by David Estes
Past the secretary’s desk was a waiting room of sorts, the walls filled with holoscreens broadcasting a variety of streams, from intergalactic news programs to hoversports to the Jhinn dramas that had become wildly popular despite how bad the acting was. Currently, the screens were being watched by no one, the waiting room empty.
The next room on the tour contained a fully-stocked bar manned by a bartender bot. “Drink?” Coffee asked.
“Usually,” Dacre said. “But no. I’d better keep my wits about me.”
Coffee laughed. “Afraid I might poison you? If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead.”
“And I’m alive because…”
“I’m curious. That’s all. We don’t get many unexpected visitors. Plus, I sense you have a tale to tell, and I do enjoy stories.”
You don’t know the half of it, Dacre said, watching as Coffee ordered himself a glass of Felicity, a drink known for its high percentage of aura content. Because of this, it had been the drink of choice for many of the mages at the Academy. Most non-magical users couldn’t handle the stuff, and soon became addicts.
Coffee seemed to sense his mental raised eyebrows, though Dacre had been careful not to let his thoughts change his neutral expression. “I can handle my aura,” he said. It came out like a challenge.
“I’m sure you can.”
With that, Coffee led him into yet another room, this one plush and warm, with soft-looking couches, thick carpeting that practically bounced underfoot, and what had to be fake reprints of fine Chameleot art that changed color as the viewer changed their viewing angle.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Coffee said, “but I can assure you they’re real. I could lie and tell you they’re investments, but they’re not. Everyone has their addictions, and I am no different. Chameleot art has always attracted me. Beautiful, don’t you think?”
Dacre couldn’t deny it—the artwork had a certain allure. Various empty landscapes from planets across the Godstar Galaxy adorned the space. As he walked further into the room, however, the scenery changed, the vacant landscapes suddenly filled with soldiers and ships, depicting the anxious moments before the start of battles fought long ago, before the Alliance was formed. Another few steps and each planet’s terrain became pockmarked and crumbling, smoke filling the air. Bodies littered the ground on both sides. Vehicles were shredded in half and on fire. “Nice,” Dacre said and Coffee grinned, taking a seat on a broad couch that wrapped around an entire corner of the room. He sipped from his dark-colored drink and gestured to Dacre to sit across from him.
Dacre did, sinking into the soft chair and placing his arms casually on the rests. He felt the urge to speak but forced himself to wait. The smart move was to let Coffee dictate the conversation.
Coffee remained silent, sipping his strong drink at a pace that would leave most humans dizzy. He, however, seemed unaffected.
“Are you a mage?” Dacre asked.
Coffee swallowed his latest sip and laughed, placing it on a glass table between them. “Would a mage king live in a palace constructed of magium?”
Not likely, Dacre thought. But then again, it could be a ruse. Those mages that hadn’t graduated from the Academy sometimes liked to keep their abilities hidden. The Alliance was known to make such people…disappear…if they were unwilling to be formally trained. It was only one of many things Dacre hated about the Alliance.
Dacre said nothing, refusing to wither under Coffee’s stare. “You lied before. Why?” Coffee finally asked. “Why would anyone lie about plotting to destroy the Mage Academy? Unless you think we’re barbarians here and welcome terrorists into our fold with open arms.”
“Aren’t you?”
“I’m a businessman. I like Vectors. I like how they look on my screen when they go up. I like how they let me buy anything I want. Destruction is only of interest to me if it’s profitable.”
“And you don’t think the destruction of the Mage Academy will be profitable? With less Alliance mages out there, won’t it be easier to conduct your business? The things you trade in aren’t exactly legal.”
Coffee leaned back. “All things require balance. The Alliance keeps my competition minimal. Most people do not have both the smarts and funding to create what I have. Do you think I’ve only managed to avoid being shut down by the Alliance because of my location? If the Alliance truly wanted me dead, they would launch a full-scale assault on the asteroid belt and blow us all back to the Age of Shadows.”
“Then why don’t they?”
Coffee smiled. “Vectors, of course.”
“You pay them off.”
“Yes. But Vectors alone would not hold them at bay. I provide them with information too.”
Dacre pretended to be shocked, though he already knew this. He’d researched Coffee’s Alley extensively once they’d determined they would enter Godstar IV. That had been the main reason he’d dangled information in front of the man’s nose when they’d first arrived on this rock.
“What sort of information?”
“The rumblings I hear through my business. Who’s going to attack who. Whether the Machinists are planning to surrender. Whether the Jackals are buying any new weapons. That sort of thing.”
“So you’re going to tell them about our planned attack on the Academy?”
Coffee shrugged nonchalantly. “Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t tell them everything. Just enough to keep them out of my business. Plus, you’re not going to attack the Academy, are you?”
Dacre still wondered how he knew. He thought he’d conveyed the lie rather believably. He chose his next words carefully. “The Jackals are planning to carry out the attack.”
“Don’t bullshit a bullshitter,” Coffee said. “I’m certain that’s what the Jackals want to do. But it’s not what you want to do. You’re using them. That much is plain. The only question that remains is: For what?”
Damn, he’s good. All the stories about Clay Coffee were true. The man was shrewd. “Isn’t it obvious? I need their aura.”
“What level mage are you?” Coffee asked. “Don’t lie, because I’ve already done my research. You said 5+, but are you really? Your retinas were scanned the moment you stepped out of your rig. Dacre Avvalon, twenty-six years old, hailing from Bellonia in the Godstar II system. After entering the Academy at eighteen, you were a rising star, trained as a mage knight, until you were kicked out for something that is now a sealed record. And I mean sealed. Even I couldn’t hack into the information. When you left, you were Class 4, but I’m guessing you’ve been working hard to get to Class 5. Only you went off the grid. You haven’t reported your MAG/EXP counter to the Alliance annually like you are required to do.”
“So report me.”
Coffee laughed again. “I don’t care about such things, you should know that. So, did you make it to Class 5?”
“Yes.” If he had answered no, Dacre suspected the man would’ve had him hooked up to his own system to verify the truth of his answer. Then he would’ve discovered that pesky ‘+’, because within the confines of this place Dacre wouldn’t have been able to use magic to modify it.
“Wow. You have been busy. Achieving Class 5 outside of the Academy is no easy feat. Or so I’ve been told.”
“Why do you care what level I’m at? Surely you’ve come across Class 5 mages before.”
“Of course. But most of them work for the Alliance. The only truly non-Alliance mages are the Gremolins, and they’re all half-crazy. I was merely testing whether you have the power and ability to handle the amount of magic the Jackals have access to. Otherwise why would you need it? To throw poison darts at the Alliance? If you’re going to use all that magic, you need two things: a powerful mage, which apparently you are; and a powerful weapon, which I’m assuming you don’t have.”
“Correct.” Except I needed three things, not two. And I already have the third—the prime artifact. Dacre was somewhat pleased the well-connected black-market dealer didn’t yet know abou
t his other theft.
“You think I’m selling such a weapon?” Coffee asked.
“Of course not.”
Coffee frowned. “Then why are you here?”
“As you already know, we were shot down. We landed here out of necessity.”
Dacre saw the moment Coffee fit together all the pieces, a light entering his eyes. “You want to get to Urkusk.”
“The Grems are believed to have powerful mag-weapons they’ve hidden from the Alliance,” Dacre said, because he already knew Coffee had figured as much. “One weapon, in particular.”
“Rumors and gossip.”
“The Alliance doesn’t think so.”
“The Alliance are fools at the best of times.”
“And at the worst?”
“Let’s just say, they like to chase their own tails,” Coffee said. “Let me get this straight: I’m to fix your star-rig and send you down to Urkusk so you can find some powerful weapon which you will use for some purpose—probably nefarious—and in return you’ll tell me what that purpose is, so I can sell the information to the Alliance for a trillion Vectors?”
Dacre didn’t hesitate. “Yup.”
The man picked up his glass and took another sip. Thus far, Dacre hadn’t noticed the potent concoction having any effect on him. Another ruse, he realized. If he was a betting man, he’d say the drink was colored water.
Slowly, Coffee stood, his eyes narrowing until they were laser-focused on Dacre. His expression was unreadable, but from where Dacre was sitting, it didn’t look good. Perhaps he’d overestimated the man’s level of greed.
But then Clay Coffee extended a hand and said, “You’ve got yourself a deal. But I’m coming with you to Urkusk.”
Chapter 19
Wreckage colony
The Grem’s dark, blank-eyed stare was disconcerting, and Vee was glad when Minnow covered the creature’s face with a thin blanket and wrapped the corpse in a plasto-sheen body bag. The Jackals were also disposed of without ceremony, all three sent out an airlock into the dark and empty void of space.
The prisoners would be handled differently. “What are you going to do to us?” the Jhinn woman said. Vee could detect the fear in her tone, and it surprised her. For a moment, she stared at her, marveling at the beauty of the galaxy. Now that the lights were back on, her skin was a bright green, almost fluorescent, bearing small red spots. She wondered what had happened to bring her to this place. Was it a series of bad decisions? Vee knew all about those. Or was she merely a victim of bad luck and misfortune? Vee could blame herself for many of her own problems, but not all of them. Sometimes bad stuff just happened, like something that was never meant to explode spontaneously combusting and leaving the survivors to dig out the shrapnel.
“If you cooperate, you won’t be harmed,” Vee said coldly, letting the backwards threat sink in. “We’re going to repair our ship and be off.”
The male Bronzian, who was now conscious, narrowed his eyes and said, “You’ll let us go, just like that?”
“Shut your damn mouth,” the female Bronzian snapped. “You want her to change her mind?”
“Try to escape or harm any of my crew,” Vee continued, “and I’ll light each of you on fire and blow on the flames. Understood?”
Silence all around. Vee turned and walked away with Minnow at her shoulder. “You’re a scary woman sometimes,” he said.
Vee felt sick but didn’t regret the empty threat. These kinds of people—cutthroat, dog-eat-dog—responded only to threats of violence, clinging to their own miserable existence like a starving dog’s teeth gripping a bone.
“Stay with Terry,” Vee said to Frank.
The cat nodded. “Can’t exactly leave anyway,” he muttered.
Vee stopped and turned. “What do you mean?”
“You don’t know? I’m bound to this ship by magic. That warrior mage’s doing. She used an artifact—a ring set with a strange crystal—to perform the spell.”
“I—I had no idea. I’m sorry.”
Frank offered a feline grin. “Things could be worse. I could be floating in the Void with that Grem and his friends.”
“That’s a pretty low bar, but I guess you’re right. Anyway, thanks again for what you did before. You saved us all.”
The cat offered a low, exaggerated bow. “At your service, madam.”
“We’ll talk more later,” Vee promised. “I’d love to hear your whole story.”
“As long as you reciprocate,” Frank said as Vee descended the gangway to the interconnected sprawl of wreckage they’d been forcibly docked beside. Their starship was tethered to the platform—damaged sheet metal ripped from some derelict spacecraft—via a vacuum tube with a weak grav-field. Vee bounced slightly as she descended, enjoying the thrill of feeling lighter and more buoyant.
Minnow was already on the platform, and McGee was prowling toward the left, where the tubing continued for three meters before transitioning to an all-glass walkway that gave the feeling of being alone and lost in space.
“What a way to live,” Minnow said as they walked. “Utter isolation.” Even the floor was glass, and Vee hoped it was well-constructed, especially under the Minot’s heavy trod.
“Living like spiders,” she said. It was true. On this piece of wreckage, the group of misfits would’ve been forced to patiently wait in their web for their next capture. They were in a well-traveled location, the most direct route between the portal from hyperspace to both the asteroid field and Urkusk, but still…
She could never live like that. Being tied down in such a way, dependent on others for her own survival—just the thought made her chest constrict.
Is that why I left my own daughter to be raised by my father? Because I would’ve gone mad back on the Arch? The familiar excuses played in her head—She’s better off without me…My father will give her what I cannot…She can never know the true identities of her screwed-up parents…—but each was emptier than the last.
The glass walkway ended, and the next area was a patchwork creation from parts of a satellite soldered together in an odd, but surprisingly artistic manner. Within the satellite fortress were three levels containing sleeping quarters, a small kitchen, and a lounge area with half a dozen holo-screens. One of them showed the shimmering tube that identified the portion of the system where hyperspace ended. Vee felt like she was looking down the barrel of a mag-cannon and was selfishly glad she was no longer on the other side of it.
“I would go mad in this tin can,” Minnow said, drawing a smile from Vee. He glanced at McGee. “No offense.”
If the man had even heard the comment, he didn’t show it. Instead he was opening various compartments and sniffing the contents. He held up a spoon, his nose wrinkling, and then licked it.
Gross. The man was an enigma. During the battle, he’d been the fiercest warrior, composed, focused, but now…he might’ve been a child discovering the world for the first time. What happened to you? she wondered. And what did it have to do with my mother? They were both questions for another time.
They continued to poke around, searching for anything that might be used to help repair their starship. In truth, they desperately needed Terry to wake up. Fixing stuff was his thing, while Vee and Minnow had an undeniable talent for breaking stuff.
Like my own life, Vee thought. “Shut up, head,” she muttered. She was tired of feeling sorry for herself, tired of regret. Vee knew little of ancient universe history, only the basics learned in primary school back on the Arch. Still, she felt like time had reversed, carrying her back to The Age of Shadows, when humanity was still confined to a single planet known as Urth. According to the history holos, it had been a time of overpopulation, dwindling natural resources, pollution, and overall wastefulness. But humans, in some ways, were like cockroaches: survivors. They discovered the science and art of hypertravel, locating inhabitable worlds without measure. Metaphorically speaking, humanity stepped into the light, leaving their period of shadow behin
d them. The Godstar Galaxy was discovered thousands of years later and was the only known galaxy in the universe with multiple inhabitable planets per star. A perfect place to start over, even if it meant sharing the galaxy with dozens of other races.
“Do you think the gods really lived here once?” she asked.
Minnow, who had been fiddling with one of the holo-screens, flicking between the thousands of galactic stations, stopped and stared at her. “I thought you didn’t believe in the gods.”
“I don’t.” Still, sometimes Vee envied Minnow’s faith, his belief that they were a small part of some greater scheme. “But I want to know what you think.”
They started down another corridor, one leading away from the main living quarters. This one was cobbled together from meteorites and chunks of asteroids. The floor crunched as they walked, McGee moving swiftly ahead.
“I think the gods died to save us all,” Minnow said.
“All of them?”
He shook his head. “No. Some were evil. Hence, the Godwars.”
“But if they were ALL POWERFUL with capital letters, wouldn’t they know a war amongst themselves would destroy them all?”
“The historians believe some of them knew,” Minnow said, inspecting a glossy part of the wall that appeared metallic. “There are ancient records, left behind when the seven systems were formed. You didn’t learn this in school?”
Vee tried to remember. She probably had, but more than likely had her holo tuned to something else during class. “So if they knew…”
“They did it to save us all, like I said.”
“I don’t understand.”
“The godstars are what provide life to each of the systems, right?” Minnow asked.
“Everyone knows that.”
“And the godstars are formed from the undying hearts of the shattered gods, correct?”
“So you say.”
“Humor me. What if some of the gods knew what would happen if they fought? What if they knew their deaths would provide life for trillions of lives more delicate than theirs? Would they sacrifice themselves?”
