The Star Wizard

by Benjamin Douglas

  Erick sniffed. Of course it was another of Rome’s ships. So his guess had been right. Was there nowhere they could go in the system where Rome’s net didn’t stretch?

  “Do you require assistance, Odin?” Cyclops asked.

  Odin blinked. “Not from you, thank you. Unless you know how to stop a murderous marauding swarm of super-weapon AI-controlled drones before they destroy humanity as we know it.”

  “I may have an idea or two.”

  “Oh?”

  “Bring us aboard. Let’s talk.”

  Odin squinted at Cyclops. “No,” he finally said. “I don’t think we will. I’ve had about enough of you, and your outfit. Maybe next—”

  From the way he stopped mid-sentence and looked at Rylea, Erick knew. He wished she wouldn’t do that. It was bad enough he and Cyclops knew.

  “What did you just do?” Odin said, wonder in his voice?

  “I spoke to you. In your mind.”

  Cyclops smiled. “See, Captain? I’ve a trick or two up my sleeve yet. Now bring us on. We have a lot to discuss. And, contrary to whatever you may think, I believe our current interests may be aligned.”

  “Which interests are those?”

  “Saving the system, of course.”

  ---

  Erick had had enough of both of them, for once. He parked them in the airlock of the big ship, wondering how to tell her that he wasn’t getting off. He needed to clear his head, needed to go do something useful. He’d seen the damage done to the other ship. He knew there would be survivors to find and shuttle back.

  Go, she said sadly in his mind. It’s ok. We’ll talk later.

  He started, grimacing. He really wished she hadn’t been reading him just then.

  I know, she said. I’m sorry.

  I’m sorry, too.

  Ten minutes later he had dropped them off and was back out in space, heading toward the wreck.

  It was a mid-sized battleship, gatling class. What was left of it. The drones had torn through it like paper. The bottom seven decks were all open to space. Erick had a flash from the wreckage of the Spacegull. Wally’s death. He suppressed a gag.

  He spotted a hangar midway up and not far behind the bridge, and angled for entry, opening a comm. “Rescue hopper to gatling. Anyone there? I’m here to ferry survivors, if anyone’s listening.”

  There was no response.

  Odd, if anyone was alive, and the bridge looked intact from here. But he supposed they could have lost comm capabilities if their main and auxiliary power units had been compromised. It was difficult to say from the damage below whether the ship was likely to have life support or not. Erick slipped into a suit and mag-boots, just in case, then brought the hopper about to the hangar door.

  “Repeat, rescue hopper to gatling. If anyone can here me, I’m here to ferry survivors off this wreck. I’m hovering outside a hatch midway up on the starboard side, just behind the bridge, looks like. Could use a welcome.”

  Still no response.

  Erick sighed. The hard way, then. He swiped at the console and found linkage procedures. It would take time to cut through the thick hangar bay doors. The hopper rocked, sealing itself to the other ship, and the sounds of whirring and cutting filled the tiny cockpit. Erick scratched his head, wondering what Rylea was up to.

  I’m ok, she said in his mind. We’re on their bridge. They seem like decent human beings, as much as anyone. They’re Kuiper Fleet. Only joined up with Rome as a ruse.

  Huh. He frowned. You couldn’t make this stuff up. For once, I’m glad you were listening in. Cyclops is leaving you be?

  He isn’t hurting me, anyway. How about you? Need a hand?

  Before he could respond, the console screen informed him that the cutting would stop. Then the hopper shut its hatch, broke the seal, and backed away from the larger ship. “Hey!” he said aloud.

  Wait for it.

  The hangar bay door of the ship opened, and the hopper glided gracefully in, landing on the pad. Oh, Erick thought. Thank you.

  You’re welcome, she replied, sounding pleased with herself.

  Aren’t you worn out after dealing with those drones?

  I think I’m getting stronger. A couple of days ago I wouldn’t have been able to find you at this distance. Now I can read you, no problem.

  Great, he replied unenthusiastically. There was no use prevaricating when his audience could read every subtle nuance of thought.

  It’s useful, she replied, sounding a little stung. Good luck. There are a bunch of them on the bridge, but a lot of systems are down.

  Thanks. He initiated his suit and left the hopper, striding onto the hangar bay deck.

  Chapter 15

  Gavin woke up to a splash of cold water on his face. His lungs burned, and when he coughed, he half expected blood to come up. “What the… where?”

  He blinked, trying to clear his head. He was lying on the floor on a room with a large table ringed by chairs on wheels. Conference room, he realized. A young woman knelt over him.

  “Caspar?” He squinted, blinking again. “Oh. Agent Van?”

  “Good to see you too, soldier.” She handed him what remained of a mug of water. “Have that. Keep breathing. I know it hurts.”

  “What’s… oh.” Everything came back to him in a rush. They’d been on the bridge, and he’d been taking out the drones one at a time, when they’d swarmed their guns. A whole pack of them had set to cutting through the hull.

  “They gassed us,” she explained. “Managed to get you and him in here and seal the vents off. So we’ve got clean air… for now.”

  Gavin glanced back and saw Keppler sitting against the wall. He was conscious, but looked to be in little better shape than himself.

  “I wondered if they’d pull that play out,” Gavin muttered.

  “Then you should have warned us,” Keppler croaked.

  Gavin opened his mouth, then shut it. The man was right. He’d been too busy picking them off as a heavy artillery sniper to remember his purpose on the mission in the first place. Now he’d wasted his one opportunity to be helpful.

  “What’s going on out there?” he asked.

  “Dunno,” Van said. She brought another mug to Kepple. “Drones took the ship, got inside, gassed everyone and starting mowing us down like grass. Then it got quiet.”

  “Think they just got everyone else?”

  Van shrugged. “Hard to know. Computer is down, so we can’t run scans. Comms are out. We’re suffocating in the dark in here.”

  Gavin rolled onto his side, coughing some more.

  Not everyone else is dead, a voice said in his head. He fell off his arm, flopping back onto the deck. “What was that?”

  “What was what?” Kepple asked.

  “Agent Van?”

  She looked at him, raising an eyebrow.

  That was me, the voice said again. No, it wasn’t Van. Anyway, she sounded younger, the voice.

  Is it the gas? He wondered. Am I losing my grip?

  No. You’re perfectly sane. Just feeling a little defeated. And trapped. But don’t worry; my friend is coming for you! Do you have suits?

  “Hey,” Van said, squatting in front of him. “You ok? You look… odd.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” he said sarcastically, then pulled himself up to rest on his elbows. “I’m hearing a voice. She’s telling me that someone is coming to rescue us, and she’s asking if we have lifesuits. I’m guessing that means support is down on the bridge.”

  “A… voice?” Van quirked an eyebrow at him.

  “That’s right. And you know what? After almost getting killed by my old colleagues, getting chased across the outer system by the old agency that I used to work for but doesn’t exist anymore and now suddenly exists again, seeing those hellish chrome nightmares do what they do best, again, and waking up to you splashing water on my face, I’m not even surprised anymore. Bring on the voices, I say.”

  Van frowned. “Whatever. Anyway, yeah, we have suits.”
She opened a wall compartment and pulled out three lifesuits. “Couldn’t hurt, I guess. Even if your subconscious is manifesting as a girl to tell you to put one on. That’s cute, by the way.”

  He sniffed, rolling back over and rising to his knees. She tossed one suit to him, another to Kepple.

  Get ready, the voice said. He’s almost there.

  Who are you?

  A friend. I think. Anyway, someone who’d rather see you get off that ship alive than have to listen to you suffocate in the conference room.

  That’s fair enough, he supposed.

  It was a struggle, getting into the suit in his weakened condition. Kepple had the advantage of a decade or two, but he coughed and sputtered and groaned even more. Two minutes later, the three of them were all sealed up.

  Ready? The voice asked.

  “Ready,” he said aloud and in his mind.

  Turn your mag-boots on.

  “Mag boots,” he said to the others.

  The conference room door hissed open, and the table and chairs tore past them into the vacuum. Gavin held his breath, waiting to get used to the inexorable tug. It didn’t matter; his boots kept him rooted.

  A figure appeared in the hatch. An unfamiliar man. “Let’s go,” he mouthed, motioning for them to follow him. Gavin took a moment to power up his suit comm. The man approached and synced with the three of them.

  “I’ve got a comet hopper at the closest hangar,” he said.

  “What about the crew?” Kepple said. The bridge was open to space, but that didn’t mean the rest of the ship was as well.

  “There are more survivors,” the man said, nodding. “But let’s get you to my ship first. I’ll go get them after.”

  “You don’t know the ship,” Kepple said.

  The man shook his head. “Doesn’t matter.” He pointed at his comm. “I’ve got help. Now c’mon.”

  They followed him out and across the bridge. Somehow Gavin doubted the man meant help from over his comm unit.

  ---

  In spite of Erick’s protests, Gavin and Van helped him find more survivors for the next hour. Kepple begged off, saying he needed to catch his breath. Gavin sneered from inside his suit.

  They found Agent Bryan still alive, along with Flint, the gunner, in another conference room just off the bridge. Those who hadn’t managed to get off the bridge when it had been gassed had been incapacitated and sucked out into space when the drones had breached the hull. But there were more survivors in other pockets of the ship. One entire level, deck nine, had managed to avoid destruction, and the crew who’d been trapped there behind sealed bulkheads were all still alive, though unconscious. Van led them to a med-bay, where they found trolleys for shuttling the gassed crewmembers to the hopper. But even with those, it was grueling work, and Gavin himself was recovering. He breathed a sigh of relief when a pack of shuttles joined the hopper—all come over from the Fairfax—to help.

  His breath caught in his throat when he saw her emerge from the first shuttle.

  “Dolridge? Sir?” She ran to him, wonder in her eyes. He grinned.

  “Took you long enough to get over here, slouch.”

  “Well, you know. Didn’t want you to think we were too eager.”

  They smiled awkwardly for a moment.

  “Come here,” Gavin finally growled, opening his arms. He held her for a moment, remembering what it had felt like to hold Sarah. “Look at you,” he said, letting her go. “All grown up and flying in a real ship. They let you do something important on this thing? I mean, what, are you, like, head custodian or something?”

  “Shut up. Sir.” She grinned ear to ear, looking at the deck. When she looked up again, her eyes were moist. “What are you doing here?”

  He sighed. “Long story. Mostly I came out to tell you to lay low, because the Council was trying to slit my throat in my sleep. Now it looks like I work for them again, so I can’t exactly give the same advice.”

  “Well, you’re just making all kinds of sense.” She frowned. “Sure your head is clear? Old man?”

  “Now you shut up. Caspar, those things. They’re—”

  “I know. Word is, though, they’re not the only thing we have to worry about.”

  “No?”

  She stepped closer, checking to make sure her comm channel was narrow. “Sir, you had a life before your military life, right?” Her eyes said she knew all about it. That surprised him at first. Then, it didn’t. She was entirely capable, and had probably looked him up after he’d given her such dire warnings before.

  “Before the Fleet, I had another… duty, yes.”

  She nodded. “Callsign ‘god-maker’ mean anything to you?”

  He frowned. “Kepple—he’s a junior Councilman—was using it to try to get control of the drones. Didn’t work.”

  She nodded. “That’s what I figured. I’m betting his intelligence is just off the mark, but close enough to know that callsign is worth something.”

  “Should I recognize it?”

  “Not yet. But I have a growing feeling you will in the future. Let’s just say it has something to do with Jupiter.”

  Gavin’s eyes widened, then he squinted at her. He needed to check himself. He trusted the Caspar he’d known implicitly as an officer of the Fleet, but now? And with this information?

  “C’mon,” she said. “Let’s finish the job here. We’ll talk more.”

  “Yes,” he said, glad to be off the hook.

  Did everyone know something he didn’t? One thing was certain. He was sure he would have an ulcer from the looming spectre of the Sons of Jupiter before all this was over.

  Chapter 16

  Lucas stopped outside the door to the mess, catching a glimpse of himself in the reflective glass window. He looked rough. “You’re out of uniform, soldier,” he murmured. Stubble dotted his chin. His hair was inching just past regulation length. His back was arced over, shoulders slumped from fatigue. But there was something else the past few weeks had done, too. Something new in his eyes, in the set of his mouth. A coldness, a sternness. A confidence.

  “Stand up,” he muttered, forcing himself to straighten his back. They’d been through some wild scrapes, and if the events of the past twenty-fours were any indication of what waited ahead, they’d seen nothing yet. They needed to hold it together, be strong, be leaders.

  He needed to be.

  He strolled through the doors and the room fell silent.

  All his junior officers and privates rose from their seats, snapping to attention. He almost stopped mid-stride, it came as such a surprise. Caspar caught his eye and winked. He made a mental note to thank her later. It was about time someone whipped these kids into shape.

  There were others there, too. Survivors from the Darkwing, including Caspar’s old XO, Dolridge, and Junior Councilman Kepple. They’d debriefed together, and Lucas had found it startling how well Kepple was informed. Liason to Council intelligence, he’d explained. Lucas hadn’t probed futher, though it now seemed obvious that the two young officers who always seemed to flank Kepple were agents of some sort.

  Erick and Rylea, whom he had met during rescue operations, stood in the back.

  Lucas stopped at the head of the room and nodded to Tompkins. “Bring him in,” he said.

  Tompkins opened a door at the other end and led a man in. Tom, the man Lucas had first known as Sharky, a player from Rust and now the spokesperson of the Ceres refugees, came to stand before him.

  Lucas waited for the contempt he expected to feel and have to surmount, but it did not come. Only pity. “I’m sorry for what happened, Tom. I can never change it. And I’m sorry that your people feel they haven’t been treated fairly.”

  Tom flinched. Lucas checked himself.

  “No,” he said. “I’m sorry that I haven’t made sure your people have been treated fairly. You didn’t ask to be held here on the Fairfax, I know that.”

  Tom met his eyes.

  “We’ve grievances on both sides,
” Lucas went on. “Please understand that we had nothing to do with the bombing of Ceres. We defied Rome’s orders to save you and take you on. Now, your people have managed to contribute to significant damage to my ship. And you are responsible for the death of my senior engineer. Did you realize that?”

  Tom’s eyes fell.

  “He died in your coup. He was a good man. I know that probably seems like a drop in a bucket to you all, who lost everyone you ever knew just a few days ago, but it’s true all the same. He didn’t deserve to die.”

  Tom stood a little straighter. “Punish me,” he said.

  “What?”

  “I will be held responsible for his death, for inciting violence. I alone. Spare my people.”

  Lucas shook his head, his mouth hanging open. “Who are you?” he whispered. “I thought you were just a low-level gangster trying to get by, trying to survive?”

  “I was.” Tom met his eyes again. “But everything tends toward change.”

  Lucas frowned.

  “If you speak to your people, and they agree to start fresh, and not cause us any trouble while we complete our mission, I will accept your offer and grant clemency to the rest of them.”

  Tom nodded and followed Tompkins out.

  “At ease,” Lucas bellowed. His crew took their seats. “This mission,” he began, “has not gone the way any of us thought it would. From day one, it was fraught. We have been toyed with, played with in the machinations of something beyond our understanding. We thought the world was simple. We thought we would help facilitate peace between the Colonies and the Empire.”

  He tilted his head. “But for pirates. But for Prophet. But for smugglers and thieves and black-market mega corporations, Rome Inc., the Eaters, and the deadliest AI-controlled weapon in the history of the system. We have been tossed like a boat on stormy waters.” He paused, feeling a little silly. Prosody wasn’t his strength. He looked out at their faces, and saw none of his self-doubt. They were listening. Reflecting. Agreeing.