Fleet of the Mage

by Taki Drake

  “Although Pawlik and I have hired or offered to hire the large majority of the Marine force, the largest numbers of people that are affected by the sloppy execution of the strategy are the common spacers and the support structure that was in place to provide chandlery, personnel, and logistics services for the Navy.”

  The seneschal was the first to make a comment, saying, “I know that you were projecting additional hires, Lord Pawlik, but surely the hiring of over 300 people will alleviate a good portion of this problem.”

  Pawlik shook his head, and explained, “You forget that the Marines are the fighting force, but they are heavily outnumbered by the crew on the ship. Additionally, there is 3 to 4 times the number of people involved in supporting a space force that is actually on the ship.

  “These are the people that maintain the stores to sell goods to the Navy. And also those that provide uniforms, prepare food supplies, provided planet-side sleeping accommodations, etc. There are even people that do special machining services and supply other goods that keep a space force running smoothly.”

  Master Trader Wentworth added in his own perspective, saying, “Until you brought this up, I didn’t realize what the impact was going to be. The disruption in business is going to be considerable because close to one-third of the people in the capital are either totally or partially dependent on income derived from Navy contracts.”

  Ruth continued, saying, “Effectively, a significant number of the people that were supplying money into the economy are suddenly unemployed. They are going to be in desperation mode because there was no gradual turnover. Their options have been limited, and that will translate into highly charged emotions and volatile reactions.”

  The discussion became more of a brainstorming session with ideas tossed back and forth on ways to possibly limit some aspect of the impact. Ruth and Pawlik were steadfast in maintaining a gradual ramp up to the number of people that would be employed under the Mage and at Borachland. Neither of them was comfortable with the plan for management infrastructure yet, and without that, they didn’t believe that the staffing could be safely increased.

  But the bartender had suggested was that perhaps a hiring fair could be held out by the spaceport or at Borachland itself. It would give an outlet for some of the worry that the population in the capital was feeling. Additionally, it would let them identify people by the tier of hiring, arranging people in critical positions for first employment wave, essential ones for a second, etc.

  After listening to the discussion Pawlik and Ruth had agreed to a hiring fair. It would be something that would allow them to source needed staff and alleviate at least some of the problems. Margot offered to coordinate the dates, and the seneschal promised to assist with plans. Feeling completely unnecessary, Ruth meekly agreed to let them go off and get moving on it.

  As the meeting broke up, both the master traders stopped by the noble and mage.

  “Lord and Lady, Perley and I will think about vulnerabilities and possible ways that we can all work together to help. Frankly, you stunned both of us. Speaking for both our own organization and any alliances that we have, we would like to continue to work closely with you to make sure that the ill-judged activities of the Council do not drag our civilization down.”

  As the room cleared, Pawlik noticed that Ruth had gone chalky white. Reaching out together closely to his chest, the Mage is mate pictured an energizing blanket of love and energy wrapping around her. He could feel it settling in her bones through their bond, easing some of her attention but not all of it.

  The Lord of Borachland murmured into her sweet smelling here, “What still bothers you, my love?”

  “What do you think is going to happen when the Council figures out that we now have a private Navy that is larger and better armed than theirs? How are they going to react when the populace trust us and not them?”

  Pawlik wanted to give her a comforting answer, but he could find nothing to say.

  Chapter 16 – Survival Strategies

  Planet – Borachland Hot Barrens

  As much as she wanted to go back to Borachland Castle and crawl into a quiet room, Ruth knew that she couldn’t. She had committed to having a follow-up meeting with three groups, the Peregrine Rovers, the military planet settlers, and the mercenary group that had purchased the Wasp.

  There was a half-formulated plan in the back of her head that she wanted to explore, one that she and Pawlik had discussed slightly. Ruth had thought that the meeting would allow her to build a more complete approach but given the changing situation, she might not have enough time for an optimal plan.

  Ruth was tired of boardrooms and conference tables, of hard chairs and structured discussions. Deciding that she deserved at least some comfort for this next discussion, she moved the planned meeting to what was essentially a relaxation lounge. Designed for VIP travelers, it had a variety of comfortable seating and extensive bar and food services.

  Ruth, Pawlik, and Jenna were sitting in chairs with their legs stretched out in front of them and drinks of their choice in their hands when the rest of their expected guests walked in. The first to enter was Pawlik’s old friend Gwillam and his team. Breaking into a large smile, he called out to Pawlik, “Don’t drink all the alcohol! After this day we all deserve a drink.”

  The bartender standing by immediately asked for orders in the next few minutes were busy as Gwillam and his companions got settled with food and drink. They were just starting to make small talk and inroads on their drinks when the other two groups arrive simultaneously.

  The young men of the Peregrine Rovers exploded into the room like animated bouncing balls. Calling out cheerful greetings to everyone, they seemed to spread out and investigate the entire room in a mad scramble. Remembering how her sons had been as young men, Ruth smiled in remembrance and watched the entertainment.

  Pawlik had to keep reminding himself that there only five of them. They cause more havoc than 20 Marines could in the same space. As energetic as large puppies, the men were curious about everything. Flipping chairs over to see who the maker was, asking the bartender’s indulgence and explaining the different kinds of beer, spilling glasses, dumping plates as they bent over to clean up the glass mouse, it was a cheerful and entertaining chaos of manners.

  At first, Gwillam had been open-mouthed in amazement. Ruth could pretty much see the thoughts running through his brain, wondering who these undisciplined, erratic people were. She was pleased when she saw the moment that he actually started looking at what they were doing behind the façade of the entertainment. She could see him starting to check things off on his fingers as he watched the direction and misdirection that the group employed so effectively.

  The Rovers commanded everyone’s attention to the point where only Jenna noticed that Corel and his command group had also entered the room. Staying close to the entryway the five mercenaries spread out and leaned against the wall. The motion attracted Ruth I and she gave him a nod of greeting enter her gaze back to the Rovers.

  Finally, Pawlik and Gwillam broke out into laughter at the same moment. They were laughing so hard that Pawlik had to put his drink down before he spilled it. Tears running down his face, Gwillam interrupted the ballet of the bumbling buffoons. “I have never seen a more effective way of scouting a room without looking like you are doing so. At this point, as close as I could tell, you’ve identified everybody’s weapons, looked at places where there might be listening bugs, and determined three escape routes in case of danger.”

  One of the Rovers, Derek, responded with a smile, “Actually there are four escape routes. But thank you anyway.”

  Once more Pawlik and his friend were reduced to hysterical laughter.

  “I agree that it was a great approach. However, you guys let your situational awareness lapse, and it could have had bad ramifications,” contributed one of the men who had come in with Corel.

  “Interesting, but I think you had better be more specific,” said Ruth.

/>   Suddenly, the man was in motion, making a dive directly for the Mage. Weapon in his hand, he took two sprinting leaps forward before slamming into what appeared to be empty air. Knocked to the ground and disoriented, it was still apparent that he was a warrior of extreme skill when he continued the ground slam into a roll onto his feet and began to bring his weapon to bear.

  Corel yelled, “Stop! Mather, what are you doing?”

  Totally focused on making his point, Mather ignored Corel and steadied his weapon. The rest of the mercenaries that belonged to Corel’s group were yelling and advancing on Mather, but he was out of their reach. They would not be able to get to him before he could deploy his weapon and the tight smile on his face showed that he thought he had won.

  The beginning of that smile was the last happy expression that Mather had as a flying chair from the right slammed his weapon down just in time for Rambad’s hurtling body to take him to the floor. It was a testament to the warrior’s skill that he managed to shake free of the young Rover, partially regaining his feet. Trying to bring his weapon into position again, Mather’s face was set in a snarl of rage, and he flipped the weapon to stun. Rambad reached up from the floor and grabbed the crook of Mather’s weapon arm trying to force the gun down. With almost a contemptuous ease, the mercenary clubbed the young man on the side of the head, stunning him into letting go of the warrior’s other arm.

  Whatever had been Mather’s initial plan, a competitive rage was now controlling his actions. He was obviously in the red, lost in a haze of adrenaline and hyperfocused on his objective. He was determined to show the people that were running the meeting just how lax they had been and how much they needed him.

  Flushed of face, sweat trickling down his hairline, the mercenary was not prepared for the crashing blow that hammered him into the ground. It was as if the air had developed Thor’s massive weapon. There was an audible crack as Mather’s forearm snapped, ripping an enraged growl of pain from the frenzied mercenary.

  Pushed beyond rational thought by the pain and his berserker state, Mather surged up from the ground only to slam himself senseless as the fully-armored catog materialized directly above him. As the insensate man sank to the floor, the catog clamped his massive jaws around the weapon… and chomped.

  Whipping his head from side to side, the massive being sprayed broken slivers of the destroyed weapon in a large circle bounded by the frozen mercenaries and the paralyzed Rover. Hunter stared around the room, making eye contact with each of the new potential partners. When he turned his gaze back to the unconscious Mather, several of Corel’s team unthinkingly dropped their hands to their weapons.

  Hunter stuck a plate-sized paw under Mather and casually flipped him over through the air to land at Corel’s feet. Ruth suppressed an understandable urge to laugh at the obvious handoff to Mather’s commanding officer.

  Corel uttered a short laugh of relief and appreciation, saying, “Thanks! I will make sure to have a chat with the man.”

  Disappearing in a wave of glistening metal plates, Hunter’s armor receded and disappeared. If anything, the unarmored catog made even more of an impression on the fighting men in the room. The dark irregular splotches of color were immediately identifiable as camouflage to the professional soldiers.

  Irrespective of species, there was an immediate appreciation and acceptance of one warrior for another. The mercenaries and the navy veterans of Gwillam’s team knew that Hunter was not a mindless animal but now saw him as a fighter, albeit as one with four legs and some unusual talents.

  Hunter moved the short distance to where Ramdan was still crouched on the ground. Carefully, the catog sniffed the young man from end to end. Ramdan held his body perfectly still during the inspection, unsure of what else he should be doing.

  The rest of the irrepressible Rovers flooded fearlessly toward Hunter, shouting questions to Ramdan as they approached. Ten feet away from where the catog stood, all four of them stopped abruptly and straightened up. After a few seconds, Sam answered a comment that most of the others could not hear with an obedient, “Yes, Sir!”

  To his surprise, Corel heard that comment echoed from his left. His grizzled senior NCO had responded the same way, simultaneously with the Rovers. At Corel’s incredulous look, the NCO responded, “Obviously, he’s an officer, sir. He’s got that snap when he gives commands.”

  “You can hear him?”

  “It’s not exactly hearing him, sir. It’s more of a sound and picture show. The command is pretty explicit though.”

  “Dear mackerel of the gods! This has to be one of the most bizarre things that I have ever run into.”

  Hunter placed his neck and head down toward the chest of the kneeling Ramdan. Nudging the young man’s chest forcibly with his nose, the huge catog waited patiently. The young man put arms that trembled slightly up around Hunter’s neck and grabbed convulsively. With no apparent strain, Hunter lifted the young man easily to his feet.

  Hunter disappeared. The room was full of guests and people looking wildly around. There was no sign of the catog. One of Gwillam’s people was using a scanner, trying to determine where the four-footed warrior was but was unable to locate him. When the catog reappeared, he was directly next to Corel’s senior NCO. Staring in the man’s face, he was obviously communicating.

  When all the color leached out of the visible skin of the NCO, Corel quickly asked, “What is he asking you to do?”

  Switching his focus to Corel, the NCO explained that Hunter wanted him to fire his weapon at the Mage. That the catog thought that an object lesson was important.

  “Why is that?” asked Corel.

  “He believes that we need to see that he just saved Mather’s life.”

  There were sharply indrawn breaths from many of the people in the room at this statement. Corel was confused and look for guidance to his old friend, Pawlik. He saw the Pawlik was smiling slightly.

  “Pawlik? Do you have any idea why he wants us to fire at your mate?”

  “I agree that it will be good information for you all to have. Also, this way somebody can explain it to Mather when he eventually regains consciousness.”

  Corel and many of the other people in the room just stared in Pawlik and considered his response for a few minutes. When Pawlik continued to look slightly amused, Corel shrugged his shoulders and nodded his head toward the NCO. “Go ahead, Master Sergeant Marston. Fire when ready.”

  The Master Sergeant drew his weapon and planted his feet. He carefully aimed at the Mage who had moved apart from the furniture and her glass of wine. Ruth stood with her hands dropped to her sides. She made no preparations and wasn’t even looking directly at the person who had a weapon trained on her.

  Before the mercenary could fire, the catog took a stance in front of him, carefully not blocking the man’s aim. An encroaching wave of armor seemed to spring from the edges of his fur and morphed into the shiny battle suit that they had seen before. Confused, the sergeant looked to his commanding officer in bemusement. Corel shrugged his shoulders and brought his hands up to indicate his shared confusion.

  The NCO fired. The energy beam of his weapon was on target and splashed directly on the chest of the Mage. There was no effect. The blinding light and incandescent fury of the weapon simply disappeared.

  Ruth obligingly turned her back to the sergeant, and the catog gave another unspoken order to fire. Once again the sergeant complied. This time there was a response. Reflecting back away from the Mage's body, the beam of light that had been his weapon’s attack came back at him multiplied tenfold.

  Hunter moved incredibly quickly, interspersing his body between the sergeant and the reflected beam. The line of energy slammed into Hunter’s armor, driving him back several feet. The snapping and popping of an energy weapon hit showed exactly how powerful that beam was. However, the catog’s armor survived even an attack that had all the force of a small energy cannon, far greater than the normal attack from any hand-carried weapon.

 
; Corel summed it up for everyone in the room when he said, “Mather would have died.”

  <<<>>>

  After that point, the discussion with the three groups went very well. Ruth proposed that the Peregrine Rovers would hire some of the Naval personnel that would help them provide a fighting force for their vessel. Additionally, she asked that Gwillam and his group would help to train not only the Rovers but the staff that she would be hiring over the next six months.

  Until she could build up and establish a training cadre, she needed to have someone that Pawlik trusted to fill in the gaps. Pawlik thought that Gwillam would be the right person to provide that and Ruth trusted her mate.

  What Ruth and Pawlik proposed to offset the training needs and other alliance contributions from the worlds in the military retirement system startled the whole room.

  Ruth started it out by saying that they would provide the missiles and other armaments that the ship that they purchased would require. Since this cost could easily exceed the cost of the ship, that offer was extremely attractive on its own. But there was more.

  Ruth explained that she had ownership of more than one planet and that in the case of armed conflict, she wanted to draw on the experience and personnel of Gwillam’s system. For that privilege, the Archmage was willing to not only come to their aid if they were attacked but to also provide them with a certain number of additional ships.

  When Gwillam asked about the price, Ruth just said that it was negotiable and would be determined later. Gwillam and his team were so stunned that he just nodded his head.

  Corel was an extremely interested eavesdropper to this discussion. As Gwillam moved off with his team to inform the homeworlds of the proposal, he took the vacated chair and asked, “What do you want with us?”

  Pawlik smiled at his old friend and waved at the bartender. Corel looked at Pawlik, saying, “You know how uneasy it makes me when you smile that way.”