Starship's Mage: Episode 2

by Glynn Stewart

  The Enforcer turned to face Rice, his magnetic boots clicking sharply on the ground. David found himself floating in the zero gee as he met the Mage’s gaze, and wished he had magnetic boots of his own. They wouldn’t have allowed him to be any more intimidating to the Mage soldier, but they would have let him feel less ridiculous.

  “Is everyone off?” the Enforcer asked the security officer, ignoring David.

  “We left the Captain to last,” the man confirmed. “One last team is sweeping the ship right now, they’ll be out shortly.”

  The Enforcer turned to the four men on the barricade. “As soon as the sweep team returns, lock down the ship under a Security Code,” he ordered. “Provide the Code to Guildmaster Varren’s office, then maintain security over the docking tube,” he met David’s gaze levelly, “just in case.”

  “What is the meaning of this?” David finally demanded, done with being ignored.

  “I am Enforcer Evan Santos,” the man introduced himself calmly. “Your ship’s rune matrix was reviewed by a Rune Scribe this morning, under warrant from Guildmaster Varren,” the Enforcer continued. “Based on that review, your matrix was judged unsafe for use. There was also a noted risk of feedback and other issues that render the vessel unsafe for current habitation. Your Ship’s Mage has been arrested for illegal experimentation – you are damned lucky no one was hurt!”

  “I was aware of the change to the rune matrix,” David responded. “There have been no issues from it, and it may have saved our lives.”

  Santos shrugged.

  “I am not an expert on these things,” he replied. “However, we escorted James Marlow, a senior Rune Scribe who is an expert, to review the matrix, and that was his judgment.”

  “So, how, exactly do I get my ship back?” David asked.

  “That will be up to Guildmaster Varren,” the Enforcer told him. “You will need to make an appointment with him – I was merely charged with evacuating and securing the ship your Mage made a deathtrap.”

  “What happens to Damien?” David asked.

  “If he saved your lives as you say, you might be able to argue some clemency,” Santos replied. “But I wouldn’t count on it – the Guildmaster cannot risk being seen as weak in disciplining Mages.”

  #

  Six walls, one door, zero-gravity. The walls that surrounded Damien were covered in silver runes that suppressed his gift, locking the nature of reality so that no magic could be done inside the cell. A hammock hung from one corner and the intimidating hoses of a zero-gravity toilet in another.

  The cell was somewhere in the core of the Spindle, the cylinder that ran through the heart of the habitation zone of Corinthian Prime. Here, the rotation of the outside station was nonexistent, helping create a high security prison in the heart of the station.

  Strangely to Damien, the runes that suppressed his ability to wield magic didn’t do anything to his gift for reading the flow of it. He spent the first few minutes after being tossed in the cell floating in shock, but then he’d turned to deciphering the runes to help keep his mind engaged.

  Following the lines of energy revealed that the rune matrix binding the cell was surprisingly fragile. If he’d had the tools to do it, there were four connections tying together different components that would break the entire matrix if severed.

  If he had the tools to do it.

  Given that he was in the cell for illegal experimentation with rune matrices, Damien doubted that his captors were going to casually leave silver inlaying tools floating around the high security cell.

  Mage Law was notoriously bad for laying out just what crimes fell under what category. Some were easy to guess – the standard ‘example’ given for a Class A Mage Law Violation was Pre-meditated Murder by Magic – but for a lot of the more esoteric crimes, the only people who really knew were Judges and Enforcers.

  What Damien had been taught, though, was the penalties. The Class A Violation he was charged with carried a minimum sentence of twenty years forced labor. Mages put to forced labor weren’t hauling stones or swinging pickaxes, and the living conditions were supposed to be decent – but the work was things like ‘conjuring antimatter’. Mage prisoners did some of the most dangerous jobs in the Protectorate. Civilian and military Mages doing the jobs they made prisoners do were extremely well paid. Prisoners… simply had to do them.

  That was the minimum sentence. There were rumors about the maximum sentence, rumors Damien wasn’t sure he believed. The Protectorate Charter forbade the death penalty for anything except treason… but the rumor was that if you were convicted of a truly heinous Class A crime, they would take away your magic.

  And then let you go.

  #

  “So?” Jenna asked when David entered the hotel bar where his remaining officers were waiting. A bottle of expensive whiskey was set amidst the three of them, and Kellers silently poured David a glass after seeing his face.

  “Apparently, this whole situation isn’t enough to get anything resembling urgency out of the Guildmaster’s staff,” he said quietly. “They may have impounded my ship and imprisoned one of my officers in a high security cell, but they can’t make time in the Guildmaster’s schedule for two days.” He sighed.

  “I took the appointment, obviously,” he continued, “but Guildmaster Varren is in control of both the Blue Jay’s impoundment, and Damien’s imprisonment. No one else can do anything about either.”

  “What about the system government?” Singh demanded. The turban-wearing pilot gestured energetically with a cup of milky tea – he was the only one not drinking the whiskey being passed around.

  David took a slug of the whiskey, letting it burn its way down his throat as if that would help.

  “It’s Mage Law,” he said bluntly. “The Compact says the mundane government can’t interfere unless they have evidence of a flawed trial.” The Compact was one of the two documents that underlay the legal structure of the Protectorate – the Charter defined the rules and laws that governed everyone, and the Compact defined how Mage and Mundane dealt with each other. Simplest of those rules: Mages tried their own, unless they were clearly abusing the privilege.

  The table was silent for a long moment as the whiskey bottle made its way around.

  “So what do we do?” Singh finally asked.

  “The note on the Blue Jay is almost paid off,” David said quietly. “If everything falls apart, I pay out the crew, return to Mars and finance a new ship. If you’re willing to come, I’d be pleased to have you all with me.”

  “Fuck that,” the pilot said bluntly. “I meant: what do we do about Damien?”

  “We wait,” David replied. “I’ll keep paying the crew until we know for sure what’s happened with the ship, and I’m not going anywhere until I have a chance to speak for Damien.”

  “The hell if any of us going anywhere till we can do that,” Singh said firmly, and the others nodded.

  “I’m not sure we’ll make any difference,” the captain warned them. “Varren apparently plays hardball with Mages in Corinthian – apparently, he wants to prove that Corinthian has nothing to fear from Mages.”

  “He certainly isn’t showing Mages have nothing to fear from Corinthian,” Kellers murmured. “What do we do if they’re going to throw away the key? Or worse?”

  David didn’t answer immediately, looking down at his hands and the glass of whiskey in them. At the end of the day, he could replace his ship – though his other issues would probably continue to pursue him – but was he really willing to abandon the young man who’d saved his life and the lives of all of his crew?

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” he eventually said, his voice steady. “But I’d ask you all to remember this: what he’s being punished for, he did to save our lives. And he doesn’t even know why we were in danger.”

  #

  The Protectorate had stringent rules on keeping prisoners in zero-gravity cells, Damien discovered, as twice each day he was removed f
rom the cell and taken to a gym with magically induced gravity to exercise and eat. The entire time he was outside of his cell, he was accompanied by two Enforcers in their ominous black armor, neither of whom said a word to him that wasn’t a direct instruction.

  It wasn’t until after the fourth exercise session, at the end of the second day of his imprisonment, that Damien saw anyone other than his two guards. Instead of escorting him back to his cell, they escorted him to a small office with gravity runes where a bespectacled and balding man in a plain black suit waited for him.

  “Please be seated Mr. Montgomery,” the stranger told Damien, gesturing towards one of the two chairs in the room. He was seated in the second, behind a desk that was too plain and empty to be his. “Please leave us,” the man then instructed the Enforcers.

  “There’s a panic button under the desk Mr. Burton,” one of the Enforcers responded calmly. “If there are any issues, we’ll be back inside in seconds.”

  The door swung shut behind them, and Burton met Damien’s gaze levelly.

  “I am Zach Burton, your appointed defender,” he said calmly. “I apologize for not being in to speak with you sooner, but I had to research the particulars of the charge levied against you – as you can imagine, it’s not a common one.”

  Damien glanced at the locked door.

  “They’re acting like I’m dangerous,” he said quietly, the words half a complaint.

  “Son, from what I’m told, you came within a sunbathing snowflake of scattering everyone aboard your ship in pieces across several light years,” Burton said dryly, looking over the tops of his glasses at Damien. “You’re facing charges of illegal modification of a Jump Matrix and eighty-six counts of attempted murder.”

  The words hit Damien like a body blow and he sank in his chair as the full magnitude of the accusations sank in.

  “I didn’t… I never…”

  “I have to admit,” Burton continued after he realized Damien wasn’t going to be able to say anything coherent, “that I don’t believe I’ve ever seen quite so open and shut a case from this side. The ship itself constitutes an insurmountable degree of evidence.”

  “No one was hurt!” Damien burst out. “It was completely safe, I could tell.”

  Burton was silent for a moment, and then sighed deeply. “Damien, I’ve looked up what they’ve charged you with. They can take away your magic. An insanity plea won’t help you.”

  “I am not crazy,” Damien told him. “I turned the matrix into an amplifier to save us all – if it hadn’t been safe, I wouldn’t have jumped us.”

  “The Guildmaster and his experts – you know, the people who build those matrices? – disagree with you,” Burton said calmly. “They say you all burned up several lifetimes worth of luck surviving so many jumps, and the ship is at risk of coming apart just sitting there at this point. I’m honestly not sure what you can do other than plead the stupidity of youth and throw yourself on the mercy of the court.”

  “They might let you get away with two or three decades of labor if you do that,” the lawyer continued, “and you’re young enough that you’d still have a few good decades left after that.”

  Damien sat in the chair in silence for a long time, staring at the lawyer.

  “Look, there’s not a lot I can do here,” Burton finally said. “Unlike you want to tell me magic space pixies modified the runes on that ship, they’ve got the physical evidence to prove the matrix modification charge, which leads inherently to the attempted murder charges. If you want to avoid this, you shouldn’t have broken the most complicated spell known to man and Mage!”

  “If I hadn’t, I and those eighty-six people would be dead,” Damien told him quietly. “What do you want of me?”

  “Listen, the trial won’t be for a few more days,” Burton told him. “Think it over, and I’ll see if I dig up some grounds for clemency. The guards will call me if you ask – they have to.”

  The defender stood up, offering his hand to Damien.

  “I’ll do my best, Mr. Montgomery, but the truth is you’re screwed,” he said bluntly. “I stand by my recommendation: throw yourself on the mercy of the court and plead ignorance. It’s your only way out of here.”

  Damien shook the man’s hand. The man was trying his best. None of the other Mages apparently thought what he’d done was possible, so, from their perspective, they were right. He had tried to kill everyone aboard his ship.

  It wasn’t their fault that he had done something they knew to be impossible.

  #

  Captain Rice arrived at the Guildmaster’s office ten minutes early for his appointment. Two days had passed without any news of his ship or his Mage, and his staff and crew were starting to get impatient for their Captain to fix things. David had no illusions about his ability to fix this, but he knew he had to try.

  The Guildmaster was almost half an hour late. David sat, surrounded by potted plants, in the waiting room on one of the higher floors of the black metal fortress the Guild called home on Corinthian Prime for forty minutes.

  He spent most of the time trying not to take his growing frustration out on the gentleman holding down the massive wooden desk outside Varren’s office. There was nothing the assistant could do to hurry Varren up from wherever the man was hiding, and David had learned long ago never to piss off the people who organized the schedules.

  When Varren finally showed up he entered through the waiting room himself. He was a large man, on the edge of grossly obese, wearing a perfectly tailored gray suit that tried to hide it. His hair had gone pure white around a growing bald spot on the top of his head, and his eyes were a cheerful bright blue. The gold medallion at his throat was the first David had ever seen to be larger than standard, but the number of symbols etched into it explained the need. Damien was unusual in that his medallion bore the marks of two specialties. Varren bore the three stars of a Jump Mage, the stylized atom of a Transmuter, the quill of a Rune Scribe, and the sword of an Enforcer.

  For all of his size, the Guildmaster was light on his feet and approached David immediately.

  “I apologize profusely for keeping you waiting, Captain Rice,” he told the Captain. “The Inspectors on the Blue Jay finished their work a bit earlier than planned, and I wanted to meet with them so I could give you an update on the status of the ship.”

  “I appreciate that,” David replied. Any answers would be helpful at this point.

  “My office then,” Varren instructed, gesturing forward. He turned to the assistant. “Cob, can you re-arrange my schedule for the rest of the day to make sure I have enough time for Captain Rice? The Governor is the only thing we shouldn’t be able to change.”

  “I’ll see who I can push off till tomorrow,” the assistant promised.

  “If someone’s willing to meet me after dinner, set that up instead,” Varren told him as he opened the door into his office for Rice to precede him.

  The Guildmaster’s office was not what David had expected. The front room had been expensive furniture and green plants. The furniture of the office was probably expensive, but that was about all the room shared with the outside. Squat bookshelves covered every wall, surrounding an immense desk that might have been real wood, but was hard to identify under the paper that covered it. The shelves were bulging with paper copies of reports. The desk was occupied with four monitors, and two more were set up on the appropriate nearby shelves to provide more real estate for data.

  Varren entered, and waved his hand. The monitors all rolled themselves up, shrinking into single bars lying on the desk, half-hidden by paper.

  “I apologize for the mess,” the Guildmaster told David. “It drives Cob to distraction, but I find that the more data I can lay eyes on at once, the better I’m able to think. I always seem to end up with half the station spread around my office, though,” he admitted ruefully as he gestured David to a chair that, mercifully, did not seem to be occupied by paper.

  Settling into the indicated seat, Da
vid almost jumped as the fabric and frame automatically adjusted itself to an appropriate ergonomic position for his body shape. Moments later, he felt a knot he hadn’t quite realized he’d been carrying in his back release, and he glanced down at the chair appreciatively for a moment.

  Then he looked up, meeting Varren’s gaze across the man’s massive and crowded desk.

  “My ship,” he asked quietly.

  “I was hoping to have better news,” the Guildmaster answered, the cheerfulness of his voice fading. “The Inspectors have concluded that the damage done to the rune matrix is too pervasive for repair. Even if we could fix it, there’s so many changes that the ship would never be truly safe to jump. The Blue Jay is being condemned.”

  Condemned. David had known it was possible – even likely - from the moment he and his crew had been evacuated at gunpoint.

  “We jumped that ship fourteen times after the modifications were made,” he argued. “The Jay is perfectly safe!”

  “Captain, please!” Varren replied. “You and your crew should be scattered in pieces from here to Sherwood! Just because you have been unbelievably lucky doesn’t mean you should keep pushing your luck!”

  “The Jump Matrix hasn’t been changed since the first Mage-King wrote it,” he continued, “because no one has ever managed to do so and have the ship and Mage survive.

  “The Blue Jay will be held to serve as evidence in Mage Montgomery’s trial, and then scrapped and the parts and scrap sold,” Varren concluded. “You will, of course, receive the funds from the sale, less costs and a service fee.”

  The chair wouldn’t let David slump backwards.

  “What about Montgomery?” he finally asked.

  “Mage Montgomery has been charged with modification of a jump matrix and eighty-six counts of attempted murder,” the Guildmaster said gently. “So far as I can tell, he is either utterly ignorant and callous, or completely insane – and only an impossible amount of luck kept him from utterly destroying your ship.”