Star-Born Mage

by David Estes

  “We’re on a collision course,” he said. “I’ll change our angle slightly.”

  “No,” Vee said. “A collision course is perfect.” Time to play a little game of galactic chicken.

  “Madness,” the cat muttered, but he obediently straightened out of the turn until they were locked on the approaching lights.

  “Layla. Open a public comms frequency,” Vee said. “See if you can link up with them.”

  Scanning…bingo! Common frequency found. ’Twas easier than hogtyin’ an eight-legged pig in a puddle of mud. Not as fun, but—

  “Thank you, that is all for now.” Vee brought a microphone up from one of the armrests and flicked it on. “Miranda, are you there?”

  A moment of hissed silence, and then—

  “You shouldn’t have run, Verity.”

  “You shouldn’t have lied, Miranda.”

  “If I’d told you I was an Alliance fugitive, would you have agreed to help find Dacre?”

  “Hole no.”

  “Then I’m glad I lied.”

  Vee gritted her teeth, watching the lights grow bigger and brighter as they rocketed through space. “You signed a contract you can’t fulfill. You no longer have the authority to get me back into the Academy.”

  “Is that really why you’re doing this? Truth time, Vee. Who was that little girl back at your father’s house? Your father’s a bit old and alone to be having children.”

  “Irrelevant and none of your damn business. And for your information, yes, I was helping you just so I could become a full-blown mage. How selfish of me. But now that is over, so you can go take a long jump into a black hole. I’m done helping you.”

  “I don’t think so. Too much depends on capturing Dacre. He’s working with the Jackals, he has a powerful prime artifact and an obscene amount of liquid aura. Now he’s heading to Urkusk to steal a dangerous Grem weapon.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that your ex-lover is about to do something bad, very bad.”

  “Why do you care? You’re not even a part of the Alliance anymore.”

  “Because I’m human, Vee.”

  “Don’t call me that. You’re not my friend.”

  “Fine, Verity. Do you think me so awful that I wouldn’t want to prevent a major terrorist attack if I could help it?”

  “Dacre. Wouldn’t. Do. That.”

  “No? Then why are you still pursuing him? You think you know him well enough to make that judgment? To take that risk?”

  Vee knew she didn’t. She thought she did, once, but those blissful, hopeful days were long past. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll find Dacre and find out the truth. But not with you. I’m done with you.”

  “Verity, listen to me, you don’t understand what’s really happening here. You don’t know what he’s capable—”

  Vee switched off the comms. “Terminate frequency,” she said.

  Done, Layla confirmed. Thankfully, the A.I. didn’t add a pointless anecdote this time.

  “Frank, no matter what happens, steer straight ahead. We won’t be the first to blink.”

  “Look, Vee, I hate Miranda as much as the next cat wizard bound by magic to a starship, but this is a suicide mission. I have no desire to go out in a blaze of glory.”

  “Me neither,” Vee said. “Just do it.” Vee felt supercharged, more so because she’d just taken a sip from the straw attached to the mag-cannon. The warmth of pure aura flowed through her.

  The lights grew closer and brighter.

  Minnow, not the most patient guy, fired a round of pulses from his non-magical cannon. The bluish white waves of energy rolled across the blackness of space. A burst of light appeared as they hit the transport’s force shield, the energy transferred along the field and safely away from the target.

  The response was swift, bursts of laser fire lashing through the void, deflected away by their starship’s own defense shields. The volleys weren’t meant to do any damage, merely probe for weaknesses.

  Minnow’s impatience was contagious, and Vee leaned forward, contemplating which spell to use. Her body was humming now, the aura inside her searching for a way out, a way to be used, to become that which it was meant to become. In her case, fire. She searched her memory for a Class 4 spell, something that would surprise the warrior mage who’d assume her repertoire was limited to Class 3 and below.

  Once decided, she began to form the glyph, careful to get it right, the intricate curls along the edges burned into her memory from her sketch pad, when she’d practiced it time and time again while sitting side by side with Dacre, during a time when life was simpler.

  Completed, the glyph flared purple and then melted into the spellscreen, her body processing the aura and transferring it to the weapon, which vibrated slightly, primed and ready to fire.

  Wait for it.

  The lights grew closer. The laser fire had stopped.

  Wait for it.

  Any second Miranda would cast her own spell. It would be a doozy, a Class 5 masterclass that would likely do them in.

  But something Vee had once learned was that a lower Class of spell, if used well, could sometimes defeat a greater one.

  Wait for it.

  The lights were so close now she could see the sheen of the transporter’s metal frame. Its speed was impressive, breathtaking, likely upwards of a hundred thousand kilometers an hour. The transporter showed no signs of altering its course. Neither did the tip of its single mag-cannon, which was mounted on top, beginning to show the telltale glow of a spell about to be cast.

  What are you doing, Miranda? Vee thought.

  Ten ticks to a big ol’ crash, the A.I. said. Might wanna divert course.

  “Sounds like a good idea to me,” Frank said, his voice sounding strained.

  “No,” Vee growled, her finger teasing the edges of the mag-cannon’s trigger. She’ll balk. Miranda will put her own life above all else. She’s a selfish space cow who cares about nothing but herself. All that self-righteous talk about preventing a terrorist attack was a pile of steaming garbage as far as Vee was concerned.

  Six ticks.

  Vee began to squeeze the trigger slowly.

  Five, four, three…

  Everything was bright lights and metal and she pulled the trigger. Fireblast.

  Past the protective energy field that surrounded the mage seat’s turret, purple flames spouted from the spellcannon’s barrel, washing across the rapidly diminishing space between their starship and the transporter. Theoretically, the power of the spell would not only cause irreparable damage to Miranda’s ship but also knock it off kilter, thus avoiding a game-ending collision. At least that was the plan.

  Vee’s head snapped forward as an invisible blast shoved the flames aside and smashed into their hull with the power of a god’s slap. She bounced off the mag-cannon and tumbled from her perch, barely managing to grab one of the ladder’s rungs, clinging to it with one hand. Her heart was in her throat, her body feeling empty now that a large portion of the aura had left her. Frank was on his belly, clutching one of the control ropes. Terry was hugging one of the jump seats, his eyes wide and round. McGee was hanging onto his own mag-cannon, having not fired a single shot. And Minnow was groaning by the viewscreen, having been thrown from his own station, leaving a sizable crack in the glass.

  Through the viewscreen was the front of the transporter, both ships having stopped barely ten meters from crashing. The opposite ship’s tinting had been disabled so they could see inside.

  Miranda glared at her.

  The comms crackled. “I’m coming aboard. Just try to stop me.”

  ~~~

  Vee didn’t try to stop her. She’d underestimated the mage. The spell she’d used to put out Vee’s flames and stop both ships dead in their tracks—windblast—was beyond anything she was capable of.

  Fighting was pointless.

  At least for the moment.

  The transporter had already docked
on the side of the much larger starship, the two vessels locking together like two species mating. The hatch opened with a slow hiss.

  “Miss me?” Vee said, when Miranda’s long, lean form came into view. She was flanked by four soldiers, none of whom were even pretending to work for the Alliance anymore, the patches ripped from their uniforms. Captain Tucker was one of them, and when his eyes met Vee’s, he nodded slightly. But Vee had her own posse now, too, Minnow on one side, Terry on the other, McGee skulking near the wall. Even Frank Stallone had come to support her, the feline wizard standing boldly at her feet with his furry chest puffed out.

  Miranda did not look amused, her face even more severe and angled than usual. “You could’ve killed us all,” she said. “Ruined everything.”

  “You finally understand me, Miranda. I’m touched. We should be best friends. Or at least frenemies.”

  “Cut the bull. As we waste time on pointless banter, Dacre moves ever closer to obtaining the last thing he needs to carry out a devastating attack on the galaxy. Is that what you want?”

  It wasn’t, but Vee also wasn’t looking to take orders from this woman. “How’d you find me? Let me guess: The A.I. itself is a tracking device.”

  “Of course. You really think I’d be so stupid to allow you to escape so easily?”

  “I had contemplated it.”

  “My backup plans have backup plans.”

  “Sounds complicated.”

  “From now on, we travel together.”

  “I’d rather not. Just the sight of you makes me ill.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you slept with my cheating bastard of an ex-fiancé.”

  The woman had the audacity to smirk. “You, humans,” she said, spitting the word with a special kind of venom. Vee remembered it was the second time she’d heard the mage use the word in such a way, as if it represented something she was not, something she was disgusted by. “You think such things matter to the universe?”

  Vee was speechless. First this woman had the nerve to show up and make demands, and now she was telling her what to think? “Listen, bit—”

  “No, you listen. I didn’t have human sex with Dacre.” She wrinkled her nose, as if the very thought disgusted her. “It was a ruse. And, obviously, it worked. You were a variable that needed to be removed from the equation. I expected you to walk away, not go all psycho on me.”

  Vee just stared at her, methodically working her way through the information. The woman was a master manipulator, and Vee refused to be maneuvered like a putty soldier. “Why would you fake such a thing?” she asked, buying time. “And why do you keep using the word ‘humans’ like you aren’t one yourself. What are you, Miranda? Some kind of shifter?” She knew of two races with the ability to transform themselves on command. Chameleot’s, like Terry, was one, but even they could only change color. The other were the Kleftors, but they were a small race and rarely meddled in Alliance affairs.

  The woman’s face was stone. “You could say that. I am a Centaurian.”

  “And I’m a unicorn.” Unicorns…Centaurians…these creatures weren’t real. They were the fiction of childhood, creations of the mind used to entertain and frighten. She remembered her own father saying, ‘Go to sleep, my little star-born mage, or the Centaurians will come and steal you away.’ Vee would always giggle and then flop over and go right to sleep.

  “This is why your galaxy is such an easy target. Because the races that inhabit the Godstar Systems refuse to see what is right in front of their eyes. Even now the Jackals are plotting to destroy all others while the Alliance tries to stop them. At the other end of the galaxy, the Machinists fight a war of their own creation, just like their planets. All the while, the greater threat is closing in lightyear by lightyear.”

  Vee didn’t know whether to have the woman committed to a mental institution or cast a spell at her brain. Instead, she asked, “What threat? What are you talking about? And what does this have to do with Dacre?”

  “My people, the Centaurians, are nomadic. We require substantial energy to survive. Aura. It powers our homeship, which in turn provides for us. Such a thing cannot be created, only mined, harvested. Before the supply in one galaxy is exhausted, we are already planning ahead, sending forward scouts to other galaxies, mapping out the course our great ship will take.”

  “Lies.”

  “I understand why you don’t want to believe, but it’s true. Our ship, our only home, is called Demonstrous. Even that name is not sufficient to describe what it does. World Eater would be more appropriate. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?”

  “You’re a forward scout,” Vee said. She didn’t know if any of this was true, but if it was, it was the only thing that made sense.

  Miranda nodded.

  “And…” Vee said, something clicking in her mind. By the godstars… Miranda’s eyes were fixed on hers, as if scouring the depths of her soul. The words appeared on the tip of her tongue, but the fact they managed to fall off was a small miracle. “Dacre is too.”

  She didn’t require the confirmation, but the woman—Centaurian—whatever she was, gave it to her anyway.

  “Yes. He is not human.”

  PART III

  FOUR DAYS UNTIL THE EVENT

  Chapter 23

  Monsters

  Being a Centaurian forward scout was more of a calling than a job. As a child, it had all been explained to Dacre. How he would be sent ahead in a speeding starcruiser with others like him. Another mage, who would be called Miranda Petros in the language most common to the Godstar Galaxy. The other scouts were all mages, too, but less powerful. He and Miranda were expected to be partners, leaders. If something happened to one of them, the other would have sole responsibility for ensuring the galaxy was ripe for the…he hated the word, but it was the only one truly appropriate…eating. His mandate was simple: infiltrate the society, gain a position of power if possible, ensure the Alliance wouldn’t be able to fight back when the time came. Unlike Miranda, he’d failed at his mission, not that he cared anymore.

  Centaurians had the rare ability to shapeshift permanently. It required a single intense spell, and then their shape would retain its new form. Before they’d left on the mission, each Centaurian child had learned how to cast the spell, shifting into human form based on three-dimensional models created by a program. Once they’d shifted, their bodies would grow in a similar manner to normal humans.

  Dacre still remembered the first time he’d seen one of the godstars. It was the blue one, known as Sol, god of discovery. Beautiful. More beautiful than anything he’d ever seen before. He’d thought it sad that Sol would no longer exist after his people passed through more than two decades later.

  Unlike most human children, the Centaurians were self-sufficient at two years of age. At five they were ready to conquer this new world. They split up at an intragalactic terminal, each catching a ride on a different starbus. They would immerse themselves in whichever planet they each ended up on, building their lives one slow year after another.

  Being human.

  Biding their time.

  Dacre managed to find a home on Bellonia. The planet was lush and warm and altogether pleasant to grow up on. For much of Dacre’s childhood, he struggled with the notion that it would one day be destroyed in the blink of an eye. He envied the other races he met. To have a permanent planet like this would be altogether wondrous.

  Why can’t we? he often wondered, the principles he’d been taught as a young Centaurian spy in training warring with the very real life he found himself enjoying. You will die, he’d been counseled by one of the Centaurian master mages. We will all die.

  Why? he’d asked. How? The other children being groomed hadn’t understood either, their brows wrinkled in confusion.

  Our home is powered by the blood of gods, the master mage—who happened to be his mother—had said. Dacre was reminded of what he’d learned in school a year earlier, about how their primary god, Horos
, had bled for them thousands of years before, breathing life into their starving colony. His heart had become the engine for their great nomadic home, pulsing year in and year out, requiring only a steady supply of god’s blood. They lived on his smoking body, not quite dead, but not truly alive either.

  Back then, Dacre had not really understood how or why the god had come to their people. Why would such a powerful creature save a race so insignificant in the scheme of things? When he’d asked, he’d been chastised by his mother. It is not our place to question the will of our god. He provides, and we obey.

  It wasn’t until Dacre had come to the Godstar Galaxy and learned about the history of their gods that he began to understand. How each of the Godstar Wars had changed the very nature of this galaxy and the universe beyond. How the Third had been catastrophic, not killing the gods exactly, but changing them forever, their seven undying hearts becoming the godstars that would breathe life back into the galaxy.

  Except they hadn’t all stayed here. Horos, the eighth god, had been blasted lightyears away, where he’d found the Centuarians. All these years the Centaurians had hailed him their savior. In a way, he was. But he hadn’t done it out of kindness. No, they’d saved him too. He needed them as much as they needed him, maybe even more.

  Time had passed. Dacre was adopted by a kindly human family. A man and a woman who couldn’t have children themselves. They treated him like their own. They spoiled him. And when they realized he was mage-born, they practically wept with joy. He let them suggest that he apply for the Academy, though that was always the plan. Infiltrate the Alliance, gaining positions of trust and power. He and Miranda would do it as mages, while the other children would eventually become standard soldiers.

  But Dacre had always felt uneasy.

  We are slaves, Dacre had thought one day, a boy of sixteen, just two years out from entering the Mage Academy. He’d almost said it out loud but had managed to catch himself. Still, his adoptive mother had frowned and said, “Dacre, is everything okay? You look troubled.”