Witch Of The Federation (Federal Histories Book 2)

by Michael Anderle

  She walked over to them, stuck her finger into the center of what looked like a lemon meringue pie, and tasted it.

  “Huh,” she said with a grin. “Not too bad. It has an odd aftertaste, but not too bad.”

  “It has been known for centuries that the Meligornians fed their entire population through magic during a period in their existence known as the Esurience,” BURT explained. “A one-hundred-year period during which their second moon came into orbit. During that time, the planet suffered world-wide drought and crop failure. From your physical data, I have recorded that the MU has a distinct taste. It is almost sweet.”

  Stephanie nodded. “Yep, I taste that. All right. Let’s try eMU.”

  Again, she flicked her wrist, and the color of the energy changed quickly from purple to blue with barely a hint of green. Stephanie smiled as she repeated the spell and whipped up another line of food and another lemon meringue pie.

  This time, though, when she tasted it, her mouth puckered at the sour taste and her nose wrinkled. “It reminds me of a freshly mowed lawn doused in lemon juice. Totally gross.”

  BURT recorded the information. “Vegetation is a very important part of Earth’s cycles and survival so that makes sense.”

  She shook her head and turned in another direction. With another snap of her wrist, she looked at the shimmering, almost transparent energy that spiraled like liquid silver around her fingers. She narrowed her eyes, fascinated by what looked like glimmers of stars within the energy. “It’s beautiful.”

  Using the same force as before, she flung the energy and it spun and twisted away from her. After a few seconds, a popping sound heralded something that immediately fell.

  Stephanie ran over and knelt to look closely at where it had fallen. A miniature table rested on top of a broken blade of grass. She picked it up carefully with her fingertips and placed it in her palm. It was too small for her to discern any real detail, so she stood, reached for more gMU, and tossed the table up so it floated at eye level.

  “Let’s magnify this so I can see it,” she suggested.

  BURT scanned it into the system and projected an enlarged image behind the object itself. It was a table, but not at all like the others.

  This one was round. Its base consisted of a dark ore-like substance, and its smooth top was black with fragments of shimmering light that rippled across it. It was beautiful but looked like it belonged in a dolls house.

  “Interesting,” he observed. “It was the same amount of energy and it created something like the others but on a much smaller scale.”

  Stephanie swiped the magnification away and released the table to drop into her hand. “Yeah, and I think I know why. Like I said, it’s like an unfocused wavelength, one that I absorb but am never filled with.”

  She paused and tried to gather her thoughts. “So…it would make sense that the gMU is a very unconcentrated energy, unlike MU and eMU. This means there has to be some kind of change in the energy before it can be used on the same scale as the others.”

  “Careful,” BURT responded cautiously. “If you were to concentrate this diffuse energy to create the same power of the other energies, it could make something far more powerful than either. This is especially true if what you say is correct and this energy is indeed the mother or even grandmother of the other energies.”

  Stephanie bit her lip. “Okay, follow me here. I’ll release a little of each energy and hold them in one place. Can you magnify them for me, please?”

  He prepared quickly. “All right. Ready.”

  She released a small burst of each type of energy and held them securely so they drifted in place until he could scan and magnify each. With her hand on her chin and her face creased in thought, she walked from one to another and studied them.

  Using her connection to the virtual, she increased the magnification of each and focused on smaller and smaller sections each time. Her attention shifted and she walked over to the table created by Meligorn MU, picked up a cookie, and flapped it absently as she continued to think.

  “This is so strange,” she whispered.

  “What is?” asked Burt.

  Her gaze lifted, as though she searched for a face to go with his voice. “I think—and it’s only a theory, mind—but I think I have to consume gMU and then distill it. You know, make it concentrated and bring it back together. I think if I focus it tightly enough, it can be as powerful as the other two...or more since it’s all three combined.”

  He ran a simulation of what she had theorized and his servers worked double-time as they did the calculations. “It seems it could continue to condense for a very long time.”

  Stephanie nodded and bit into the cookie. “Yes, but you would only need to bring it to the point at which it was functional to use it for magic. It’s strange, but I can almost sense the difference in age between gMU, eMU, and MU. And if it works like I think it does—like the energy of the creator or creation itself— it has spent a millennium separating to create eMU, MU, and who knows how many other different subtypes.”

  “But they’re all part of gMU,” BURT mused, speaking out loud.

  “Right,” she replied, finished the cookie, and dusted crumbs off her palms. “It would only make sense that MU is similar but also very different from eMU, and that eMU is younger. Earth is younger than Meligorn, right?” She continued without waiting for a reply. “Earth has different properties to Meligorn too. For example, Meligorn is older, so MU is much more powerful than eMU.”

  She drew a breath and thought about that for a moment. He remained quiet and merely waited for her to continue, which didn’t take her long. “eMU hasn’t had the same amount of time to develop, and its gravitational pull is weaker. So, eMU isn’t as strong, which makes it less useful to humans. They can’t detect it, and therefore have evolved to not use it.”

  “But scientists have brought studies to show that although Meligorn is older, it is only in physical creation, and not by much,” he pointed out.

  “And scientists on Earth are not going to be biased?” She snorted. “It feels like, if you took a piece of chicken wire rolled up, that would be the gMU. During the Big Bang, if that is correct, the force of the blast unrolled the gMU and removed the condensed thickness that made it the power source it was. It unrolled but it did not completely shift with the expanding universe. So obviously, at the front of the expansion, it is thicker, but back here, it is thinner. It’s still here, though. And the planets rest in the holes of the Chicken Wire. They are surrounded by the gMU and pull from it but create their own version of it.”

  BURT ran the theories. “Interesting.”

  Stephanie brought her fingertips together in the shape of a triangle, then held it in the center of her chest. “I think if I can create a vortex inside me, I can twist that energy and condense it to a point where it is not only useable but more powerful because it’s pure gMU. First, I need to pull it in, then push it into a vortex, and then I should be able to use it.”

  “It sounds like a complex process,” he told her, still inherently cautious.

  She shook her head. “It’ll be simpler in practice. Trust me.”

  “Don’t blow yourself up,” he instructed after he’d taken a moment to process the idea. “It would be a waste of the opportunity to have more data.”

  He paused when she laughed, unsure of what she found funny. Quickly, he put his words into the system and cross-referenced humor in all the contexts he could access. It took him a moment to find any kind of context in which it might be funny.

  Once he’d processed the content of several joke sites that discussed dark humor, he thought he understood. She had laughed because his word sequence made it sound like he worried more about losing the opportunity to collect data than her welfare.

  It was interesting because it actually wasn’t funny at all.

  Burt set her up so she could try it in the Virtual, but as she was about to begin, a communications box opened in front of her, and Lar
s’ avatar came into focus.

  She smiled at the sight of the guys goofing off in the background, but he completely ignored them. “Hey, training time, slacker. What are you doing in there? Eating in Meligorn?”

  Stephanie glanced at the table and smiled. “You know, a girl’s gotta indulge when there won’t be any consequences. I’ll be there in a sec.”

  The screen vanished when she snapped her hand and she addressed the AI. “Well, Burt, I guess we’ll continue this later. Do you mind giving me an outfit change before I head over?”

  There was a slight pause before the original AI spoke. “Sure, here is your battle gear. Transferring.”

  She pursed her lips when she realized Burt had left her and gone off in his own little world without even saying goodbye. “Typical.”

  In another pod on the station, Elizabeth opened her eyes and looked at her avatar. She was dressed as she always was, except that little pink bows now adorned the back of each of her six-inch black heels.

  She hadn’t put them there, and they certainly hadn’t been on the shoes when she’d chosen them in the prep room. That bothered her since only she and the AI could influence her avatar’s look and AIs didn’t have a sense of humor.

  Pink bows indicated a human was involved. Unsolicited pink bows meant the AI was complicit, and that didn’t make sense. AIs didn’t collude with humans to prank other humans in the system. It simply didn’t cross their circuits.

  She frowned. The only human who knew she would have this meeting was her boss, and while he might think it funny to stick pink bows on her heels, he had no way of doing it unless...

  With an abrupt shake of her head, Elizabeth rolled her eyes and walked across the courtyard to where a table with a single place-setting stood in the center of a covered pagoda. Tea and cakes graced a silver stand in the center of the table, and a bottle of whiskey and glass of ice stood to one side.

  She shook her head. “You begin by offending me with heinous pink bows on my shoes and then try to make up for it by bribing me with whiskey? That’s not gonna fly, mister.”

  Soft laughter greeted her words, although she noticed a slightly metallic note to it—as if an AI was laughing instead of translating a human sound. It made the impossible seem almost possible, but she pushed the thought away. It didn’t seem like the time to jump to conclusions.

  BURT processed her words and felt satisfied with his human performance. He had enjoyed setting this meeting with her up. “I thought I would create several emotional scenarios for you and get your creative juices flowing.”

  Elizabeth tipped the ice out of the glass and poured herself some whiskey. She sipped appreciatively and focused on the purpose of the meeting before she replied. “Mmm, Mhmm. Well, I have an idea.”

  “Perfect.” When he saw she wasn’t interested in anything else on the table, he made it disappear and left the whiskey bottle and the glass floating beside her.

  The bows also stayed.

  She eyed them momentarily and decided whoever had pranked her had pushed the joke too far. Well, there was only one response to that.

  Ignoring the offending ribbons, she crossed her legs and leaned back. “I want you to set up an unwinnable test. Or something as close to unwinnable as you can get. I want to really test them. We’re getting too close to Meligorn for us to mess around and miss something.”

  “All right,” BURT agreed, not entirely sure that frustrating the team would be good for their mental and emotional health. “What did you have in mind?”

  “I want to put Stephanie and her team on Meligorn. I want them to meet the Meligorn royalty and have to deal with the security surrounding them,” she explained. “Can you put them in a simulation of the ceremony they’ll attend?”

  “I can...” He dragged his response out, not sure he liked where she was going with this idea.

  Oblivious to his doubts, she continued. “They arrive and have to start by greeting the royals properly. The ceremony begins, but partway through, a large number of Meligornians attack the royals using magic.”

  “I see,” BURT muttered and hastily programmed caution into his tone.

  She caught it and flicked a quick glance at the ceiling before she continued. “I want it to be a real fustercluck where the team doesn’t know where to turn and can’t be sure who belongs to what side. I want you to use the standard security protocols for the royal party and the usual security procedures for the rest of it, but I want the attackers as cunning and unconventional as you can make them. I want things to get...interesting.”

  BURT drummed his virtual fingers. “I think I can handle that.”

  Seconds later, Stephanie and the team found themselves briefly disoriented as the Virtual World spun around them to deliver them to their first assignment.

  When they came to a stop, they stood on a stage in a stone amphitheater facing row upon row of Meligornians seated in the tiers above them. The air was warm and tinted purple by a faint familiar fog.

  She took a step forward and scrutinized the scene frozen before them.

  “We’re in Meligorn,” she observed as she studied in the crowd and the people on stage with them. “And this looks like the ceremony we will attend. We must be about to meet the king and queen.”

  “Yep,” Brenden agreed and pointed to where the Meligorn royalty stood, waiting to meet them. “That’s the king and queen with their entourage of guards. I recognize them from the study information Ms. E. sent over.”

  Marcus slapped him on the chest and made a fake coughing noise. “Suck up. Oh, man, I must have Meligornian allergies.”

  Stephanie ignored them and turned her attention to the other Meligornians in attendance. They were draped in ceremonial robes.

  Some were adorned with Meligorn military insignia, others seemed to be robes of office, and others merely the best civilians could afford.

  She looked at the curved amphitheater ceiling. “AI, do we get a setup for this?”

  The AI’s answer was far from satisfactory. “Work as you usually would from the moment the scenario begins to the moment it ends.”

  Stephanie turned her face to the team and showed shock and disbelief. That had to be the poorest set-up anyone had ever received. It didn’t help that they returned her gaze with the same incredulity and confusion on their faces.

  Lars forced a laugh “That’s helpful,” he observed. “All right. Pay attention. We’re practicing the ceremony. I hope you’ve done your homework.”

  She hoped so too. They’d all been given instruction books on Meligornian etiquette, as well as training scenarios with etiquette instructors in the Virtual World, but how much the guys had paid attention was another matter. She didn’t want to think about it.

  After a deep breath, she decided to find out. “Real quick, now. Let’s go through the royal greeting to be—”

  A small chime cut her short and the AI’s voice echoed overhead. “Begin simulation.”

  Stephanie lowered her arms to her sides and groaned. When she turned, the simulation was already underway and the first speaker had reached the podium.

  An uneasy hum rippled through the amphitheater. The speaker had his hood up, his face shadowed by the cowl. As he spoke, the words were translated into English. “Welcome to Meligorn. We have come to this place as a remembrance to all those who have fallen in the name of Meligorn. We have also come to thank those that have put their lives in danger in order to protect ours.”

  After a smattering of applause, the man continued. “Let us begin with the traditional royal greeting for those receiving awards.” He stepped to one side and extended his arm. On cue, the royal guards changed formation and parted to create a walkway leading to the king and queen.

  Stephanie now had an unimpeded view of the couple. The queen was beautiful, even for a Meligornian, with pale, sparkling skin, ice-blue eyes, and perfect pink lips.

  Stephanie knew her to be hundreds of years old, but she seemed no older than a particularly beautiful huma
n in their twenties, and the king was the same.

  His flowing silver locks were tucked carefully behind his elongated ears, and he was dressed to match his queen. They both wore robes that shifted like clouds with every movement.

  Because of the way they’d been arranged when the scenario started, the boys were first in line. When she thought about it, Stephanie realized they’d been organized according to the status of their awards.

  She held her breath as Marcus approached the royal couple. He started well, bowed his head deeply, and raised one hand with three fingers extended. It was slightly different than what she had been taught during her initial testing, but mostly because they needed a way to show Meligorn allegiance while greeting those of highest ranks.

  The king and queen responded by standing and returning the greeting. However, he seemed to be somewhat confused about how to leave.

  He twisted his legs, tried to pivot quickly, and tripped instead, falling into one of the guards. The man caught him, pushed him upright, and turned him in the right direction. The royal couple looked shocked by his clumsiness.

  With his face an uncomfortable crimson, he stumbled away and groaned as he passed Frog who tried not to laugh out loud.

  When she saw the way Frog bounced eagerly forward and knelt swiftly in front of the royal couple, Stephanie wanted to close her eyes. There was no way she wanted to watch what came next as Frog massacred every rule of the Meligorn’s sacred greeting.

  Having knelt, he rose to his feet without permission and did what no one should ever do in that situation. He began to talk. And for him, allowing any words to leave his mouth was a really bad idea.

  She grimaced as the crowd responded with shocked gasps.

  The ceremony continued and it soon became clear that Johnny and Brenden had no clue what to do. One of them attempted to shake hands and the other mimicked Marcus and dropped several of his weapons on the ground as he knelt at their feet.

  The royal guards weren’t too happy with that. Luckily, Lars did okay, but given that he’d be receiving an award in reality, it wasn’t surprising. He’d obviously studied, even if he didn’t quite get the greeting right. He only extended one finger, but nonetheless, received a small giggle from the queen who blushed a surprisingly pretty shade of pink.