Renegade Magic (Star Renegades Book 1)

by Jennifer M. Eaton

  She followed Alanna out, and the door slid shut behind them.

  Ethan let out a breath and sat back in his chair. “I never dreamed potatoes could be so stressful.”

  Doc glared at him. “Screw the potatoes. Did you seriously disrespect a member of the royal family right in front of an enforcer?”

  Ethan scrunched up his face. “Yeah, probably not one of my smarter moves.”

  That was the understatement of the century.

  Ty sat forward. “But he’s alive. I mean, Dania flinched, but I think she kind of agreed with you.”

  Cal folded his hands in front of his plate. “So what does that mean?”

  Doc stared at his water glass. “It means she’s getting more human by the second.”

  “That’s not a good thing?” Ty asked.

  Doc sighed. “It is and it isn’t. She’s dying.”

  “What?” Ty and Ethan said at the same time.

  He looked at them both. “The Banes did something to her. Her body is so badly damaged that she can’t survive without them.”

  Ty laughed. “I can tell by the look on your face that you think you can fix it.”

  “Think is the important word there,” Cal pointed out. “Doc has theories, not proven facts.”

  “I’d take Doc’s theories as fact in most cases,” Ethan said.

  Doc pushed back his plate and rubbed his hands. “If I’m wrong, she’s dead.”

  “Are you wrong?” Cal asked.

  Doc shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

  The door slid open, and Alanna stepped back in.

  “Sorry about that.” She returned to her chair, eyeing Dania’s plate. “I have a sister who used to get overstimulated once in a while. Dania had that same look on her face.”

  Cal nodded as she slipped into her seat. He’d sent her first pay stipend home to the navigator’s family to pay for her sister’s medication.

  She looked back to them all. “I figured it would be better to help Dania decompress a little, because if my sister got too upset, we only had to worry about her throwing a tantrum, not frying everyone to a crisp.”

  Well, that was a sobering thought.

  “Where is Dania now?” Cal asked.

  “She’s lying down. It’s been a huge day for her. She’s exhausted.”

  Ethan smiled. “And if she as much as sneezes, I’ll know about it.”

  “The security is all up and running?” Cal asked.

  Ethan pulled out a data pad from his pocket and held up a video of Dania lying in bed.

  “Is Ethan really the best person to monitor her?” Alanna’s cheeks flushed. “I mean, what if she takes a shower or something?”

  Ethan held his hand over his heart. “I’m deeply hurt. You know you’re the only one I want to see naked.”

  Alanna pursed her lips. “Keep dreaming.”

  “Focus, people.” Cal filled Alanna in on Dania’s current medical situation.

  Alanna sat, drumming her fingers on the edge of the table. “Dania isn’t the same person. I can attest to that. I mean, she didn’t even threaten me today.”

  Ethan snorted.

  “I’m serious.”

  “We know what you mean.” Doc pointed to Dania’s plate. “Does anyone else think she was reliving a suppressed memory?”

  “I had the same thought,” Cal said. “I’m just not sure what to make of it.”

  “I do.” Alanna folded her arms in that men-are-all-buffoons way. “She’s becoming more like us.”

  Ethan massaged his temples. “Us, with enough firepower to eradicate a small moon.”

  Alanna scoffed at him before turning to Doc. “Do you really think you can save her?”

  Doc steepled his fingers. “I have to admit, it’s only a theory. What I’m proposing is creating tiny synthetic pathogens. No one has ever done anything like this, but…”

  “This is the kind of real-world experimentation bull that got your name on the king’s execution list to begin with.” Cal didn’t mean to dredge up the past, but they all needed to understand the risks.

  “Yeah.” Doc grimaced. “And contrary to Ethan’s high opinion of me, I have been wrong once or twice.”

  Two years ago, Doc had accidentally killed a kid when a treatment had gone awry. That’s what had brought the might of the enforcers down on him. Luckily enough, the Star Renegade had been prepped for takeoff before the enforcers had landed that day. And Cal had been on the lookout for a medic. Or, in this case, something like a medic. It had been a win-win for both of them. It wasn’t like Cal wasn’t already on the run for his own crimes.

  Alanna rubbed her hands across the tops of her legs. “So, is this one of those things we’re going to vote on? Because I want to try to save her.”

  Cal tapped the edge of his plate. “It’s risky.” On many levels. “We can save her, and she could still turn us in.”

  Ty held out his hands. “Or, we can save her, and she appreciates it, and saves us all right back.”

  Ty was always the eternal optimist. Cal wished it could always be as easy as things seemed in his first mate’s head.

  “We could also send her home now,” Ethan pointed out. “That way, we know she’ll survive, and maybe she can convince them to cancel the execution orders.”

  “Before the Banes turn her into a machine again?” Alanna stood. “I’m telling you guys, what came on board that first day was a monster. Right now, she’s a person. A confused, lost person. If we send her back there…” She shook her head. “If we’re going to do that, we might as well let her die.”

  “Maybe we should let her decide?” Cal still wanted Dania to be that proverbial stone, but Alanna had a point. Was it right to free her, and then send her back where she might be turned into a monster again?

  Doc rubbed his chin. “I’m not sure she’s capable of deciding for herself yet. Like Alanna said, she’s confused. Everything is new to her.”

  Which was a problem in and of itself. She could snap at any minute.

  Cal glanced at Dania’s plate. None of them wanted to suffer the same fate as her mashed potatoes.

  Ty stood. “All in favor of letting the good doctor try to save the enforcer say aye.” He held up his hand.

  So did Alanna and Doc.

  Ethan stared at the tabletop. This ship wasn’t a complete democracy. Cal could still say no and drop Dania off at the nearest star system. But giving up wasn’t really a part of who he was anymore. There was still a chance that Dania could make a difference, and part of him wanted to see if Doc really was the mad genius Ethan believed he was.

  Cal raised his hand. “Aye.”

  Ethan nodded. “Okay, sounds like a party. We’re all used to running for our lives, anyway, right?”

  28

  Dania

  The light above Dania’s bed flickered once. Twice. A third time. The fourth time, she sat up.

  How could a ship in such disrepair elude the enforcers for so long?

  She stood and paced the small room. Alanna’s living space was larger than this one, but that made sense, since she appeared to be the equivalent of an officer in this odd larcenous operation. In fact, they all did.

  Dania snickered, imagining Prince Geron preparing dinner for his enforcers, let alone serving them with his own hands. Their prince was a good man, but humble was not a word anyone would use to describe him. In fact, humility was not something any Bane or their enforcers would aspire to. Humility made one appear weak.

  Dania stared at the door. Why would the captain have invited her to that meal, knowing he’d appear spineless in her eyes? She’d already agreed that he hadn’t killed anyone—anyone that she was aware of, at least.

  Of course, he was still guilty of a myriad of other crimes… Crimes Dania was no longer sure she’d be able to punish him for. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

  She took a step closer to the door and placed her hand on the switch plate. The door slid open.

  They’d le
ft it unlocked?

  She peeked out, but the hallway was empty.

  Interesting.

  She stepped back inside and closed the door. Even though she’d made it clear she wouldn’t judge this crew for what they’d done, she was still an enforcer, and this was still a smuggling ship. The captain wouldn’t be foolish enough to leave her completely free.

  Her gaze carried over the stark white walls. Other than the flickering light, the room showed no signs of wear. It was quite possible she was the first occupant.

  A dark speck in the corner caught her attention. Yes—there, a pin camera.

  Smuggler’s grade, of course. Highly illegal. She closed her eyes and followed the energy of the feed through the wall and to a computer station in a room on the far side of the ship. Additional signals led to a laser-triggered alarm, tainted with the same DNA structure of the copper-haired engineer.

  If Dania had left the room, rather than simply looking out, the warning system would have activated, letting the crew know she was no longer in bed.

  So, she was not completely free after all.

  She couldn’t blame Cal for being careful. She was still an unknown to them.

  Trailing her fingertips along the wall, Dania caught her reflection in the mirror and frowned at her honey-colored hair. At the moment, she was an unknown even to herself. What if the doctor had done something to her?

  Pacing her newfound prison, she pulled at the edges of her hair. This discoloration was the most obvious sign of the sickness that had overtaken her, but not the only one. Looking to the mirror again, she turned away, unable to stomach the odd color of her irises.

  If she were home, she’d be sprinting to her sponsor, begging him to fix this.

  No…he’d have seen her need, maybe even felt it, and he’d have come for her. Geron took care of all of his charges, not like some other sponsors, who left their enforcers for long periods, leaving them open to the attacks that she was supposed to have been thwarting when she’d ended up on this ship.

  A shiver ran up her spine, remembering Matara. The girl could be anywhere by now. If she were even still alive.

  Dania couldn’t imagine being that young, losing her power, and feeling the strain of distance from her sponsor.

  The strain of being overcome by humans.

  Of becoming less.

  Dania flexed her hands and stared at her palms. The doctor had made it seem like she would adjust and get better over time, but this would only get worse.

  Taking a deep breath, she lay back on the bed. She didn’t get the impression that the crew had any intention of harming her or otherwise selling her to the traffickers. So what was their plan, then? Why invite her to dinner? Were they trying to sway her opinions of them?

  That was difficult, when the signs of their illegal pursuits were everywhere. Like the camera aimed right at her bed.

  Still, she couldn’t hate them, despite who they were. Which was another level of concern all together.

  Dania closed her eyes and sent a small tickle of power into the camera, setting the frame to still and then locking the image. Anyone casually checking the feeds would believe she was sleeping.

  She stood, held out her hands, and felt the reverberation of the energy flowing through the lasers going across the door. This system would be a little harder to thwart than the camera. If she disengaged the laser, the mechanism would read that the system had been breached, and the alarm would sound.

  Alexander was always the one to deal with more technical problems like this. He was more patient. He would think it through and consider it a challenge to find a way to circumvent the invisible curtain keeping her inside.

  Patience had never been Dania’s strong point. Moving to the side of the door, past where the infrared energy hummed, she held her palms up to the wall.

  This was foolish in her current state, but she couldn’t be sure of the captain’s intentions for her. She needed clarity, and clarity could not be achieved while trapped in a room.

  Pressing against the wall, she imagined the millions of particles within. The tiny specks of matter fought her for a moment before humming with a resonance all their own. As they dispersed, she stepped through the shifting particles of the wall and into the hallway, then let the atoms spring back to their previous forms.

  She released the power and stumbled into the opposite wall. The hallway blurred.

  What she’d just done should be child’s play. Jumping through walls had gotten her and Alexander in trouble with the queen on several occasions when they’d been children. Dania had never felt ill afterward.

  She blinked until her vision cleared. She’d always wondered how it was possible for an enforcer to be taken and enslaved. She’d been weakened in battle before, but even then, she could have easily taken on countless humans.

  This, though, was something different. Alexander had warned her about expending too much energy, and then the Palian steel had stolen even more. She couldn’t remember ever having such a small amount of power flowing through her.

  She opened and closed her palms as her hands came into focus. Her skin had started to turn a pinkish color, similar to Alanna’s.

  Her stomach clenched. So much had changed. Too much.

  She’d never been vulnerable in her life. This wasn’t who she was, and she needed to get herself well. Using the wall to brace herself, she looked down the empty hallway. A hunger gnawed inside her that couldn’t be quenched with stolen food. She needed to feed as only an enforcer could.

  Holding flat against the edge of the wall, she inched down the corridor, concentrating on the empty space, waiting to hear voices or footsteps.

  There were none.

  Either the crew had retired for the night, or they were still gathered around the table, enjoying their spoils. She should have hated them for their frivolity, but she still found it hard. Food must be difficult to get out this far in space, no matter who you were.

  Growling, Dania punched the wall. Why was she feeling a kinship to these people? These feelings went against her programming and negated all her training.

  She flinched at the word programming.

  Like Alexander’s programming to help people, Dania’s programming should guide her to make sound decisions. Why wasn’t it helping her now? Why couldn’t she find a concise thought, a clear direction, as she always had?

  Dania held the sides of her head. Whatever this was, she needed to fix it before it got any worse.

  She sidled around a corner and found an emergency climb-way. Holding tight to steady herself, she descended the ladder. Cooler air swept across her cheeks as she stepped out onto a dark platform. The echo of her shoes warned of a wide open space before the lights flicked on.

  She held up her palms, ready for attack, but nothing challenged her. A light flickered in the corner before the globe burst, casting the area in darkness again. The rest of the chamber, though, held rows upon rows of freight canisters. Some looked familiar, the same coloring and size that had transported the food to the colony on Kirato.

  Hopefully, they were the same canisters, returned to the ship empty.

  She turned away and moved through the room. It was more likely that those canisters were filled with more illicit goods. If they were, though, she didn’t want to know. She’d seen such goodness from these people. She didn’t want to believe they could do anything more against the king’s wishes.

  An orange beacon pulsed in the back of the room. She made her way toward the light, illuminating the words E-Com-4.

  Narrowing her eyes, she pressed the red square beside the door, and it slid open. The lights inside flared on. Panels came to life. Dania took in the odd, outdated, and faded equipment. It seemed to be an ancient communication station, one not linked to the ship’s systems. But why?

  What reason would there be to not link your communications to the efficiency of the interplanetary networks?

  Her stomach sank, and she looked back to the containers. The
interplanetary network was monitored and run through filters.

  Older Earth communication, while slower, were nearly undetectable to the king’s technology. These systems had been deemed illegal by the Peace Accord. They should only exist in museums…and in ships that might want to avoid detection.

  This was yet another crime to add to the list. Dania wanted to return to her room before she found more illegal wares, but this discovery sparked of opportunity.

  This console was, by design, not linked up to the ship’s communication system. It was as blind to Cal as it was to the crown. Despite the obvious advantages to smugglers, they probably used this as a backup for emergencies as well. And right now, Dania had an emergency.

  She slipped inside and closed the doors. The controls were archaic. The edge of the dials were encased in…stars, was that plastic? She shook her head, wondering how humans had ever made it into space.

  The system came to life, and an old-fashioned microphone rose from the center of the console. A computer screen that appeared to be encased in planetary-quality glass came from inside the wall and moved toward her.

  As children, she and Alexander had played with archaic machines like this. The controls were far more complicated than modern equipment, but the puzzle of sorting through the design had always been amusing. She set a mild encryption, the same scramble that she and Alexander had come up with when they’d exchanged messages from each other’s rooms at night when they should have been sleeping. Dania only hoped he’d recognize it.

  She leaned close to the microphone. “It’s Dania. I’m ill and weak. Please tell me how to heal myself so I can finish my mission.”

  She dared not say more. A larger message might be picked up by communications security.

  If she could treat herself, Alexander would know how, and he’d help her no matter what. She coded the message to his call signature, and hit send.

  Now, she needed to wait.

  She rubbed her face and sat back. She couldn’t remember a time feeling this fragile. Since her very first memory of reaching out and taking Geron’s hand, she’d felt safe, sure, and always strong.