Cora spoke up. “Maybe they’re desperate. The war with the Teifen is happening a long way from here; a carrier attacking a distant research colony tells me that they have ships to spare. That means they don't have to concentrate their forces to take on the Elif. Maybe the Elif know they are losing and need us to step up our involvement.”
Grimms gave a frown, but nodded. “Tactically, that is sound—unless the research colony was far more important than they let on. But if so, why wouldn't they have ships in orbit to protect it? The more I think about it, the more it makes sense that they are getting desperate. The Elif fleet has been taking bigger and bigger steps away from helping us build up. They gave us the tools to build our own ships, but now it seems like they are itching to get out of the Sol system at the first chance. No one of any considerable rank has been off their ships for more than an hour for the occasional meeting over the last year or so, which tells me they don't want essential personnel far away in case they need to go somewhere quickly.”
Sara thought for a moment. “Let’s say they are in trouble. Let’s also say they are trying to set us up as an independent force. Why wouldn't they just tell us what’s happening, and help us figure out how to get this tank system working? If we ignore for a moment the fact that, without a core, the user will go mad, the system is obviously far superior to anything currently being used. If we could work together on the problem, wouldn't it solve the problem faster?” Sara asked, narrowing her eyes. “So why the secrecy? What are they hiding?”
Chapter 26
Mezner came over the intercom. “Ma’am, we have a packet from command coming in now.”
“Thank you, Ensign,” Sara replied.
She and Grimms had been speculating for over an hour, and she felt like they were no closer to anything resembling an answer. She was worried about Cora, but Cora said she would be fine once all the systems were back online. Most everything was automated to a degree, but with the power on minimum, she had to manually monitor and adjust the systems to keep them balanced.
“Commander, let’s see what our betters have to say, shall we?” She pulled the packet up on her desk’s tablet, while Grimms pulled it up on his own, ever-present tablet.
She looked it over and was surprised that there was no mention of the fact that they had taken out a Teifen carrier. In fact, the orders seemed like they had been prepared before the Raven had reported back to command.
The packet only gave the coordinates for a second destination, Colony 788, where they were being instructed to drop off the researchers and stick around until the Elif could send transport ships to pick up their people. The report stated that the Teifen had targeted the colony but made no mention of how they knew that. It also said that the Elif should be there long before the Teifen could arrive, and the Raven was to defend the colony until backup came.
“I don't like this at all; these orders were premade. There is no mention about the Teifen carrier, or the fact that the ship is damaged and not in fighting shape,” Sara said to a frowning Grimms.
“I feel like this may be a bit of a goose chase, Ma’am. How long are we supposed to wait? What kind of timeline are we talking about? A day, a week, a year? These feel like placeholder orders. How are we supposed to defend a colony if our ship is damaged?”
“How long will our warp time be?” Sara asked Cora.
“I can get us there in a few hours if I push it, but I won’t be in any shape to fight a long battle, if need be. It would be best if we could land the ship and shut everything down, keeping us from showing up on active and passive scans. Stealth is going to serve us best in my condition,” Cora said, and Sara noted that she was referring to the damage to the ship as damage to her.
Sara frowned at that, but kept her comments to herself. “Will it be hard on you to push the jump? The faster we get there, the faster we find you somewhere to repair, while staying out of the line of fire.”
“The warp is actually going to be the easy part. The real challenge starts when we drop out of warp, and I need to start bringing weapons online, along with drives. I’ll have to juggle power management if I want to keep any Aether in my tank. Running this ship without supplemental power is like trying to work out after running a marathon. It drains me so fast.”
Cora’s voice held a tone of dread that Sara was familiar with from their fitness tests at the academy. Sara was the athlete between the two of them. Cora was the thinker.
“Okay, I’ll have Connors put in the coordinates, and we can jump right away. Let’s push to get there fast, and find you a safe place to put down.”
“We may want to get the troops prepared for deployment,” Grimms suggested as they stood to exit and head for the bridge. “If this is a research colony, the Teifen are going to want to preserve the artifacts. We should assume there will be a ground assault.”
“I agree. Have the men prepare for a quick exit. We want the ship in orbit for as short a period as possible.”
Sara stepped onto the bridge, Alister right on her heels. She took her seat and ordered the coordinates entered, giving Cora the go-ahead for warp. The view compressed a little quicker than the last time they jumped, and began its slow expansion.
Alister leapt into her lap and stared up at her expectantly. She cocked her head at him and reached up to pet him, but he ducked her hand. Catching her eye, he looked at the door to the corridor outside.
“What?” Sara asked the little black cat.
In answer, he jumped down from her lap and headed for the open door, looking back to see if she was following.
Sara looked around and saw that Connors and Grimms had noticed the cat’s odd behavior.
“I think he wants you to go with him, Ma’am,” Grimms said with a bit of a smile at the corner of his mouth.
“Yeah. You have the bridge, Commander. I guess I have something to do,” Sara said, standing and following after Alister.
Alister began trotting out into the corridor ahead of her. She huffed and sped up, but Alister increased his speed to keep just out of reach.
“Where the fuck are you going?”
Alister looked over his shoulder at her, but kept walking.
Not wanting to look like she was chasing her cat through the corridors, Sara slowed to a normal walk, and Alister slowed in response. She thought he was leading her to their quarters, but he passed right by them without even a glance.
Eventually she realized he was leading her to the cafeteria, and she threw her hands up. “Food? You want food? Dude, I’m on duty, here; we can eat after.”
He didn't slow, but he did throw a dirty look her way. He continued until he came to the cafeteria's doors, which slid open at his approach. The room was fairly empty at first glance, as it was between meal times, but Alister trotted through the tables and chairs, heading for a group huddled around a table.
It took Sara a moment to realize it was Dr. Hess and a few of his team. They had changed into the blue battlesuits that were standard issue for the ship’s crew.
Alister jumped up onto the table, right in the middle of the Elif where they leaned in, talking in quiet tones.
The Elif all jumped a little at the sudden, stealthy entrance. One of the women even gave a squeak and nearly flung her mug to the floor, sloshing steaming liquid onto the table.
Dr. Hess, noting whose cat it was, turned to see Sara stalking up to the table. He stood to greet her. “Captain Sonders, it is a pleasure to see you once again. What can we do for you?” he asked, bowing ever so slightly.
Sara stopped and put a hand to her hip. “I’m not exactly sure, doctor. You’ll have to ask my cat,” she said, gesturing to Alister as he sat licking a paw, looking innocent.
Dr. Hess hesitantly looked to the cat then back to Sara. “Uh, he can speak?” he asked Sara in hushed tones.
Sara gave him the best “are you crazy” look she had. “No, he’s a cat. He can't speak. Well, not really. It doesn’t matter, he led me to you, so evidently, he wants us to
talk.”
“Ah, well. I suppose I knew this was coming. I’m assuming you would like to know about your familiar?” the doctor asked, indicating an empty table where they could sit and speak in relative privacy.
Sara noted the doctor’s mug was empty. “Would you like some more coffee? I could use a cup,” she said, heading for the closest coffee station, the doctor close behind her.
“As a matter of fact, I was about to get a refill. Though it’s tea, not coffee,” he said slightly sheepishly. It was well known that Elif did not like the black brew.
Sara gave him a half-smile. “We all have our flaws, doctor.”
After getting their drinks, they sat at a table close to the coffee bar. Alister came running over and jumped up to the table so he wouldn't be left out of the conversation.
“So, what can I do for you?” Dr. Hess said, taking a sip of his steaming mug.
Sara looked to Alister, who jerked his head at the doctor. She squinted at the little cat, and he patted himself on the chest. It was the same gesture he had been doing the whole time she had been trying to figure out how to finish the summoning spell.
Realization hit her like a blaster to the face.
“Oh, shit. He might know what needs to be done to finish the spell,” she said to Alister, who sat up straighter and began to purr.
Dr. Hess watched the interaction with intense interest and nearly jumped out of his seat when Sara spun to grab his arm in excitement.
“You know about the summoning spells. You were surprised that I had one when we met. Why is that? And what do you know about the spell itself?” she was staring at him intently, and he leaned back from her verbal assault.
“I, uh. I don't know all that much, really. It is a spell that doesn’t work for the Elif. Or the Teifen, for that matter.” He seemed to surprise himself with that statement, as if he had given away a secret, and continued quickly to cover for his blunder. “It is an ancient spell. The races in the past could cast it, supposedly, but the, uh, art was lost in the last war.”
“The last war? Haven’t you been fighting this same war for thousands of years?”
“Well, sort of. For most of that time, there were contested zones, but nothing that spilled into fully habited systems. The majority of the fighting has taken place in the last few hundred years or so, aside from the Great War, thirty thousand years ago. Like I said, it’s a really ancient spellform.”
Sara took another sip of coffee and eyed the doctor. She pursed her lips and asked, “Do you know any of the particulars of the spell?”
He shrugged. “Some, but nothing too specific. There are only a few accounts of the process, and those are suspect at best. There hasn't been a way to test it, since we can't summon familiars.”
She sighed. “Well, I found the spell description in an old text while at the academy, but the actual spellform wasn’t described, so I had to make it up the best I could. I thought I had it right, because here he is, but there seems to be something missing—like a last step that needs to happen to formalize the spell, or something.”
The doctor sat back and sipped on his tea while he considered. Eventually he frowned. “In one of the descriptions of the ritual, there is mention that the mage’s Aether mixed with the familiar’s, but it doesn't say how to do that. Sorry.”
Sara sighed. “How would we mix Aether? It doesn't seem like he even has any.”
“Well, how does it work? As in, what does the union do, exactly?” Dr. Hess asked, leaning in.
Sara looked to Alister, who gave a pretty good impression of a shrug.
“Well, when I summoned him, I immediately lost the ability to create spellforms in my mind.”
“You can't split your mind anymore?”
She shook her head, “No, I can split my mind just fine, I just can't make spellforms. The harder I try, the more difficult it becomes. The shapes begin to blur and become fuzzy, like trying to look at something too closely. You can make out what it is, but not the detail. And everyone knows spellforms are all about the detail.”
“I’m sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but details help,” he said with a gesture for her to continue.
“So, it took us a few days to get a system down; I won’t talk you through that process, because I don't want to strangle the little bastard. Suffice it to say, now I ask for a spell, and he gives me one. He kind of just shoves a nearly perfect spellform into my mind, and I power it with my Aether.” Sara took another drink of her coffee while the doctor took it in.
“You say the forms are nearly perfect?” the doctor mused.
“As far as I can tell. I barely have to power them to achieve the intended effect.”
“But he can't cast at all?” he asked, looking at Alister sitting on the table in front of them.
Sara reached out and pet his head. “Not as far as I know. At least, I haven’t seen him cast anything. Can you cast spells without me?” she asked Alister, who gave her his deadpan look. “Yeah, I’m going to take that as a ‘no’.”
“So, he has the spellforms, and you have the Aether. He can give you the spellforms, so it stands to reason that you should be able to give him the Aether,” Dr. Hess said, pushing his tea to the side, forgotten for the moment.
Alister stood up at that and patted himself on the chest, like he had so many times before.
Sara pointed at him. “He keeps doing that, but I can't figure out what he means by it. He will show me a spellform for a second, then right before I can focus Aether into it, he takes it away and pats himself on the chest…” Sara trailed off. “Oh my god, I understand,” she said, looking down at Alister, who had a look of hope. “It’s you. It’s you isn’t it?”
Alister jumped up and made a tight circle, then said, “Merow,” like she should have gotten this days ago.
Dr. Hess looked confused, “What’s him?”
Sara scooped Alister up off the table and rushed out of the cafeteria, yelling, “Thank you, doctor!” as she went.
Dr. Hess just looked to his companions a few tables over and shrugged.
Sara rushed down the hall, heading to her quarters, Alister meowing the whole way. The few crewmembers she ran past must have thought their captain had gone crazy, running around with a yelling cat.
She burst into their quarters, barely letting the doors open all the way before squeezing through. She dropped to the carpeted floor and put Alister on the ground in front of her. She bent down until her nose was almost touching his.
“You want me to use you as a spellform, don't you?” she whispered.
“Merowp,” he said, and licked the tip of her nose.
She smiled.
“So, how much Aether do I channel? Can I overload it? Will it hurt if I use too much? Or too little? What if I don't do enough? Can that hurt you?” she was losing focus. Alister could give a basic yes or no, so long as he understood the question. She tried again. “Do I use just a little of my Aether?”
Alister gave a little hiss of disapproval.
“Okay, more than a little. Do I use a lot?” she asked, still nose to nose with him.
He gave her nose a lick, began to purr slightly.
“Okay, so I use a lot. Shit. How much is a lot?” She thought about this for a minute. “Do I need to use more than I have with any one spell we have cast together?”
He gave her nose another lick, and his purring intensified.
She had to smile at him. He was too damn cute by half. She pulled a strand of red hair back behind her ear where it had come loose from her bun.
A thought hit her. “Even when we were powering the shield to destroy the fighters? That was more than I've ever used in one spell.”
He licked her nose again.
“Seriously, dude?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.
He licked her nose.
“Fuck,” she sighed. “Wait.” She looked him in his big, yellow eyes. “Do I need to use it all?”
He licked her nose and then pounced around in
a circle, taking a victory lap around the room. Sara stayed crouched on the floor, her mind fighting to rationalize the idea of using all her Aether on purpose.
It made no sense. If she used all her Aether, she would literally fall apart, on the atomic scale. Most people couldn't even do it if they tried. It was a little like someone trying to punch themselves in the face as hard as they could; their body would fight hard to not let it happen. She was pretty sure she could do it, though.
Sara heard a sigh of exasperation come from the speaker on the ceiling.
“Cora. You’ve been listening in?” Sara said to the empty room. She sat on the floor, her feet under her butt, and her hand absently twirling the lock of escaped hair.
“You weren’t even going to tell me, were you? You said you were back to a hundred percent. Why wouldn’t you tell me there was more to do?” Cora replied quietly. The disappointment in her voice cut into Sara.
Sara sighed. “I didn’t want to worry you. You always expect so much from me, and I can never deliver what you want. Besides, I didn’t know what to do next, and I had the ability to cast. What did you expect me to do?”
“I expected you to do the right thing, Sara. You’re the captain of a starship. You have a duty to the people under you, and you not being at your best is a danger to them.” Her twin’s voice had that motherly edge it got when Sara was being reckless.
Sara shook her head. “Oh, don't give me that shit. You and I both know we are more powerful than anyone on this ship by a long shot, even if I did have a handicap. I just didn't tell you everything, and you don't like that. Well, I’m sorry, but it’s too late to do anything about it now. But I do know how to finish this spell with Alister.”
“I’m not mad you didn't tell me everything, Sara. I’m mad that you thought you didn't need to. We’re partners; two ends of a battery that this ship runs on. If you’re compromised that means I’m compromised, and that puts this ship in danger. You just assumed that, because you had some of your powers back, you were good enough to lead the crew into danger. Power isn’t leadership. Doing what’s right even if it costs you your power is leadership. I’m disappointed you didn't learn that lesson with the rest of us, but you were probably taking that day off to find an easier way, like you always do,” Cora said, her words getting choked with emotion.
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