The Academy

by Vincent Trigili

  Great, just great; that would make it impossible to find help. Everywhere around me was the sound of people rushing to their quarters. Soon I would be alone in the halls. Without a crowd to hide in I would have to keep up my camouflage spell full time.

  It was time to face up to the fact that I was trapped. I could hide indefinitely, but while doing that I could not help Flame. I headed for the launch bays, hoping that an idea would present itself down there. When I arrived at the bays I saw that a massive hauler had docked. With the station on lockdown the crew would not be able to disembark; however, the automated services of the station would still function, including loading food supplies.

  As I moved around the rear side of the hauler I saw that several navy ships had also docked. These were fast attack cruisers, not nearly as fast as the Peregrines but among the fastest ships in the fleet. The Navy must have sent them after us.

  I could sense an evil force on the station. It was not unlike the time I sensed the sorcerer who tried to recruit me back in Johnson Memorial Park, only it was much stronger. I realized that must mean there were several sorcerers present. If they were on this station, then maybe Flame was here, too. If not, there was a chance we might be able to get information from them regarding where Flame actually was. I would have to be extra careful; it was possible that they could sense me as well.

  While watching I saw Bill disembark from one of them, calling out orders. Now it was definitely time for a new plan; I could not stall any longer. Moving as quickly as I could without breaking my camouflage, I slipped up behind Bill and whispered, “Bill, call off the lockdown. You are going to get Flame killed. I will tell you all, but not here.”

  I saw Bill’s step stutter briefly, then he reached for his comm and said, “All hands stand down. Shadow’s been found.” He switched off his comm, turned to someone next to him and said, “Prep my ready room for a secure meeting in one hour.” Then he turned and went back onto his ship.

  I was about to follow Bill onto the cruiser when something drew my attention by the hauler. I walked over to it and saw the passengers disembarking; among them was Phoenix. He looked strong and healthy, far better than when I had seen him last. I reached out to him telepathically and said, “What are you doing here?”

  “Shadow, you’re alive!” he sent back with almost overwhelming emotion.

  “For the moment, but if all this fuss continues I might not be for long. What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Yeah, well, see … I kind of guessed you might be out here … well, actually Headmaster Rannor told me you came this way, and Flame is in trouble and all that … have you found her yet?” was his reply.

  “No, but I am starting to sense a gathering of power here on the station. Go get quarters for both of us and then look around for any signs that sorcerers are here. If you find any, let me know right away and hide. Do not expose me. I want to be the one in control, not them,” I said.

  “Sure. First place I’ll check is the diner. Apparently they don’t include a meal with your ticket in these parts; very uncivilized,” he said.

  “Good plan. After all, I am sure sorcerers need to eat sometimes too.” Some things never change, I thought with a chuckle. “I am glad you came, Phoenix. It is nice to have a friend out here.”

  After a brief parting message he headed deeper into the station, probably to find food first and not lodging. I headed back to the cruiser, which still had its hatches open as men came and went about some unknown business. Soon the launch bay would be filling up with people coming and going, and it would be harder to stay out of sight and not get trampled.

  I slipped onto Bill’s ship unnoticed and headed up towards the bridge. The cruiser was a model I knew from my navy days, so it was not difficult to find the captain’s ready room.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  I waited in the ready room for Bill and worked out how I might proceed from there. I still wanted to stick to my “foolish hero” plan, so I thought about how such a person would act in this situation. Right on time, Bill entered the room and secured the door.

  “All right, Shadow, let’s talk,” he said as he sat at his desk.

  He could not see me yet, but was apparently confident that I was already there. I lowered my camouflage spell just enough for him to see me, but not enough for me to be easy to spot by any magus watching the room; nor could I be recorded by mundane instruments.

  “Hi, Bill,” I said as I appeared.

  “That’s better, but you’re still not even a ghost on the sensors,” he said.

  “Yes, and I will stay that way. Look, time is ticking away, and we have no leisure to play hide-and-go-seek right now,” I said.

  “Okay, then fill me in,” he said.

  “Bill, as you know, the Academy that Flame and I attend is not really a school; it is a boot camp. We are being trained for war, and as you very well know war is dangerous business. Sometimes individual warriors are called upon to take unreasonable risks so that the good guys win the fight,” I started.

  “Ye-es,” he said with great hesitancy in his voice.

  “Recently a small band of sorcerers managed to gain access to the Academy’s least secure area. A student, which is the lowest rank of wizard, recognized what they were and they attempted to kill him to cover up the discovery. Flame and I were nearby and responded to his plea for help as quickly as we could.”

  I paused there for a moment; I knew I had to phrase my next words carefully. Bill was a navy man and understood risks, but this was his baby sister I was talking about. She often spoke about how he had overprotected and sheltered her as she was growing up. She had warned me that he might cause problems when we were released to fight, but neither of us foresaw this scenario.

  “I reached the fight ahead of Flame just in time to see the student go down. As soon as the sorcerers saw me, they teleported away. I moved to check on our fallen comrade, whereupon they reappeared and captured Flame, who has not been seen since,” I said.

  I could see anger pouring into his features as he stood up. He was visibly struggling with his emotions. I decided to try to deflect some of that and said, “Bill, we have determined that she is still alive and in this realm.”

  “How long?” he spat out.

  “A week and a half,” I started.

  He slammed his fist down on his desk with a great curse and said, “That’s beyond the cut!”

  “The cut” is a naval term indicating the chances of getting someone back alive versus the risks of recovery. Once the cut line is crossed it is assumed that the missing person is dead, and it is time to move on to enacting punitive justice instead of attempting rescue.

  “Yes, but we do not follow the navy rules and have good reason to believe that she is alive and still well at this point,” I said.

  He looked at me and said, “Go on.”

  “The sorcerers currently have two primary targets in this realm: Grandmaster Vydor and myself. To quote a professor of mine: Grandmaster Vydor is decidedly hard to kill, and I am not. They have gone after me more than once already,” I said.

  “Then you assume she is intended to be their leverage to get to you,” he said.

  “Yes; that is why I came up with operation Foolish Hero,” I said.

  “Foolish Hero?” he asked.

  “I sneak away from the Academy and rush out here looking for her, acting in a foolish manner. They eventually find me and expose their position,” I said.

  “That explains a lot, but it’s blasted risky,” he said.

  “Yes, but while I am doing this Grandmaster Vydor and his team are searching for Flame in a more traditional wizard way,” I started.

  “Which, of course, is exactly what they would be doing if you had run off renegade,” he finished.

  “Exactly,” I said.

  He sat down. He was clearly still upset, but had regained some control. Bill asked, “What leads do you have so far, then?”
/>   “Not much, but I think she might be on this station. That is why I needed you to lift the lockdown,” I said.

  “No! A blasted lockdown is perfect. They won’t be able to get off the station, and we can go door to door and find her,” he said as he jumped to his feet.

  “Wrong; they can always use magic to leave at will, and a lockdown could alarm them into cutting their losses and leaving,” I said.

  He started pacing up and down in front of a large view port. I decided to let him think. I never got the impression he was a genius, but he was not stupid either. If he could control his emotions and think this through, he might become an asset instead of the major risk he currently was.

  Eventually he turned to me and said, “What can I do?”

  “I assume the rest of your fleet is en route. When they arrive give them shore leave so that they spread out through the entire station, but make sure you have soldiers out there armed and ready in all areas. While you do that I will start scanning the station piece by piece with my powers, which will either uncover their hiding place or draw them out. Either way, we will find Flame,” I said.

  “What if you’re wrong about her being here?” he asked.

  “Grandmaster Vydor and the others are already doing broad sweeps of everywhere else she might be, so they should eventually succeed in narrowing down her location,” I said.

  “Shadow, please be honest. Is the plan to rescue Flame, or to teach the sorcerers a lesson?” he said.

  “Bill, if at all possible I will save her, you must know that. In the end, though, she would tell you the same: it is more important to break whatever foothold they have managed to get than it is to save one soldier in the war,” I said.

  He went back to pacing for a while and then said, “I know logically that’s the best attitude, but … ”

  “Yes, but it is Flame,” I said.

  “She is all grown up now, and a soldier; I need to accept that,” he said, squaring his shoulders. Then he looked directly at me and said, “And I have to trust you’ll do what you can to save her.”

  “I will, Bill. I promise,” I said.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Back in the dark room made completely from stone, the seven magi gathered around the stone pool. As he had done previously, the red-hooded magus set the pool spinning. Eventually an image appeared in the silver liquid. It was blurry at first, but with time it slowly cleared.

  They watched intently as the pirates attacked Mother Goose and as Shadow’s wing of Peregrines attempted the counter-attack. They seemed to be very concerned with the battle they were watching, looking almost like stone statues in their depth of focus.

  “He will surely die unless we do something,” said the magus with the deep blue hood.

  “He cannot. Not yet,” said another magus.

  “We will not show our hand just yet,” said the red-hooded magus.

  They continued to watch as the fight developed, and then the Aleeryon Navy appeared in the pool and began to sweep through the pirates, destroying them quickly.

  “As I suspected, it is not our time nor his yet,” said the red-hooded magus.

  Eventually Shadow’s fighter disappeared from the scene and the pool shifted to follow his departure. They watched intently while Shadow’s ship approached the station, and then the image was suddenly lost.

  “He has gone into hiding,” said one of the magi.

  “Yes; a wise move, given the attention he has garnered,” said the red-hooded magus.

  “Then it is time for our move,” said one of the other magi.

  “No, not yet,” said the red-hooded magus.

  The pool continually scanned the station as if it had a mind of its own and was searching for something. Back and forth it moved, with scenes of the private lives of the people on the station constantly on display before the magi. Suddenly it stopped as it passed over Phoenix who, like Shadow, stood out in the image in the pool. It was as if he was drawn with superior colors, and the rest of the world in low-quality paint.

  “I did not expect to see him,” said one of the magi.

  They watched as Phoenix argued with someone about getting a meal while he waited to disembark. Eventually they saw him walk off the hauler and then freeze on the ramp leading to the floor of the bay.

  “He has contacted Shadow,” said the red-hooded magus.

  “Since we cannot see Shadow, he must have grown in skill more quickly than expected,” said the blue-hooded magus.

  “True,” said the red-hooded magus, “and given his current situation, that can only be a good thing.”

  “Time rolls on without us. We must act soon,” said another magus.

  “No, we must let this play out first,” said the red-hooded magus. “Shadow has much to learn yet. He is not ready.”

  “He could be killed or worse, and then where will we be?” asked the blue-hooded magus.

  “If he should fall, another will rise up. We need to be patient,” said the red-hooded magus.

  “What about the other one? Has she been found yet?” asked the blue-hooded magus.

  “No, but I suspect she is in Alpha Academy even as we speak,” said the red-hooded magus.

  “That could be dangerous,” said the blue-hooded magus.

  “Yes, but it is not yet our time to act. For the present, we wait and observe,” said the red-hooded magus.

  Chapter Sixty

  I left Bill to handle his part of the plan and went to find Phoenix. “Phoenix, did you find us lodging yet?” I sent.

  “Working on it now, Shadow,” he said.

  I mixed into a crowd and dropped my camouflage spell. Since I was not hiding from the Navy any longer, there was no reason to keep it up. I was pretty sure I was not good enough to hide from any competent sorcerer yet, so it was just a waste of effort.

  I went back to the hangar to check on my fighter, intending to assess the repair cost. I was not sure who officially owned it now, but I planned to claim it unless someone else came along with valid proof of ownership. It would be handy for flying planet-side if I was wrong about Flame being up here.

  As I entered the hangar bay where my fighter was I saw that my wingmen were haggling with the station repair crews about their ships. I headed towards my fighter to get a better look at it and was amazed at what I saw. The outer frame had been ripped off and the internal structure exposed. I assumed this was to inspect the damage, which was extensive.

  “Wow,” I said.

  “Yes, there is no way you should have lived through that,” said Karrith.

  “I guess there is not really much left to repair,” I said.

  “No, not really,” commented one of the station hands. “I mean, we could bid on it, but my advice would be stripping this one for salvage and buying a new one.”

  “Yes, let’s do that. Strip her for salvage and use that for my wing mates’ ship repairs and recycle the rest. Then use the money from the recycling to fund the rest of their repairs,” I said.

  “Sure thing,” said the station hand as he left to take care of my request.

  “What are you going to do now?” asked Karrith.

  “I will stay here a few days to deal with some business,” I said.

  “I thought you had to get to Prime?” he asked.

  “Circumstances changed while I was en route. I may still go there, but just now I have things to take care of here,” I said. “You both did really well out there. I am proud to have flown with you.”

  “The Navy wants us to fly with them, but if they are after you … ” started Karrith.

  “Oh, do not worry; that has all been cleared up. You should join the Navy. They need pilots like you if they are ever to retake this sector,” I said.

  “Well, I don’t know,” said Ben.

  “They need you, and what is the alternative? Hang around here, hoping another Mother Goose comes along?” I asked.

  “Yes, I gue
ss we’ll think about it,” said Karrith.

  After some brief parting words I left them and headed deeper into the station. As I was leaving the hangar I could not shake the feeling that I was being followed. I used every trick I knew to determine if someone was following me and could not find anyone, but the feeling persisted.

  I decided to try to ignore it and continue towards my destination. I wanted to get some dinner and then find Phoenix to see if he had come up with a room. I desperately needed a hot shower and a good night’s sleep.

  The deeper into the station I traveled, the colder it felt. Something was amiss on this station and I could not shake the feeling. It even became somewhat difficult to walk forward. Something was very wrong, but I had no idea what.

  I eventually found what looked like a decent place to eat and went inside. The thick coldness was there too. It was almost a struggle to make it to my seat, but I did. Once there, I ordered from the terminal at the table. While I waited for my food, I claimed back my money from the escrow that I had set up with Mother Goose. After that I started reading local news reports.

  It seemed that pirate activity was slowly increasing. The Navy had made great strides, but they had done it by retreating. They had locked down a section of the region, which they now called protected space. The pirates seemed to avoid that section for the most part, though several probing attacks had been made and repelled.

  Soon a robowaiter brought me my meal, which I ate while I kept reading. The Navy’s plan was obvious: to fall back to a space they could secure and attempt to build up their forces. Once their forces were up to the fight, they would begin to expand their territory again.

  The problem was that if the plan was obvious to me then it was also obvious to their enemies. This meant the pirates must have been building up their forces to counter the Navy, making it a race, winner take all. The pirates appeared to be well in the lead already.

  I finished my meal and sent to Phoenix, “Phoenix, did you secure lodgings for us yet?”