"You look like shit Jen."
"And you look older."
We glared at each other for a moment. Her next move stunned me.
She smiled, and hugged me. It was a fast hug, but her hugging a man, meant she had changed.
"It's good to see you Thorn. You look good. All grown up. Nice tan."
Tasha grinned, and Lea saw it, and gave us both a very speculative look.
"Hard not to get tanned here."
I noticed she wasn’t all that comfortable with the amount of skin on show, so I put clothes back on both of us.
"Hey," said Tasha. "Give me some warning when you do that!"
I grinned at her. She didn’t know it yet, but she was now wearing underwear over her bikini, since I wasn’t about to let Lea find her underwear on my bed, if she went inside.
Lea nudged Jess.
More chairs appeared, and I waved everyone into them. The two beach lounges changed into living room lounges. Drinks appeared for everyone.
"You are more powerful," said Jen. "We need you."
"So I gather."
"I need you."
"Why?"
She paused, as if she hadn't expected me to question that. I waited for her.
"I apologize for what I said when you left. I was out of line."
"You were almost out of your mind," said Lea.
"And she isn’t now?" I added.
"No," they all said together.
I looked at them all, and turned back to Jen.
"You look worse than when I last saw you."
"Physically yes. Mentally yes. Emotionally no."
"Explain."
"The ship has almost been destroyed twice. None of us escaped doing at least a bit of time in medical. None of us have slept properly in a month. I'm in charge, and it's been a heavy load. We’ve seen a lot of good people killed, and they were under my orders when they died. I'm dealing, but it's hard."
"What happened to the most promising junior officer in the fleet?"
"She died a quick death. What you see is what came through it all."
"Did you lose anyone?"
"Crew?"
I nodded.
"Miraculously, no."
"So where do I fit in?"
"How do you want to fit in?"
"No Jen. I'm not playing that game. You tell me."
She sighed.
"Thorn, we need you. Especially now we find you so much more powerful. The captain fights the ship. The XO runs the ship. If you want to be an admiral, I'll take your orders. This is a war, and I know you have better strategy talent than I do. And in a battle, you'll have to call the shots in order the ship does the right thing to back up what you're doing. Not just the ship, but the fleet. Hell, I'll just be the pilot, if that’s what it takes to convince you."
Admiral Thorn. I gave it a few seconds to percolate. No, I didn't need that sort of ego stroke.
"Jen?"
"Thorn?"
"Go back to the ship, and put a swimsuit on."
She opened her mouth to protest, thought about it, and closed her mouth. She nodded, rose, and started walking to the shuttle. Ten paces away, she stopped, and looked back.
"I don’t have a swimsuit."
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. Everyone joined in, except Jen, who obviously didn’t know what to do. I made an effort to stop.
"Get on the shuttle. I'll move it to the ship. Tell everyone they're on leave, and they're coming down here. If they have a swimsuit, or beach clothes, bring them. If not, I'll make them something. But everyone is going to spend the next couple of days on this beach."
Jen looked like she'd rather be alone somewhere else.
"There are four beaches on this island, and none of them are more than an hour's walk away. If you want alone time, you can have it. At this time of the year, there's no rain, so we sleep on the beach."
"Bugs?" asked Lea.
"None. I moved them all to another island the first week I was here."
"Should have guessed that."
I grinned at her, and looked back at Jen. She nodded, and continued on to the shuttle. When the hatch closed, I shifted it to the hanger on the ship.
A half hour later, the shuttle was back. Another hour, and everyone was in swimwear, and most of them were in the water.
Five
Several of the marines turned out to be really good at barbeque. I gave them what they needed to cook with, arranged for fish and meat to cook, sent Lea and Tasha off to pick vegetables from my garden and store, and left them to organize themselves. Predictably, Jen went for a walk on her own.
Close up, the ship was a wreck. Inside and out. After finding where I'd used to live untouched, except for where a wall needed patching, I put a bubble of air around myself, and popped out to walk the hull.
I’d done this a couple of times already. Make a bubble, jump with the bubble into space, and spend ten minutes looking down on the planet. Jump back. Ten being as long as the air lasted in the size of bubble I was using. It was enough. The bubble also kept out the cold, although I’d had to add the intent the first time I tried.
It took me a while to find a place to put the ship. I found a narrow ravine, a bit less than the width of the ship, and moved it to sit across it. This allowed access to most of the hull.
I stood on a hill overlooking the ship. It was the first time I'd seen how big it really was. I used my sight to closely look at the hull in one of the holed sections, and after it, one of the dented sections. I pondered what to do, and decided to start again. I removed one of the damaged hull plates, established it as an ongoing task, and set the intent to remove all the hull plates, except the ones holding the ship up. The removed metal was piled nearby. I set a warning ding in place for near to the last plate, so I’d be back to end the removal intent.
I watched the ship being slowly stripped naked for a short time, and went back to the beach. Jen wasn’t there, so I cast around until I found her, and jumped again.
"Don’t do that!" she yelled at me.
"Sorry. I've been alone too long. We need to talk."
"Now?"
"Now is good. Sit. Please."
She gave me a long look, and sat on the sand, looking out over the water. I sat next to her, but gave her a lot of space.
"How long do we have?"
"For what?"
"Before we have to be back at the fleet."
"I told them two weeks travel, plus however long it took to convince you to come."
"So just over a week?"
"Yes. They were calling in the last of the reserves, and sending the most battered ships out to the other frontier choke points, so those ships could take over holding the line."
"Will they hold that long?"
"So far, so good. But who knows what tomorrow will bring." She turned, and looked at me. "Why?"
"The ship will take a few days to fix."
"That's why you wanted everyone off it?"
"Yes. But it was bloody obvious you lot needed a couple of days off."
"We can't afford any days off."
"So I'm making you."
She sighed, and nodded.
"How do we fix you?" I asked her.
"I don’t need fixing!"
"Yes, you do. You can fool them, and you can fool the shrinks, but you can't fool me."
She looked at me. I tried not to wince.
"Tell me."
"I want that bastard dead." The rapist. "I know you cut his junk off, but it's not enough. He's still out there, still an Admiral, still making my life a hell."
"And?"
"That bloody mouth. Him too." The auctioneer. "He's talking again already. Needs to use a keyboard, but it's still the same smug voice coming out of the speaker. Bastard is doing war recruitment for the government now. Community service, my arse."
"And?"
She looked stricken for a moment.
"The mongrel who killed my parents."
"Do you know who it
is?"
"Oh yes. We had a detective sift through everything, and give me a name. But the name is useless. He's the government's black ops hitman. Untouchable."
"No-one is untouchable."
"He actually is."
"We'll see about that. Send all the info on him to my pad. Is there still a contract out on you?"
"No."
"We can fix that."
"What?"
"Nothing. Head back, the food should be ready soon. I need to check on the ship first."
We both rose.
"Thorn?"
"Yes"
"Can you really do anything?"
"Jen, I've had five years to regret not doing it. What do you think?"
She smiled, and started walking back up the beach.
I jumped to the ship. The panels were coming off in good order. But it was too slow. And underneath, there was far more damage than I’d bargained for. Reluctantly, I stopped the plate removal process.
I sat there on a rock, and thought about what I wanted. I thought about it really hard. I chose somewhere to manifest the thought. For the first time ever, it didn’t just appear. But I understood this one needed time.
I arrived back on the beach, as the meat was just being taken off the grill.
Six
It turned out the marines didn’t want to sleep on the beach. I thought of calling them something, but didn’t.
We sat around a beach fire, trading stories. The older marines had the most interesting ones. While they talked, and drank, I built a row of bedrooms behind the dunes. Once they were done, I excused myself, and went to bed.
Tasha turned up shortly after. I'd watched her go in the door of the first beach bedroom, and lock the door, before climbing out the back window. I don’t think she was fooling anyone. She wanted more of what we'd done earlier in the day, and needless to say, not a lot of sleep happened.
The following morning, I set up for breakfast, and left the makings there, while I jumped to where my project was happening. There was still nothing there, so I jumped over to the ship, and put all the hull plates back on. Just for the time it took, I filled each hole roughly, and applied a hull like metal surface over the top of the whole ship. It would never survive combat, probably wasn’t even space-worthy, but then, I don’t think the ship was space-worthy when it got here. At least it now looked like a ship, and not a junk pile.
Tasha was still asleep when I returned, so I didn’t wake her. I found Lea outside, stirring the embers of the fire. She grinned at me.
"Say thank you."
"What for?"
"Tasha."
"Why?"
"I told you there was something else I was going to organize for you. Don’t you remember?"
"Vaguely. What's it to do with Tasha?"
"She's it."
"She's what?"
"I'm the reason she moved into your part of the ship. I knew you two would hit it off."
"Huh?"
"Buy a vowel Thorn, will ya? You were lonely. We all preferred girls. You needed someone who'd like you for you. I thought she would. Took a bit longer, but then, I wasn’t expecting you to leave so abruptly."
"Oh."
"Talking of which, Jess and I were really pissed off at you for not saying goodbye."
"I did."
"Over the bloody coms. And gone the next second. I thought we were friends?"
"I couldn’t handle it. It was go, or not go. And it wasn’t going to be not go. Nor was I going to let you talk me out of it."
"Jen was out of line."
"I know. It didn’t change anything. I'm dangerous to be around. I needed space, with no-one around me."
"Are you…"
"Still dangerous? Yes. If anything, I'm even more so. But I know myself a lot better now, and maybe that’s enough."
"And maybe Tasha can fill the hole?"
"Maybe."
We sat there, watching the marines form up on the beach, and begin their version of PT. After the routines ended, they did a run around the island, and ate as much as they did the night before.
I was exhausted, just watching them.
Tasha and I went for a walk up the beach, over the point, and along the next beach. I asked her what she knew of Jen's hitman. She took me through what she knew. The bit which caught my attention was, he took private missions when the government weren't looking. I outlined a course of action, and Tasha grinned at me. She had homework to do now, and left me to return to the house.
I went back to the ship, moved the shuttle back into its hanger, and set my intent for it to become brand spanking new. In an instant, the shuttle was brand spanking new. For a moment I wondered why I hadn't thought of this yesterday. Admittedly though, the shuttle had not been in all that bad condition.
Which is not what you could say for the other two in the hanger, which looked like a giant had crushed them in its fist. They were beyond fixable, or at least I thought they were. I moved all the junk outside. Concentrating on the one remaining shuttle, I copied it three times.
I’d long since stopped having any physical reaction to doing heavy magic. Here on the planet of my birth, I was fully connected to it, and its sun. I commanded more power than I’d ever had, and a lot more than I needed here.
All the same, I was still learning.
I returned to the beach for lunch, topping up the food stocks before anyone asked how I was doing it. I’d had five years after all. Scattered around the planet was everything I needed. Various crops supplied vegetables, the makings of bread, and beer. The herds of food animals, more or less unchanged from my childhood days, were known. Jump, cleanly kill, jump back. I couldn’t do bacon, but there was always plenty of good meat. And the marines seemed to be eating a lot of it. I'd never found coffee beans, so no coffee. But did I mention beer?
As I finishing my lunch, there was a sort of ding in the back of my mind, indicating some magic I’d set going had now completed. I asked Jess if she wanted to go for a walk. She did, and as soon as we were out of sight, I jumped us both to where my project was now complete.
Jess stood there gaping, for quite a while.
"How?" she gasped.
"Magic."
She hit me.
The ship was sitting comfortably on the ground. This put the main airlocks well above us, so I created a set of stairs going up to the people airlock. She followed me up, and in, looked around, and stalked further in. I had to run to catch up.
I found her in the main engine room, just standing there gawking.
"The ship looks brand new."
"It is."
"What?"
"It is brand new."
"It's not our ship?"
"Yes and no."
"Choose one."
"Yes, this is your ship, as it was, after we finished putting it together like this. No, it's not the ship you arrived in."
"Where's our ship?"
"Here. The old ship is on the other side of the continent."
She closed her eyes, and shook her head a few times from side to side.
"But…"
"Nothing. Your job this afternoon is checking to make sure everything is perfect, and nothing is missing. Before I even tell anyone else, I want to know it will space the way it's supposed to."
"And you'll be doing?"
"Moving all the stuff over."
"Fine."
She started opening doors, and pulling tools. She paused for a moment, as if wondering why the tools were there at all, but she obviously decided not to ask.
I made myself comfortable in the captain's chair on the main bridge, and moved the shuttles over first. In the main hold I found a container of gold ingots, and various other rare elements needed for making things. I moved them over, but into my own cargo space. Most of it was the remains of what I'd accumulated last time I’d been on the ship. There were no other trade goods on board.
The afternoon passed quickly, as I methodically checked every room, space, and
cranny of the old ship, and moved everything to the new one. If it was loose, it was moved.
"As far as I can tell, this ship is ready to fly. Only way to know for sure is to do it."
I checked I had the cutlery draw in my kitchen set up right, and moved one of the shuttles back to the beach.
I waved Jess into the nearest seat, and she sat.
The ship moved. One second on land, the next in space, back where the original had been in orbit.
I pointed Jess to the helm controls. She grinned, and took the ship for a short test drive. While she was testing everything she could think of, I moved the old ship to the same spot this one had been, and moved the junk heap next to it. There was no point leaving it in a vulnerable position, especially since what came next, might use that area from underneath it. The rocks around the ravine contained a lot of the building raw materials, which is why I'd chosen it to start with.
Jess put the ship back into a stable orbit, and I started up one last magic task. The first missile materialized in the main magazine, and as I watched, so did the second, and the third.
"All done."
I looked at her. She was grinning.
"You like?"
"Damn right I do. She should outperform the old ship by a long way. I have no idea why, but it should."
"Ready for dinner?"
She nodded, and held out a hand. I took it, and moved us back to the beach.
"Where the hell have you two been?" yelled Tasha.
Seven
The following morning, I let them do their PT as normal, allowed them to finish breakfast at their own pace, before announcing last swim time would end midmorning.
There were no stragglers getting to the shuttle on time, and I moved it to the shuttle bay, rather than flying up.
Saying goodbye to my house had been more difficult than I’d expected. I locked it up, and warded it with protections, in case anyone came, and decided to break in. Most likely not, but the pirates had been interested in the planet. Even though the ringleaders were not around now, an odd ship might want somewhere to hide out.
I brought very little with me other than clothes, mainly my current pad and reading tablet, and basic needs. In the two backpacks I’d brought here to begin with.
Today's Spacemage Page 2
