Voice of Mars (Starship's Mage Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  And this time, she even held her peace on why. It might have been because she was eating. Following her example, Damien finally tried the food the warship’s head chef had prepared for him.

  It was good enough that the next few minutes passed in the silence of contented consumption until the food disappeared. Then Damien broke open the bottle of wine the chef had provided and poured it out – to choking noises from Amiri.

  “What?”

  “That’s a twenty-four-forty Gray Monk,” she pointed out. “It’s eighteen years old, and a bottle goes for over five hundred – give it some respect boss.”

  Damien checked the bottle a bit more carefully. His bodyguard was right. The wine was apparently a Canadian Riesling, bottled in two thousand, four hundred and forty. Of course, he had no idea what any of that meant, but he could at least respect the age.

  Macleod took his glass, sniffing at it delicately, and leaned back in his chair.

  “I’ve answered a bunch of questions about what happened here,” he said bluntly, “but I’m guessing you have more questions.”

  “More about Sherwood than here,” Damien told him. “I trust my Navy people to know the questions to ask about a pirate attack better than I do.”

  “I didn’t leave Sherwood long after you did,” Macleod warned him. “With the two pirate attacks on the Blue Jay, your departure made more of an impact than you might realize. The responses and legislation that birthed the Patrol were born out of that mess. They hadn’t started on the warship yards when I left, but it was only a few months later.”

  “You haven’t been back?”

  “No,” Macleod laughed. “I know it must seem strange to you, but my family was overwhelming. Love them all, but a few dozen light years between us was the perfect distance in my mind.”

  Macleod was a Mage by Blood, born into a family of Mages. Tested and confirmed at an early age, he’d always had a family to support him and understood every step of his path. Damien, on the other hand, was a Mage by Right – the first Mage born in his family, identified by the testing every adolescent underwent, then orphaned by an accident shortly after.

  “If you hadn’t been back, why were you going back?” Damien asked slowly.

  The other Mage sighed, looking down at his wineglass – and at his left hand.

  “Riley – Riley Damokosh, the Captain of the Tidal Wave – was… my wife,” he admitted. “We separated a few months back, paperwork for the divorce is registered on Corinthian. Grace’s message arrived at the perfect time, and Riley agreed to give me a lift home. We found a cargo and set out and… well, this happened.”

  “I’m sorry,” Damien told him. His relationships tended to end with people heading to opposite ends of the galaxy. Losing someone the way Macleod had was completely outside his experience. “You said Grace sent you a message – Grace McLaughlin?”

  “Yeah,” Macleod said shortly, taking a couple of deep breaths and large gulp of the expensive wine. “Not knowing what you’ve been up to,” he gestured around the ship and the window to space next to them, “I figured you’d have got the same message. She was reaching out to all her old classmates, looking for Mages to come home and join the Patrol.

  “She said she couldn’t guarantee me a ship, but they’d have XO slots opening up soon and she could promise one of them if nothing else,” Macleod continued. “I could probably find an XO slot on a freighter at this point, but after everything came apart, I kind of did want to get smothered by family and feel wanted again.”

  “You were joining the Patrol?” Damien asked. “Did she say why they needed more Mages?”

  “She didn’t say much,” his old classmate replied. “That kind of ‘spread until we find you’ message is pretty insecure. I got the impression they were expanding the Patrol as fast as they could – her grandfather thinks someone’s threatening the system. I can’t say I disbelieve that now,” he finished with another drink.

  “Grace could promise you an XO slot? That seems a lot to lean on her grandfather for,” Damien said.

  “She wouldn’t need to lean on him for anything,” Macleod said in confusion. “Didn’t you know?”

  “Know what?”

  “Commodore Grace McLaughlin runs the damn Patrol.”

  Chapter 11

  Commodore Grace McLaughlin never tired of the view from her office. Buried under the upper curve of the Sherwood Interstellar Patrol frigate Robin Hood, the designers had included a transparent ‘skylight’ to allow the ship’s Captain – who was also, in the Robin Hood’s case, the Commodore of the entire Patrol – an unrivaled view of space.

  That skylight covered her roof and a good chunk of one wall and right now was allowing her an unrivaled view of Sherwood below. The oceans glittered in a slightly iridescent blue, and the vast dark-green forests of Sherwood Oak that dominated the main landmasses shaded the surface darker than many worlds.

  The petite redhead in the dark blue uniform loved her world. At her grandfather’s request, she’d come back sooner than most who’d signed onto interstellar freighters and had been one of the first Ship’s Mages of the Patrol.

  She’d seen it from the beginning, with all of its warts. Over the six months since she’d taken command, she’d starting excising as many of those as she could, but it remained a work in progress.

  The admittance chime to her office sounded, reminding her of the visit she’d been expecting. It wasn’t scheduled, the man was just predictable as clockwork.

  “Enter.”

  The man who entered wore the same dark blue uniform as she did, but his had two gold circles on his collar where her rank tab was a single crystal oak leaf. He was taller than her, though that wasn’t saying much, with a paunch that would have been unacceptable in the Martian Navy and the beginnings of a bald spot for all that he was her own age.

  “Commodore McLaughlin,” he greeted her, with the same slight emphasis on her family name he always used.

  “Commander Grayson,” she said to her executive officer. “How may I help you?”

  “I just saw the posting of the command staffs for the Phase Three frigates,” he replied. “I couldn’t help but notice that every surviving executive officer is moving to command a frigate… except me.”

  “Yes, that is correct.”

  “That’s correct?” he demanded. “Surely you must be joking!”

  “Rodrick,” Grace said patiently, “you’ve been a Commander in the Patrol for fourteen months. Your commission was granted as a favor to your father the Senator. You were still expected to attempt to do your job.”

  Grayson started to splutter, but she raised her hand to shut him up and met his gaze calmly.

  “In those fourteen months, you have not, to my extensive knowledge, so much as attempted to learn what your job requires,” she continued calmly. “Despite repeated warnings on my part and questioning from your juniors, you have continued to act as if your role on this ship was ‘Chief Party Organizer.’ This is not a goddamn cruise ship, Commander Grayson. Despite being the Commodore of the Patrol, I have spent much of my time dealing with the minutiae of one vessel because my executive officer cannot do his job.”

  She smiled.

  “So no, Rodrick, you are not getting a command.” She slid two datapads across the table to him. “In fact, I’ve been waiting for you – and so have these.”

  “After a year of service, this is the thanks I get?” Grayson demanded. “What, did you expect me to spend my time slaving over a console like some merchant ship wage-slave?”

  “You were the only officer commissioned directly at Commander who had not previously served on a merchant ship,” Grace pointed out softly, tapping between the datapads with one finger. “That was a mistake. A mistake I am going to rectify.”

  “Oh really? I’m a mistake? I’m not granddaddy’s bloody princess stuck in command!”

  The tapping finger turned into a palm slapping the desk, hard.

  “Commander Grayson!” He sto
pped and she smiled again. “One of these documents requires your signature and mine. I’ve already counter-signed it – it is your resignation from the Patrol.

  “The other only requires mine. It’s your discharge for cause. It isn’t authorized… yet.”

  “I am not going to resign!” Grayson snapped. “You have no grounds to humiliate me like this!”

  “Rodrick Grayson,” Grace replied, her voice soft and sweet, “I have the grounds and evidence to charge you with multiple counts of theft of Patrol property. Even the discharge is a compromise. Sign the letter. Either way, you’re leaving this ship.”

  “I will not be treated like this!” he bellowed.

  Grace shook her head and pressed her thumb to the second datapad. As Grayson started to splutter, she tapped a key on her desk.

  “Sergeant Gibbons?” she said crisply. “Please come in.”

  The towering red-head who lead her personal guard detachment stepped into the room.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Mister Grayson has been formally discharged from the Patrol,” she told Gibbons calmly. She slid the datapad to the gaping Grayson. “Please escort him to his quarters. He can have fifteen minutes to pack – but I want him off my ship in thirty.”

  Gibbons saluted crisply, a wide grin ruining his professional demeanor.

  “Yes, ma’am!”

  #

  Six hours later, Grace was watching the terminator line sweep over the rotating linked rings of Sherwood Orbital in its geostationary orbit over Sherwood City. Robin Hood was in a high orbit, playing guard dog to the planet’s main civilian station. Her sister ship Maid Marian – Grace was not a fan of the naming scheme, but it had been set before she was Commodore – hung in a similar orbit over the new Sherwood Defender Yards where the frigates had been built on the opposite side of the planet.

  The space station had just finished vanishing into the dark when her console chimed, informing her she had the communications request she’d been waiting for since she’d kicked Grayson off her ship. Without even looking at the screen, she accepted the communication.

  “Hello Governor,” she said quietly.

  “Hello yourself, Commodore Granddaughter,” Governor Miles James McLaughlin, now a full year into his eighth – and he insisted, final – term as Governor of Sherwood greeted her. “I feel anticipated somehow.”

  “Not so much you as Senator Grayson,” she told him. “To be honest, I expected to hear from you over an hour ago.”

  “I heard from the Senator two hours ago,” the Governor replied dryly. “As much havoc as he was raising, however, I then entered a briefing on the most recent information we have on the attacks and had other priorities. How’s my eldest granddaughter?”

  “Being reminded of a man named Hercules and a certain set of stables. At least they took the source of the bullshit out of the stables for him.”

  “And he had one night to do it in,” the McLaughlin said dryly. “Senator Grayson, as I’m sure you’re surprised to hear, intends to level a formal complaint against the Patrol for the ‘cavalier, high-handed and unjust’ way his son’s case was handled. He feels there should have been some form of tribunal and process before such an action.”

  “There is a process,” Grace pointed out. “Multiple verbal warnings and two written warnings. I can provide the files to the good Senator if he wants.”

  “Grace,” her grandfather said softly, and she finally turned to face the screen. Miles James McLaughlin looked old – far older than his seventy-eight Terran years justified. Almost thirty years of running a planetary government did that, she supposed.

  “Senator Grayson runs a significant and powerful bloc in our Senate,” he pointed out gently. “One that has helped support the creation and funding of the Patrol. While I trust that you did have reasons, flippancy doesn’t help.”

  She sighed and nodded.

  “You can inform Senator Grayson,” she said flatly, “that if he wishes to reopen discussion of his son’s file, I will have to pass said file on to the Patrol’s legal department. At that point, the Patrol will have no choice but to level charges of corruption, theft and abuse of power against Rodrick Grayson.

  “Discharging him was a compromise, Grandfather. If his father wasn’t who he is, the younger Grayson would be heading for a jail cell.”

  “I see,” the Governor acknowledged. A moment later, he started chuckling. “I will make certain to pass the message on,” he told her. “I will probably need to forward you the video of his reaction.”

  “Patrick Grayson knows damn well what his son is,” Grace told him. “He bought the man’s commission to stop him being a drain on his own purse – but that turned him into a drain on the Patrol’s, and the Patrol can’t afford that.”

  “I agree,” he replied. “I’ll make sure Patrick understands as well. I am, as always, convinced I made the right call in making you Commodore. Can you afford to lose one of your Commanders at this point though?”

  “I have enough calls out to Mages and merchant officers from Sherwood to fill the holes,” she told him. “I’ve got enough new trainees and junior officers to spread out my experienced people across the new ships. The Nottingham and Lionheart already have crews aboard in final work-up. The other four Phase Three ships should have crews as they commission.”

  “Will eleven be enough for what we need?”

  Grace turned back to the window, looking out over her world. She’d become intimately familiar with the destructive capability of even her ‘regional militia’ warships. Planets, orbital stations… everything was so very, very vulnerable. The loss of the frigate Wil Scarlet to ‘pirates’ several weeks ago had only driven that home.

  “I don’t know, Grandfather,” she admitted softly. “There’s a reason I pushed for Phase Four.”

  “With the attacks and the loss of the Wil Scarlet, the vote won’t even be close,” he assured her. “Even if Grayson decides to be a twit, I’ll have the votes to fund those six frigates.”

  “Thank you,” she told him. A light started flashing on her console. “Sorry, Governor, my bridge is paging me.”

  “Do your job, Commodore. I have faith.”

  Grace inclined her head to her family patriarch and then cut the signal to bring up her bridge crew.

  “McLaughlin, what is it?” she asked.

  “Ma’am, we just had a big jump flare,” her new executive officer told her. “The sensor net is still resolving details, but we’re pretty sure it’s a Martian cruiser.”

  Chapter 12

  Damien joined Jakab and his crew on the bridge for the emergence into Sherwood. For his first look at his home system in over four years, he didn’t really want to be reliant on his own eyes. All he’d be able to see from here was the star and the planet.

  “We are on course, twenty-one hours out from Sherwood orbit,” the navigator reported. “We’ve already sent in our request for an orbital slot, should hear back in about twenty minutes.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” Jakab said.

  Damien stood at the back of the bridge, watching the activity as the crew efficiently processed data from the Duke of Magnificence’s vast array of sensors and scopes into a coherent view of the star system. The surrounding walls showed the empty space of a star system, but were being rapidly filled in with icons of a system that was even busier now than when he had left.

  Looking for things he recognized, he spotted the multi-kilometer length of Sherwood Prime, the orbital station he’d left from. Touching a screen next to him, he zoomed in on the station. Nothing seemed to have changed about the platform, a single massive cylinder with twelve rotating habitation rings wrapped around it.

  Of course, zooming back out, he spotted two smaller stations built on similar designs, with only eight rings each. Further out, he saw that what had been the beginnings of a freighter shipyard in one LaGrange point when he had left was now a busy industrial complex. As he looked at the yard, an analysis program swept th
rough and identified fifteen individual jump-freighters in various stages of construction. The two Royal Martian Navy destroyers present in the system hung just outside the civilian yard, sheepdogs guarding the flock of defenseless transports.

  “That’s odd,” Jakab murmured, just loud enough for Damien to hear him. “My lord, check out the Defender Yards.”

  He’d been briefed on the existence of the new military shipyard that was producing the Patrol’s frigates, but it took him a minute to find it. Unlike the civilian yard at the LaGrange point, the Sherwood Defender Yard was in geostationary orbit, much closer to the planet. The Duke was approaching from high enough above the ecliptic to see all four of the geostationary stations.

  “What am I looking at, Mage-Captain?” Damien asked as the icons popped up in his screen. The station itself was surprisingly unimpressive, a collection of glorified gantries wrapped around empty space and armored hulls. The cruiser’s computers and techs had labeled four icons as frigates under construction.

  “The Defender Yards are rated for six ships at once, my lord,” Jakab murmured. “Two of the bays are empty – not even keels. And the other four…”

  “They’re further along than I’d expect,” Damien replied quietly, looking at the complete hulls in the zoomed in optics. “Are the other pair complete?”

  “I’m reading four frigates in the system, sir,” Lieutenant Carver reported. “Two in high orbits keeping an eye on the orbitals, and two moving in company in the outer system… I’d say the latter pair are on commissioning trials.”

  “Wait,” Rhine added to his junior’s report. “One of the ships in orbit has changed course. She’s headed our way – I read the transponder as the frigate Maid Marian. The other ship in orbit is…” the dark-haired man checked something, “the Robin Hood, the Patrol’s flagship.”