Voice of Mars (Starship's Mage Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  “The Star Mirror was destroyed with her ship,” Damien noted. “A replacement is in the workshop I haven’t entered since we left Panterra, about a third complete.”

  “Oh. Damn.”

  “However,” Damien considered. The Star Mirror was a sufficiently complex piece of magic that only a Rune Wright could build one – and they were unique, even giving the pattern from one to a traditional Rune Scribe hadn’t been enough to allow duplication. As Julia said, however, it was meant to see light years away. To reach thirty-odd light minutes…

  He brought up a schematic of the Duke of Magnificence, looking for a sensor array he could associate with the view he was seeing on the bridge’s – the simulacrum chamber’s – walls.

  “Mage-Captain, I’ll need to borrow your simulacrum,” he said calmly. “Commander Rhine – please focus your analysis computers on sensor array Kilo Seven Delta Four.”

  “Okay…” the tactical officer allowed as Jakab gestured Damien forward.

  “The glimpse is only going to last a few seconds,” the Hand noted as he removed his gloves, exposing the interface runes on his palms. When he’d carved the Runes of Power onto his flesh, he’d made very sure to leave those original two runes untouched. “I can’t pull more without a dedicated tool.”

  Everyone on the bridge except Amiri was now looking at him in confusion as he laid his hands on the simulacrum. Ignoring them, he reached out with his magic into the space just in front of array K7D4. Through the simulacrum chambers repeated visuals and the magical properties of the simulacrum itself, he made sure he was touching the right area of space… then he twisted it.

  His power flowed through the vacuum, and convinced it that it wasn’t there – convinced the particles and waves he’d captured that they were here, thirty-three light minutes and change away.

  He couldn’t maintain it. It didn’t drain that much energy, not with the Duke’s amplifier to extend his existing strength, but the twist in space was inherently unstable without some kind of support.

  “Damn,” Rhine whispered. “I got three-and-a-half seconds of what looks like real-time data.” There was awe in the tactical officer’s voice. The abilities of Mages were generally considered to be known, their limits equally identified.

  In truth, Damien knew most of that ‘knowledge’ was defined more by the Compact that restricted Mages than by the actual limitations of Mages’ abilities. But even so, his own abilities and strengths were far beyond what a regular Mage could do. The Hands of the Mage-King could work miracles with their single Rune of Power – and with five Runes on his own flesh, he was as far beyond them as they were beyond everyone else.

  If only sheer power could solve all his problems.

  “Analyzing the data,” Rhine reported, his voice trailing off. “We have a problem. On the screens.”

  “Wha…”

  The new image on the screens cut off Damien’s question as Rhine zoomed in on the cluster of ships – and the two fleets maneuvering around them.

  “The MSF should not be here,” he snarled. “What the hell is Phan thinking?”

  “I don’t know,” Jakab replied, “but she’s already been in a fight. Assuming she brought everyone – and there’s enough ships here to presume she did – she’s short a destroyer, and these three,” he tapped a set of icons, “have been hit, bad.”

  “The Patrol looks to be getting the civilians out of the line of fire, but the MSF is burning hard for an intercept,” Rhine told them. “It’s hard to be sure with less than four seconds of data, but I’d say they’ll clear the asteroid cluster and will be able to fire on each other in less than two minutes.” The tactical officer paused and swallowed. “Sir, I see nothing in their signatures or their maneuvering to suggest that either fleet is not going to fire.”

  “Mage-Captain, I will not stand by and watch the first battle of the Protectorate’s civil war explode in front of my eyes,” Damien snapped. “Get us between them.”

  “We need time to calculate the jump,” Jakab replied, but he was already tapping away at his console.

  “Commander Rhine, take the Duke to battle stations,” the Hand ordered, trying to not distract the ship’s Captain. “Be prepared to intercept missile fire – no matter what happens, nobody dies today unless I order it.”

  He felt as much as heard Amiri’s snort from behind him, but his gaze was on the frozen image of a scene too far away – and far too close to bringing the entire Protectorate to its knees.

  Lights began to flash on the bridge screens as stations already on alert went to battle stations. Extra personnel rushed to their stations. Capacitors charged, and missiles were loaded into launch tubes. Section after section on the ship flashed ready codes as the warship prepared for a battle he hoped – he prayed she wouldn’t have to fight.

  “Be ready to jump,” Jakab snapped, the Mage-Captain half-leaping from his chair and lunging to the simulacrum. He took one look around the bridge, making sure no one was going to be surprised, then laid his hands on the simulacrum.

  Then, in a flare of power, the Duke of Magnificence placed herself directly in the line of fire.

  Chapter 33

  “Record for omnidirectional transmission in the clear,” Damien ordered. He stood straight, taking advantage of what height he had, and focused on the camera in front of the Captain’s console he’d temporarily commandeered.

  “Míngliàng and Sherwood forces, this is Hand Damien Montgomery. Both of your fleets are in violation of the orders and restrictions laid upon you to keep the peace – the peace you appear prepared to shatter.”

  He shook his head, hoping that his disappointment came through more than his anger.

  “You will stand your ships down,” he ordered calmly. “Discharge your capacitors. Power down your sensor arrays. I will permit you to maintain defensive systems only. Once all of your offensive systems are disarmed, you will match vectors with the Duke of Magnificence at your current distance and all ship Captains and squadron commanders will report aboard the Duke.

  “Between you, you have enough information for us to sort this disaster out,” he told them. “You can either cooperate, or be the first regional militia to ever fire on a Hand of the Mage-King of Mars. I don’t think anyone here wants to find out how that story ends.”

  He made a ‘cut’ signal with his hand, then nodded for Jakab’s crew to transmit it.

  “What’s our status?” he demanded.

  “They are clear of the asteroid cluster,” Rhine reported. “Both fleets have a clear line of fire on each other… no one has fired. They are holding fire.”

  “Let’s see how they respond,” Damien said quietly. “I want a directional laser link with the Robin Hood,” he continued. “Encrypted, the highest level we share with the Patrol. Use the key ‘Gentle Rains of Summer’. I need to speak to the Commodore in private – I don’t even want the Patrol to know I’m talking to her, am I clear?”

  “You can use my office again,” Jakab told him. “Are you sure she’ll know that key?”

  “She’ll know.”

  #

  “Ma’am, we have an incoming laser-com from the Duke of Magnificence,” Lieutenant Amber reported.

  “Is anyone else getting it?” Grace asked, glancing around her bridge. Her crew looked mostly relieved that Montgomery’s arrival had short-stopped a war. A couple still looked furious, likely the ones not extending any benefit of the doubt to the MSF.

  “They’re pinging our forward receiver with a signal that’s less than six meters across at this range,” Amber pointed out. “We’re the only ones getting it. It’s encrypted, ma’am. I ran it past our standard protocols for the Navy. We have the encryption, but they’re using a non-standard key.”

  “Put it through to my office,” Grace told her after a moment. “And people?” Her bridge staff looked at her. “Nobody hears about this – even on this ship. Am I clear?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Grace stepped into her att
ached office and brought up the communication channel. The point of a shared encrypted communication protocol was to reduce the true encryption key of a modern cryptographic defense, some billion or so digits long, down to a private key that was only a few dozen characters at most.

  If it was a non-standard key, it would have to have been a certain minimum length, and something Damien thought she could guess. Even with the hell of the last few days, she knew what he’d have used – and she entered the name of the ship she’d left Sherwood on, the ship that had first taken the two of them apart.

  The screen immediately resolved into the image of Damien sitting at a desk, watching the camera with a patient expression. A timer in the corner noted the time delay at just under eight seconds – the Duke was exactly halfway between the Patrol and the Flotilla four and a half million kilometers away.

  “Your timing is perfect, Damien,” she told him. “I tried to talk Phan down, but she thinks we attacked her… I swear to you, Damien, not only did I not order an attack, I know where all nine of my ships have been for days.”

  “Commodore McLaughlin,” he said formally, his speech clearly begun before her message had reached him, “I have evidence that the commander of one of your ships was responsible for the destruction of the Míngliàng Antonius Central Processing Facility, and the Navy destroyer Dreams of Liberty.”

  He stopped as her message reached him, but he’d already blown her away. One of her captains had destroyed the CPF? One of her people had killed thirty thousand innocents?

  After a few seconds, clearly listening to her message, he sighed and shook his head.

  “Bluntly, Grace, I now know your ships have been murdering people,” he said quietly. “And I also know that every attack on Sherwood shipping has been non-Míngliàng ships retrofitted to look like Phan’s ships. Phan doesn’t trust you. She doesn’t entirely trust me, because I am prepared to trust you. You will need to make concessions to earn her trust – and she has the right to demand them.”

  Swallowing, Grace finally regained her composure and leaned forward.

  “Damien, tell me who did this,” she said flatly. “I do not doubt you, though I wish I could. Give me a name, and I will give Admiral Phan their head on a platter.”

  Seconds ticked by. Sixteen seconds after she spoke, Damien shook his head and sighed.

  “It’s Wayne, Grace,” he told her. “The Alan-a-dale­ jumped to Antonius after they left us with the Mistletoe Solstice, destroyed the CPF and then engaged a Navy destroyer in a missile duel to try and destroy the jump-freighters that had been in the system.

  “Worse, it appears Captain Wayne had his fingers in your logistics pipeline. I’m forwarding you a data package prepared by your Inspector Accord – he’s aboard the Duke, so you can meet with him once you’re here, but Wayne may have been in a position to modify the missiles loaded aboard the Patrol warships.

  “To help protect your ships from any brilliant ideas he may have, I intend to arrest him aboard the Duke – but his people had to be involved, and I don’t know what they’ll do when we seize him. I need your people prepared to board and take control of the Alan-a-dale.”

  Grace just… stared at the monitor. Her trust in Michael Wayne had been fading, but this was beyond belief. Memories of, well, ogling the older man, with his perfectly fitted uniform and eternally unperturbable self-confidence, ran through her and she shivered – first in embarrassment, and then in rage.

  He’d betrayed her trust. Betrayed the Patrol – betrayed Sherwood. Not just the Míngliàng space station in Antonius, but dozens of their ships too from what Damien had said. Tens of thousands of innocents dead at his hand, and he’d still smiled and flirted with her.

  And modifying their missiles? The horrifying possibilities from that sent chills down her spine.

  “I understand,” she finally said. “I’ll coordinate, quietly, on our end. We’ll get the bastard. Tell Phan that by God and by the honor of Sherwood and the Patrol, she will have her justice.”

  #

  Closing the channel with the Commodore, Damien heaved a sigh of relief. He’d been afraid that Grace would be so focused on revenge for Greenwood’s dead she wouldn’t listen to him. He could understand why she was here, even if it was a violation of his orders and was creating far more problems than it could ever solve. So long as she would listen to him, he could probably salvage this.

  Of course, stopping a war required both sides to listen.

  “Lieutenant Amber, please get me another laser link to Admiral Phan,” he ordered over the intercom. “We can use our standard protocol for the MSF here, I’m not as worried about traitors in her ranks.”

  “Coming right up, sir. Give us thirty seconds to have a solid two-way link – the delay will be about the same as you had with Commodore McLaughlin.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  He waited patiently as the seal of the Royal Martian Navy rotated on his screen, and then finally resolved into the image of Admiral Yen Phan’s office, the woman leveling a dark gaze on him.

  “If you’re going to order me around like an under-qualified minion, could you at least do me the courtesy of not interrupting me?” she snapped.

  Damien smiled coldly.

  “My minions can actually follow orders,” he noted. “I don’t recall authorizing the Flotilla to be anywhere near this far away from Míngliàng. In fact, I believe I specifically only authorized you to go collect your merchant ships – yet somehow, you’re here in Antonius. And you’ve been in a fight. I want answers, Admiral. Before I find myself having to defend your actions to a fleet convinced you just blew Greenwood to hell.”

  Lightspeed lag was hell – or at least purgatory. Fifteen seconds passed before he even saw Phan’s reaction to his little rant, though at least he could read her reaction as her face visibly tightened and she leaned back in her chair.

  “We didn’t intend to come this far,” she admitted slowly. “With the rogue from Sherwood and the mystery ships pretending to be us floating around, I brought everyone I could to make sure we could bring our ships home safe.

  “Half of them had clustered together for mutual defense, ships with a single Mage each slowly jumping their way home,” she continued. “We were ambushed within minutes of finding them – a frigate that jumped in at high speed and launched missiles at the freighters and our destroyers.” She visibly clenched her fists as she looked flatly at the camera.

  “We got there in time to watch three of the ships your Captain Arrow died to defend destroyed in front of our eyes,” Phan said flatly. “One of my destroyers was killed as well, with three badly damaged. And my lord Hand,” she paused, “it was not the Alan-a-dale that attacked us. My faith in your claim of a single rogue ship is very, very weak.”

  That was impossible. Damien trusted Grace – and trusted her when she said that every one of her ships had been with her for the last few days. The obvious damage on Phan’s ships, though, told the truth of her tale as well.

  “Bring all of your data with you, Admiral,” he finally ordered. “If it was one of McLaughlin’s ships, we will identify her, and you will have justice. The Alan-a-dale’s Captain Wayne will be surrendered to Protectorate authority upon arrival on the Duke. If more of their Captains have betrayed their oaths and their world, then they will be punished – I swear this to you on the honor of the Mage-King of Mars.”

  Hands did not lightly swear by the honor of their master. Their own honor could be forsworn, could be overridden by the Council. The Mage-King’s honor, once committed, could not be taken back without breaking the Hand who swore by it.

  “Someone has slaughtered nearly a hundred thousand people to start a war, Admiral Phan,” he reminded her. “I will not permit them to succeed.”

  #

  Somehow, having a clear target for all of the rage, frustration, and grief she’d been building up over the last several days put a new purpose in Grace’s step as she returned to her bridge. Her people noticed –
she watched them straighten, an extra ounce of steel settling in their spines as they turned to watch her walk to the center of the bridge.

  “Commander Arrington,” she greeted her XO pleasantly. “Has the shuttle bay been advised that I’ll need a bird to take me over to the Duke?”

  “They have,” he confirmed. “Lieutenant Eisenhorn is preparing a ship now. He warns it will be a long, unpleasant trip – roughly seven hours at three gees.”

  “I didn’t expect anything different,” she accepted wryly, then looked around at her bridge crew again. All of them were too young or too old for their ranks, pulled in from college graduations or merchant crews. They’d been with her since before she’d been bumped to Commodore, though, and she knew them. She trusted them.

  She’d also trusted Michael Wayne. Almost trusted him enough to fall into bed with him.

  “Sergeant Gibbons,” she addressed her bodyguard crisply. “Seal the bridge please.”

  That sent murmurs rippling through her bridge crew, but no one stopped the big Patroller from locking and sealing the bridge doors and bringing up a systems lockdown. While they still controlled the ship, no messages or crew could enter or leave the bridge until she released the seal.

  “You need to know what I now know,” she told the bridge crew. “But it can’t leave this room, except as absolutely needed. There is treachery and betrayal at the heart of our Patrol, and we must excise it.”

  The handful of people on the Robin Hood’s bridge who hadn’t already been giving her their undivided attention now focused on her. All the men and women on the bridge could hopefully tell she was deathly serious.

  “I have been informed that the Protectorate has successfully identified the ship responsible for the destruction of Míngliàng’s Antonius Central Processing Facility,” she continued. “They have conclusively confirmed that the Alan-a-dale attacked and destroyed both the station and the Royal Martian Navy destroyer Dreams of Liberty.