her emotions to read her body language. Straight back, clenched fists in her lap, chin slightly raised.
Obstinate. That's what she was. Why can't she let me take care of her?
Traveling between had become easier, but the coldness of space continued to disturb Jewel. She left the council and returned to the Acaran Mountains on Sendek. A little warmth from the day radiated off the rock, and she settled on the cliff face to enjoy it.
Dragon lungs couldn't sigh in the way human ones did, but that's what she wanted to do to celebrate simple pleasures like warm rocks and solitude. Her self-imposed exile made the cacophony of so many dragon voices in her head tedious. Sweet peace and freedom! The emotion escaped her body as a snort and gust of charred air.
"High one, we welcome you." A wild baritone disturbed the traitorous direction of her thoughts.
She pushed off and let the currents take her to the forest, her wings skimming the canopy. "How go the affairs of this world, noble ones?"
The trees didn't answer right away. A general buzzing filled her mind as they discussed among themselves what to reply. She found a sturdy tree and landed, tuning them out until she sensed their clamor recede.
"Your seedlings have left in pursuit of learning. We fear for them, but can do nothing to help them on their quest. This makes us uneasy."
"They've left Algodova?"
"Sendek."
"How?" She flexed her wings in and out, causing the tree to shake.
"They've taken the wizard's ship to his homeworld."
"Interesting. I'll follow their journey. Don't wor
ry further." Jewel stretched her wings as open as possible and dug deep through the air, lifting upward.
"We will need her to dispel the darkness."
The dragon circled instead of rising. "Darkness?"
"It left the wizard before you took him between. Now it has a new host and is growing stronger."
Dragons didn't swear, but her human spirit railed inside her mind. If a demon ran loose on Sendek, the dragons would never return. Stubborn, heartless...she breathed deeply to calm herself. Talia and Landry would have to destroy the fiend and repair any damage before she could approach the council again on their behalf.
"I'll make sure she's ready."
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Twenty-four hours passed in the conduit. Talia's strength didn't return, and she finally gave in to Landry's insistence to visit the autodoc. After twenty minutes of staring at the ceiling through the glass cover, the machine beeped and set her free.
Landry frowned over the diagnostic. "There's nothing wrong with you."
"I told you." She waved her hand in dismissal. "You said we'll get the magic back when we leave the conduit. There's nothing to worry about."
"True, but two-thirds of this journey will be spent in the warp bubble. You can't spend the whole trip like this."
She slowly moved her legs around and eased them to the floor. He hurried over, but she held her hand up. "You've got to stop. We have four and a half months of travel. You can't carry me around the whole time."
"Sure I can." He tried to touch her face.
"Landry, I'm not used to someone hovering over me. It's really irritating." She took a step toward the door. "I'm going down to check the drive."
"Talia, wait."
"Let me work." She didn't turn to him, couldn't bear to see the worry etched across his face.
Dawn of the Mages (The Magic Wakes Book 2) Page 9