“He saved our lives,” David replied. At this point, it sounded like Damien’s only hope was to tell Varren everything. “He turned the matrix into an amplifier, Guildmaster,” he continued quietly. “If he hadn’t, the pirates would have killed us. Instead, he destroyed them. I agreed to let him. If someone has to be punished for this, punish me.”
Varren stood from his chair. It was a slow process – light on his feet or not, the Guildmaster was a massive man – and he was silent as he walked away from David to look out the window.
“If a man orders a doctor to remove his heart because it is broken - and the doctor does it,” he said quietly, “do you call it a suicide – or charge the doctor with murder, because he should have the knowledge to say no?”
“Even if he managed what you claim,” Varren continued, his voice still quiet as he refused to face David, “The Jump Matrix wouldn’t have survived intact. Bring what evidence you have to the trial, Captain, and you may manage to argue the Judge down in his sentence, but I have no choice.”
“No choice, Guildmaster?”
“Based off of the evidence I have seen, my assessment is that Damien Montgomery is either dangerously unaware of his limits or criminally insane,” the old man told David, his gaze on the greenery of the Spindle. “My recommendation to the Judge will be that his magic is taken from him, and we have already requested the presence of a Hand to carry out the sentence.”
A Hand. Damien’s crime was so severe, they were bringing a Hand of the Mage-King of Mars, the roving warrior-Judges who served as the King’s enforcers and wielded his authority outside Sol, to punish him.
“I understand your loyalty to your people,” Varren continued. “It says good things about both you and Mage Montgomery, but his crimes are inarguable and the punishment is not mine to set.”
The Guildmaster finally looked away from the window. His hands behind his back, his eyes were sad as they met David’s across the room. “I am sorry, Captain Rice, but with what Mage Montgomery has done, my hands are tied.”
“I understand,” David replied. He might not understand the reason, but he understood the reality. He stood. “If you’ll excuse me, then, I must inform my crew.”
“I appreciate your understanding Captain Rice,” Varren replied. “If there is anything I or my office can do to assist you while you remain in Corinthian, let me know. I realize how difficult a situation you are in.”
“Thank you,” David told him, the words ashes on his tongue.
#
The Citadel had an efficient elevator system, and David was outside, blinking in the light from the glowing core above his head, within a few minutes. He quickly left the main pathway, losing himself in the parks around the Guild’s offices until no one could see him.
No ship. No Mage. No crew – for his officers would never forgive him if he couldn’t save Damien.
He wouldn’t be able to forgive himself if he let this happen.
He stared at the trees for a long time, and then pulled a business card from his pocket and plugged a contact number into his personal computer.
A few moments later, a red-haired man with piercing green eyes answered.
“Captain Rice. I wasn’t expecting to hear from you at this point,” the man told David.
“You said you deal in information, Carmichael,” Rice replied. “I need some. We need to meet.”
#
Alaura Stealey was not drunk. Given the five now-empty bottles of stupendously expensive, actually-shipped-from-Scotland-on-Earth, whisky sitting on the desk in her office, this would be a surprise to anyone who interrupted her, and was a disappointment to her.
As a Hand of the Mage-King of Mars, Stealey was sent into the worst conflicts that the Protectorate had to offer, and the mess she’d just resolved on Corona was no exception. The original colony had been funded by a corporation out of Tau Ceti, third oldest of the Core Worlds. That corporation had been leaning on the local elected government to allow them mining access in explicitly designated reserves.
A portion of the local populace had responded with violence. After six weeks of negotiation, Stealey had finally managed to ram a deal that neither side was satisfied with down everyone’s throats. The corporation didn’t get to mine in area that was unique in the Protectorate and in need of protection, but there were no pardons for the rebels either. Nine of their leaders were going to be spending the next couple of decades as guests of the Coronan prison system, judged and sentenced under her authority as Hand of the King.
Unfortunately for Stealey’s desire to get very drunk, one of her first operations as a Hand of the King had run her into a similar group of rebels, with less of a point and less of a willingness to negotiate. That encounter had resulted in her taking several explosive rounds to the stomach. She’d lived, but every organ in that section of her body had been replaced with cybernetic parts.
Cybernetic parts served the purposes of those replaced organs in the main, but the toxin filters didn’t distinguish alcohol from any other poison. Her new and improved guts didn’t allow for such minor things as getting drunk. Or pregnant, for that matter, which she hadn’t expected to bother her before it happened.
With a sigh, Alaura reached for the sixth bottle -- she liked the taste of whisky, and it was theoretically possible she could get drunk if she drank enough -- only to be interrupted by a ‘New Message’ alert on her desk. She stared at the alert as the monitor extended itself up off her desk, noting that it was an interstellar delivery, carried by a courier ship out of Corinthian.
“I stayed in one place too long,” she said aloud, and then opened the message with a sigh. She paid almost no attention to the recorded video message from the Corinthian Guildmaster, beyond confirming that they needed her presence, but then started skimming the attached files.
A modified matrix had made fourteen jumps?
That was only possible if it had been successfully modified and turned into a true amplifier. As Stealey understood it that was theoretically possible, if you had the full schematics of the jump matrix and understood that a jump matrix was a restricted amplifier.
Without those, working with no time and under fire, it should have been impossible.
Alaura hit the intercom, raising the control bridge of her personal ship.
“Harmon,” she greeted the ship’s first officer. “Is anyone off ship?”
“The last of the crew shuffled aboard about fifteen minutes ago according to the master at arms,” the Lieutenant, seconded from the Protectorate Navy to her personal service, replied. “What do you need, ma’am?”
“If everyone is aboard and we’re fully fueled, set a course for the Corinthian system,” she ordered. “I have business there.”
“Yes ma’am,” Lieutenant Harmon replied. “Computer gives me an ETA of five days with the Crew Mages working standard shifts,” he advised her after a moment’s pause.
“Include me in the jump rotation,” Stealey ordered. “This may be important.”
“Yes ma’am.”
Stealey cut the intercom and turned back to the console to see what she could pull up about Damien Montgomery.
There was a way that what he’d done could be possible. The young Mage could be the find of the century.
And the Corinthians wanted her to take his magic away.
#
Carmichael met David at his office. Late in the evening by Spindle’s time, the immense tube of light down the center of the station dimming towards its programmed night, the discreet three story building tucked on the edge of one Spindle’s many small towns was empty.
The information broker let David into the building himself, leading the Captain silently through an office of brick and carpet that looked like it belonged in the twentieth century instead of the twenty-fifth. Finally, they reached an office on the top floor with windows looking out over the artificial world of the Spindle.
“Close the door behind you,” Carmichael instructed. As David obeye
d, he lowered old fashioned blinds across the windows, blocking out the fading light outside.
Hidden panels on the room automatically began to glow to counteract the reduced light, keeping the office at a comfortable level of light as David looked around the room. Everything in the room had been done in Sherwood Oak – the expensive hardwood that he’d just delivered a cargo of himself. The walls were paneled in the smooth wood, likely concealing filing cabinets and bookshelves, as there was no furniture in the room other than chairs and a large desk – also Sherwood Oak.
“This entire building is swept for bugs daily,” Carmichael said calmly. “This room, once the door and blinds are closed, functions as a Faraday Cage. If someone can get past that, there are white noise generators mounted in each corner to prevent anyone outside listening. I stole the idea for the setup from the Navy,” he explained when David looked at him questioningly. “A contact of mine was the electrician they hired when they were expanding the base at Tau Ceti. This is as secure a place to have a conversation as you’ll find in this system.”
“Now, what did you want from me?”
“You told me you deal in information,” David began. “I tend to presume that dealing tends to drag you into the grayer areas of the world. I need… criminal contacts. Preferably organized - with resources. I’m going to need certain materials and equipment that isn’t legally available, and I’m hoping to be able to acquire additional manpower.”
“I see,” Carmichael said aloud, resting his hands on his desk. “You are a ship’s captain; you have some idea of the price of what you are asking for. I’d guess that you wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think you could afford it.”
“Your plan, I assume, is to breakout your young Mage and flee the system?”
“Yes,” David answered flatly. He wasn’t going to give this man everything, but he had to trust him that much if he was going to get anywhere.
The broker sighed, looking down at his hands for a long moment in silence.
“If you were anyone else, Captain, I think I could help you,” he said finally. “But the criminals of this station won’t deal with you, unless it’s to collect the bounty on your head.”
“The Blue Star Syndicate isn’t even here,” David argued. Widespread as the Syndicate was, he’d quietly checked to see if they had any presence in Corinthian before he’d taken the contract.
“But they have a long arm,” Carmichael said softly. “And even if they didn’t, men such as you want to deal with are unenthused with those who turn their kind in to the law!”
David shivered slightly at the words, remembering just how he’d acquired the bounty the Blue Star Syndicate had put on his head. Desperate to make a note payment on the Blue Jay, he’d taken a cargo contract without asking questions. Unusual power readings had led them to investigate the containers, which had turned out to contain hundreds of kidnapped teenagers in cryo-stasis, destined to be forced into various forms of slavery.
He’d delivered the containers and collected his payment. He’d also told the Mage-King’s Navy what he’d delivered. The ensuing raid had seen eight hundred and fourteen kidnapped children rescued – and the son of the leader of the Blue Star Syndicate killed in the firefight.
David couldn’t bring himself to regret that decision.
“So money won’t be enough,” he said aloud, meeting Carmichael’s eyes. “But Damien is being held in the zero-grav high security cells up there,” he pointed up at where the central core ran through the station. “Their people and resources can’t break anyone out – they’re all known to System Security. I might be able to. Surely at least one of the bosses has to have someone locked in there?”
“You’re offering to breakout the kind of man who gets locked in zero-grav confinement?” Carmichael asked dryly.
“I’m already planning to break one man out,” David replied. “If that’s the price I have to pay, that’s the price I have to pay.”
The information broker held his gaze for a long moment, and then nodded.
“I think I can get someone to make a deal,” he said quietly. “I’ll set up a meeting. How much time do you have?”
“They’ll scrap my ship after the trial,” David told him. “So before then – I’m told it will be in four days.”
“I’ll contact you once I have a meet,” Carmichael instructed.
David left the broker’s office with a sense of hope for the first time in days. He didn’t want to know what kind of man he’d have to breakout of Corinthian Prime’s highest security prison – almost certainly the kind who belonged in there – but he knew something he hadn’t told Carmichael and wouldn’t tell the crime boss.
Somehow, he didn’t think that any escaped criminal still on the station would remain at large once the Hand arrived.
#
If David had had any doubts about the degree of connection that Carmichael had with the underworld on Corinthian Prime, the speed with which the broker organized the meeting would have laid them to rest. The next morning, station time, the broker sent him instructions to come to a specific bar in the zero-gravity docks district that evening – and to only bring one person with him.
He brought Narveer – the pilot had learned to fly in the Martian Marine Corps, which insisted that all of its personnel be capable in hand to hand and rifle combat before they let them learn any other specialty.
They arrived exactly on time, to find Carmichael waiting for them outside the bar with a pair of men David could only describe as ‘muscle.’ They were big men, dressed in matching cheap suits and wearing matching glowers.
“You made it, good,” the broker greeted him. “Let’s go,” he gestured down the street.
“We’re not going in the bar?” David asked. He’d been relying on a somewhat public location to keep the meeting civil.
“Carney don’t like crowds,” one of the muscle rumbled. “You meet where he says.”
“He’s promised safe conduct,” Carmichael told David. “Carney doesn’t give explicit promises very often – because he doesn’t break them when he does.”
“All right,” David agreed uneasily, glancing at Narveer. The pilot’s face was blank, his eyes tracking the two thugs.
Carmichael led the way and the two thugs followed up the rear as the five drifted their way through the zero-gravity part of the station. Eventually, they reached what looked like one of the dozens of storage warehouses scattered throughout the docks. Following the information broker into the warehouse, though, David felt himself yanked towards a specific ‘floor’ – the ‘warehouse’ had gravity runes.
Inside the unassuming door, walls blocked off most of the space from an entrance that was utterly bland and empty. A metal detector covered the only way further into the warehouse, and a pair of guards, matching to the set following him in, flanked the door.
“Leave any weapons with us,” the speaker of the muscle that had accompanied them to the warehouse rumbled.
“I’m not carrying any,” David replied, glancing at Singh. “Narveer?”
The pilot shrugged and pulled a rocket pistol, designed for minimum recoil in zero-gravity, from his jacket. As the guard took that with a satisfied grunt, Singh proceeded to produce two black-handled, back-curved knives from the small of his back.
“Watch the edge,” he said sharply as the guard eyed them. “Honed to a few molecules thick.”
The guard took the two kukris very respectfully, and then blinked as Singh reached up to his turban and produced a collapsible baton, a small yellow lightning bolt on the black case marked it as electrified.
“That’s everything,” he announced as the guards piled the weapons by the scanner. “It better not leave without me,” he told them fiercely.
“The boss promised,” the vocal guard told him. “He don’t make promises we can’t keep.”
This, David considered, was as much a warning as a reassurance.
The interior of the warehouse, once you got past the spa
rtan security checkpoint, looked like any small office complex. There were even potted plants that they were led past until they finally reached a plain-looking door. There was nothing to distinguish this door from any other office door they’d seen coming through.
“You’re expected,” the guard told them, and then opened the door.
Carmichael led the way and David followed into a neat, perfectly organized, office that wouldn’t have looked out of place for any corporate CEO in the Protectorate.
“Have a seat,” the man seated behind the heavy metal desk instructed, gesturing to the chairs. The mob boss Carney could almost be mistaken for the muscle outside, until you saw his eyes. For all his size and muscle, Carney’s eyes were ice blue, flat and cold.
“Thank you for meeting with me,” David told him as he and his fellows took the two seats. Those flat eyes leveled on him.
“I’ll confess,” the boss said, his voice slow and precise, “that Carmichael’s description of your offer intrigued me. I do wonder, though, why you think you can succeed in breaking my people out where I would fail?”
“Unless System Security is more incompetent that any force I’ve ever met,” David replied, “anyone coming in to visit your people will be searched and watched like a hawk. They’ll assume anyone meeting convicted mob offenders may have been bought or compromised by their employers.”
“My man, on the other hand, has been a model prisoner and we have not caused any trouble on the station. They won’t suspect us, so we can get useful gear closer than any of your people,” the Captain explained.
“Fair,” Carney grunted. “What’s your offer?”
“We need a distraction and certain gear – flash-bangs, Nix-Six grenades and stunguns,” David told him. “I need security away from the connector between the jail and the dock – we’ll head straight for my ship and break it free as well once Damien is clear.”
Starship's Mage: Episode 2 Page 5