Over the next several days, I ordered room service as needed and stayed in that room studying the reports. If the reporter was correct, then Officer Lyshell was at least the fifth identity I had been given. I cross-referenced every record I could; from what I could verify, she was right.
“What are you going to do about it?” I asked the empty room.
As I paced, trying to think, I saw the duffle bag where my new assault rifle and other supplies were packed out of sight.
“What you’re not going to do is let them take you again,” I said out loud.
They had trained me in covert ops and how to survive long, dangerous solo missions; now it was time to put that training to good use. I was hundreds of light years from the capital planet, more than enough lead to disappear.
The first order of business would be to convert as much as possible of my imperial line of credit into hard currency without drawing attention. Once they’d realized I’d gone AWOL, they would be bound to cut that off.
I walked to the window and looked out over the town. Had I tried this before?
18
03-07-0065 - Greymere
“Master Greymere!” exclaimed Chrimson.
I had caught him completely off-guard, and several datapads went flying as he tried to gather himself to stand. His hands flew out trying to catch them, but that just sent them flying farther and more erratically. I had to suppress a laugh at the ridiculous image of a two-meter-tall lizard trying to be graceful and catch flying datapads.
“Easy,” I said as I gathered some of the datapads that he’d dropped. I covertly looked them over as I passed them back to him. They all showed various subsystems on the Nemesis, engine schematics and other related systems; all highly classified and perfectly normal things for the ship’s engineer to be studying.
As head of security for the Nemesis, I had been briefed on Chrimson’s background. He had been rejected from attending Alpha Academy due to anger management issues, and shortly after was recruited by Henrick. Now he served as a spy for Henrick on the Nemesis. Among the crew, only Master Spectra, Master Dusty, Shea and myself knew that he was a spy. As far as we know, Chrimson has not caught on to the fact that we’re on to him. Master Spectra hopes to turn him into a double agent.
We have such limited knowledge about Henrick; even if Chrimson only had the most basic information, it was likely to be more than we had. It was a potentially dangerous game, but that seemed to be the only kind these wizards played.
He was happy here and followed Kymberly around like a lost puppy, so it was possible that he might turn. Either way, I had to keep an eye on him to make sure nothing sensitive was leaked out. That was a tall order considering that he ran engineering, which gave him free access to all the ship’s key systems. At least Master Dusty’s insistence that we stay cloaked at all times made it impossible for him to get a message out, for now.
“Working on anything interesting?” I asked as I took a seat across from him. It was too early for lunch and too late for breakfast, so the mess hall was relatively empty.
“Nothing of interest to you, Master,” he said, too quickly.
I grabbed a couple of datapads and tried to make it look random. “Nothing interesting about this exhaust port? Or this coolant staging tank?”
He looked up in surprise. “You know what they are?”
“In another life, I was an apprentice engineer on a hauler. We had nothing this fancy, of course, but the basic components are the same: fuel, reaction chamber, power and exhaust. Slap a coolant system on it and route waste heat to electrical power, and you have a complete engine.”
He nodded. “Exactly.”
“What’s the problem, then?”
He sighed. “I’m not sure, Master.”
“Tell me about it. Maybe a fresh set of eyes will help.”
He nodded and sorted through the datapads until he found the one he wanted. “This shows the condition of the engines when I first boarded. As you can see, they were in need of cleaning.”
I nodded, grateful that the reports were the executive summary kind, easy for non-engineers to grasp at a glance. The data was color-coded and most of the numbers were in the beginning of the yellow range, meaning that a problem was developing but it hadn’t yet become an issue.
“And here it is after I finished the basic maintenance.”
Now all the numbers were squarely in the center of the green range. “You seem to have done excellent job.”
He nodded. “But here is today’s report, Master.”
The numbers were all still in the green zone, but just barely.
“And here are the last few readings.”
The pattern was obvious; with time the numbers were getting worse. “Odd.”
“I have kept up all of the maintenance that the manuals say is needed, and can’t find any cause for the slipping stats.”
I paged through the screens, looking at random sections of his maintenance logs. They were perfectly and meticulously recorded. Each log entry had the exact time stamp, a complete record of testing before and after the maintenance, the work done, and what looked like a copy of the entry from the manual on what should be done. I didn’t really know much about engines, and all I could tell by looking at the log was that the problem wasn’t related to his record-keeping skills.
“Let’s head down to engineering,” I suggested. “Reading these logs just shows me you are an excellent worker. If I am to make a guess at what’s wrong, I need to see things first-hand.”
He nodded and gathered up the datapads. “Makes sense, Master.”
We walked in silence toward engineering. His Zalionian frame was much larger than the bipedal form I normally took inside a pressurized environment. I was about the same height, but his girth and tail made him seem significantly larger; I had to keep a few paces behind him as we moved through the corridors to make room for his long tail.
I wasn’t sure what I was going to do in engineering, as I had little idea how ships’ engines worked. I had served as an apprentice on that hauler, but only for about a week before I was kicked out for being useless. That had left me with enough information to bluff, but more than bluffing was needed here. Still, this was the perfect opportunity to build a relationship with him, and I couldn’t pass it up.
He virtually lived in engineering and came out only for his required training. Nanny and Kymberly visited him often, and he was required to have regular visits with Shea, but other than that he kept to himself.
His back was stiff and his gait forced as we approached the door to engineering. He was nervous about something, but what? Was it just a guilty conscience or something more? I wondered what he would do if Henrick ordered him to sabotage the ship.
The door to engineering slid open as we approached and let onto a large, open and well-lit room. The place was immaculate. Based on the logs I had read, it would not surprise me if every particle of dust in this room was placed deliberately and logged in triplicate.
“So where do we start?” I asked.
“Here,” he said and walked to a station. Hanging next to the station was a datapad that had the manual entry up for the primary coolant system. A quick scan around the room revealed that every station had a datapad hanging next to it. The security officer in me screamed at the potential data breach, but I kept my peace. I needed to be friendly if this was to work, and berating him over datapads was not the path there.
“Coolant?” I asked.
“Yes. If my guess is right, it’ll be the first system to fail.”
That didn’t sound good. “How long?”
“Two months, maybe a bit more,” he said.
“Nemesis, what do you make of this?” I asked.
The Nemesis was a living ship. I didn’t understand how or why, but the ship had a living spirit in it. Master Spectra said it was more like being possessed than being alive, but I didn’t understand the difference. I doubt if anyone did.
“Master, I don’
t feel well,” he said.
That was decidedly not good. Could a ship get sick? “Chrimson, have you told anyone about this yet?”
“No, only you. I’m sure I’ll figure it out,” he said. He hesitated for a few moments. “Nemesis only began to show symptoms very recently. It’s just beyond me at the moment.” He lowered his head and fiddled with something.
“Well, start with this coolant system. Open it up and tell me what you’ve found out so far,” I said.
I spent the rest of the day with him down there. We went through system after system, but nothing struck my untrained eye as being wrong. I kept my bluff going all the way through till dinnertime.
Nanny came by with food, and on a whim I stopped her. “Nanny?”
“Yes?”
“Nemesis says he doesn’t feel well. Any idea why that might be?”
She drifted back towards us. “His well-being is tied up with the ship’s. Something is wrong with the ship, so something is wrong with him. Fix the ship and he’ll get better.”
“Can you tell specifically what might be wrong?” I asked.
“I understand life forms, not machines. I don’t know what the problem is,” she said.
I nodded. “Of course.”
She took her leave and I turned back to Chrimson. “I’ll report this to Master Dusty, and we’ll contact the shipyard back in the Wizard Kingdom. They designed these engines; they’ll know what to do.”
He slumped into his chair and put his head in his hands, mumbling something. It might have been “I’m sorry.”
“Hey, don’t take it like that. These are brand-new experimental drives. You’re doing an excellent job down here. Without your intervention we would have never made it this far, or destroyed that station.”
He looked up with surprise on his face. What had he expected me to say? Did he think I would berate him for not knowing the ins and outs of top-secret engines which he’d never heard of before coming on this ship?
I smiled gently. “Write up a full report for me to send back to the shipyard. I’ll talk with Master Dusty tonight and come by tomorrow to pick it up. We’ll get to the bottom of this.”
I walked around the table to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “You’re doing an excellent job down here, and I’ll make sure Master Dusty knows that.”
“Thanks,” he said.
19
03-07-0065 — Greymere
After leaving Chrimson, I sent a message over the telepathic network. “Master Dusty, do you have a moment?”
“Sure, Greymere. Come up to my office,” he sent back.
I found him and Master Spectra standing looking out his fake window into space. It was an embedded viewing screen framed to look like a window, and normally displayed a view from an external camera pointing out into the depths of space. The view currently displayed appeared to be from a chase camera, as the Nemesis was in view.
That couldn’t be right.
“Hello, Greymere,” they said, turning to me.
“Masters, how can the chase cam see us? Aren’t we cloaked?” I asked.
Master Dusty smiled. “It can’t, but we know what the ship looks like and where it should be, so the computer fills in that detail for us.”
“Ah,” I said with a sigh. That should have been obvious. I must be getting old.
“Now, what can we do for you?” he asked.
“We have a problem. The ship’s engines are degrading, and Chrimson estimates we have about two months before the first systems fail completely.”
“What is causing this?”
“We don’t know. I’ve spent most of the day down there with him, and he’s done a remarkable job. As far as I can tell, he has done everything the manuals said to do with precision. We need to contact the shipyards and get some help.”
“We’re a long way from any jump repeaters,” noted Master Dusty.
“Yes, but I know you can reach Master Shadow and he could relay a message for us,” I said.
“A message is possible, but nothing as complicated as diagnostic engine information,” he said.
“I can take Greymere to the shipyards in person,” said Master Spectra.
“How, Master?” I asked.
“I can open a gate from here to the Spirit Realm and then to the shipyards,” she said.
I wasn’t looking forward to going back there. The last time I’d been there I’d been constantly under attack while trying not to succumb to the deadly trap that formed the very nature of the realm.
Master Dusty nodded. “That’s probably the best option at this point. Put together a report to bring to the shipyards and go there tomorrow.”
“Very well, Masters,” I said, trying to come up with a reason to refuse. Master Spectra could carry the message, I suppose, but I had to admit that if I was to continue working with them, I’d have to get used to traveling to the Spirit Realm. It didn’t seem to be the kind of thing a normal person should be striving for.
“How is Chrimson getting on?” asked Master Spectra.
“Very well, but he is pushing himself too hard in an effort to prove himself. I think that’s a good sign, though. I think you two should pay him a visit and thank him for his work, maybe compliment him a little. He’s earned it, but also it will help to bind him to us.”
Spectra smiled. “That sounds like good advice. I think we’ll find an excuse to go down there over the next few days.”
I took my leave and went to bed. It had been a long, hard day in engineering, and come morning I would be returning to a realm that shouldn’t exist outside of nightmares.
Next morning I went down to engineering to collect the report from Chrimson. When I walked in, I found him having breakfast with Kymberly. He sprang to his feet when he noticed me and his facial scales lifted ever so slightly, the Zalionian equivalent of a blush.
“Master!” he said.
“At ease; I only came to collect that report. I’ll be taking it to the shipyards today,” I said.
“Of course.” He retrieved a datapad and handed it to me.
I glanced over the report and noted the time stamps on the entries. He had been up all night drafting this. He was pushing himself too hard; I would have to address that when I got back. He didn’t officially report to me, but as a senior officer on the Nemesis, the well-being of all crewmembers was my responsibility.
“Excellent work,” I said, deliberately praising him in front of his love interest. I wanted him to see me as a friend, rather than chief of security.
“Thank you, Master,” he said.
“You’re a fine engineer, and I’m glad we found you when we did. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get some breakfast myself.”
“Yes, Master,” he said.
I swung by my quarters on the way to breakfast to don my armor and grab my swords. There was no way I was going back there unprepared.
As I left my quarters, Nanny stopped me in the hall. “Here, take this too,” she said.
She handed me a pack filled with illuminescence potions, enough for several weeks in the Spirit Realm.
“Nanny, what is all this for?” I protested.
“You need to be prepared for where you’re going.”
How did she know? “I’ll only be passing through, not staying. There’s no need for all of this.”
“Then why are you suited up for battle?”
“Because it is wise to be … oh, you’ve got me there,” I said, realizing she’d trapped me with my own argument.
She smiled and I strapped on the pack.
“Don’t let Saraphym find out; she will worry,” I said.
“Too late,” came a voice from down the hall. Saraphym came charging up to me. “Suited up for a dangerous breakfast?”
“I have to make a quick trip to the shipyards for some information we need about Nemesis; nothing major.”
“A quick trip? The only way you’ll get back there quickly from here is via the Spirit Realm.”
“Yes, but we’re just passing through. It won’t be like last time.”
“Then take me with you.”
“Not my call. Master Spectra says you’re not ready for that yet, and I happen to agree with her. Look, Phym, that really isn’t a place you want to visit until you have to.”
“But — ”
I took her in my arms and kissed her, stopping the argument. She relaxed and sighed, allowing herself to be held.
“How long this time?” she asked.
“I’ll only be in the Spirit Realm for a few moments, but I may be delayed a few days in the Wizard Kingdom. I don’t know how long it’ll take to get what we need from the shipyards. It could be less than a day, but we’ll have to see how it turns out.”
“Just make sure you come back to me,” she said quietly.
I had spent my whole life leaving people behind for good, and she knew it. It was obviously a matter of deep concern for Saraphym, and I couldn’t blame her. Having spent my life on the run for so long, it was hard to come to terms with holding a long-term position.
I squeezed her close. “I plan to. Now let’s get some food.”
I guided her down to the mess hall while she told me about her previous day’s training. As a mundane, most of her training was beyond me, but when she talked about physical combat training I reminded myself that I should attend those sessions.
As we ate, a message came in from Master Spectra. “Greymere, we’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”
“Yes, Master,” I sent back. Then I told Saraphym, “It’s time to go.”
She came closer and tied the same material around my arm as she had done the last time I’d left her for the Spirit Realm. “Touch this and remember,” she whispered.
Mage Hunter (Lost Tales of Power Book 8) Page 9
