Mage Farm

by Clara Woods

  “You recovered quickly.”

  He shot her a lopsided grin. “Not really, but Uzara told me you have a stash of Cassidian marches tea in here. I should be more useful after a cup.”

  “That’s what got you up from your bunk?” Lenah shuddered, remembering the foul smell of the beverage. But then it clicked. “It did get you off your bunk, of course!” She had forgotten the almost magical reviving quality of the tea.

  Lorka looked hopefully at her. “Will you show me where it is? Then at least I can help find that tracker.”

  “Sure, sure. Though you did enough for one day by rescuing us out of that station,” Lenah said but interrupted her search to reopen the cabinet with the tea. As things were going, getting another pair of hands involved wouldn’t hurt.

  Someone, most likely not Uz, had stashed the old box in the very back of the closet, and Lenah had to stretch on her tiptoes to reach it. She couldn’t blame the person who’d done it as the whole cabinet emanated an unpleasant smell of ancient bog and rotten water. She moved the box with her fingertips until it got stuck on something. Cursing in a low voice for losing further time in her search for the tracker, she tried to get a hold on the box, but instead, her outstretched fingers felt a small line indented in the cabinet’s bottom.

  “What?” She fumbled along the line a few more moments, until she got her fingernail in and managed to lift out a chunk.

  Lenah handed Lorka the piece of metal and the box of tea, which he accepted with wide eyes, and proceeded to swipe her hands over the hole she had revealed. Her fingers dipped into something slimy.

  “Ugh, disgusting.” But she stuck in her hand anyway, despite remembering the leftovers of food from the underside of the sink.

  To her utter amazement, she soon was able to lift out a small cube that was attached to a key chain. A sticky substance that could be rotting marmalade was covering one side of the cube. Lenah held it out between her and Lorka, and they both stared at it.

  “Is that…the tracker?” Lorka asked.

  “I think it might be,” Lenah answered. “Let me verify.” She bolted out of the door and toward the engineering room where Doctor Lund and Cassius were searching in the dim light of Lund’s instruments. “Lund, take a look at this.”

  “What is it? You found it?” He received the small device, pulling out one of his handheld measuring tools.

  “I can definitely read a tiny amount of energy coming from this. Cassius, hand me that screwdriver.”

  Cassius complied and returned to Doctor Lund with a tiny screwdriver. Doctor Lund opened the lid on the back of the cube with trembling hands, though Lenah didn’t know if it was because of the cold or the excitement.

  “Yes, that’s it,” he said and nodded rapidly. “A simple but effective tracking device. Do you see that?” He pointed at something shiny and black that was reflecting the dim light in the room. “It has a c-nano component.”

  “And what does that mean?” Cassius asked.

  Doctor Lund looked up, grimacing. “It means that a mage can track this thing even while it’s traveling inside of a warp bubble.”

  “Bloody stars,” Cassius rumbled impatiently. “What are we waiting for?” He practically ripped the tracker out of Doctor Lund’s palm and squished it with his metal hand as if it were no more than an egg. “Will that work?”

  “Um, yes. Yes,” Doctor Lund answered.

  “Let’s also throw it out the hatch,” Lenah suggested, holding back a grin. Doctor Lund didn’t seem to know if he should be relieved or scared at the display of cyborg strength.

  Cassius nodded and opened his fist. “Ugh, what’s that sticky stuff?”

  “Not sure. I thought it might be aged marmalade, but I really don’t want to know.” Lenah wiped her own hand on the leg of her pants. “At least we know that the tracker was probably here for a long time.”

  “You don’t say,” Cassius grunted and made his way out of engineering and into the cargo hold where the Star Rambler’s only hatch was located. Lenah followed him out but took a turn to go back to the cockpit. She planned to leave as soon as Cassius had gotten rid of their unwanted cargo.

  Persia stepped out of her cabin as Lenah approached.

  “We found the tracker!” Lenah announced and couldn’t hide a grin.

  “Thank the stars,” Uz’s voice drifted out of her cabin, accompanied by the sound of her clattering teeth. The cold seemed to be hitting her harder than the rest of them. Lenah hadn’t known, but she suspected that Cassidians were less cold tolerant than humans. “Can we turn back on the heat, please?”

  “On my way,” Lenah answered and squeezed by Persia.

  “Where was it?” Persia called after her.

  Lenah turned around. “In a false bottom in the kitchen cabinet. Curiously, the one with the Cassidian marches tea.”

  “Um,” Persia said. “Good hiding place. No offense, Uz.” She lifted her arms.

  “Lund says it even had a c-nano component, so we could be tracked inside of a warp bubble.”

  “Explainsss…a…lot.” Uz trembled, reminding Lenah to get the ship heated and away quickly.

  Lenah proceeded toward the cockpit, followed by Persia.

  “I wonder who put it there,” Persia mused.

  Lenah did too. “I guess it might have been the very owners of this ship.”

  “Prior criminal owners,” Persia corrected her.

  “Prior criminal owners,” Lenah echoed. “Maybe, they wanted to be prepared should their ship ever be stolen. Or taken over. Isn’t that what smugglers do? Dump their smuggler boss on an asteroid, take over the crew, and leave with the ship?”

  “I don’t know what smugglers typically do. We should ask our cyborg smuggler,” Persia said as they stepped through the cockpit’s hatch.

  “He’s busy throwing the remaining shambles of the tracker out of the airlock.”

  “Good.”

  “When you’re done ranting about the habits of smugglers, we can leave,” Cassius called up the corridor. He had to yell for them to hear him; the other way around, he’d apparently not needed them to speak particularly loudly.

  Lenah cringed inwardly, though it hadn’t been her to call him a smuggler. Lorka stepped into the cockpit behind them, a terrible smell wafting in with him. He was holding a cup of steaming liquid.

  “Ugh, what is that?” Persia asked, covering her nose. “Did you take off your shoes?”

  “Tea,” Lorka said pleasantly, nodding toward Lenah. “I already feel so much better. Thank you for letting me have some.”

  Lenah grinned, not minding the smell. They’d still be looking for the tracker if he hadn’t made her get the tea.

  “How did you even heat it? Everything is off,” she asked as she pressed the buttons for the Rambler’s starting sequence.

  He grinned. “Friction magic. I used it to heat the water particles.”

  “Huh, that’s practical.” Persia looked him up and down.

  “Let’s go,” Lenah said, feeling like she shouldn’t be losing any more time. UPL might not have found them yet, but that could change any second. “Do you still have the stone ready?”

  “Heated and ready. Been holding on to it all this time.” Persia pulled it out of her pocket and handed it to Lenah. She almost dropped it, as a loud metallic wheezing started right next to them. Frantically, Lenah looked out the windows in case a ship had snuck up on them.

  She exhaled when she realized that it was only the big air duct next to them turning on. Her gaze went back to her control panel, and she clutched the flight stick, ready to move the ship as soon as all the systems had started up. A sigh escaped all three of them as the heat control turned on and blasted away the cold air. After what seemed like an eternity, the engine light turned green, and Lenah moved the ship forward. They would be detectable again on the screens of whoever was watching. And she was sure that someone was watching.

  “What’s that 11111 comm number?” Persia asked, bent over the commu
nications screen where an incoming message was blinking.

  “Sounds official,” Lenah groaned, then went back to maneuvering. “Only the highest-paying customers get numbers this good,” she added distractedly, concentrating instead on the radar and weapons screen. She wouldn’t be surprised if they fired. Unfortunately, they couldn’t start a warp bubble right here, this close to the station, unless they wanted to risk tearing off some parts of the station as well.

  “Hope no one is going to shoot us in the next thirty seconds,” she stated, clutching the stone in one hand and the flight stick in the other. As slow and careful as she dared, Lenah guided the ship out from under the station’s belly. Several icons of other ships blinked to life on her screen, but she ignored those too and focused on her other screen that was asking her to enter coordinates to the warp bubble.

  As fast as she could, Lenah typed in some coordinates in the middle of nowhere between here and Astur. She wasn’t sure what they were going to do next, but at least she knew that was the general direction they wanted to go—where the Cava Dara were most likely headed.

  An alarm started beeping, indicating weapons had locked on them. Were they really going to shoot them here? This close to the station? She had to admit that she’d still hoped UPL wouldn’t deem them this important. After all, the stone had done its job of delivering its message.

  A moment later, the beeping stopped, and the blackness around her was replaced by the colorful swirls of a warp bubble. Lenah flopped back in her chair, becoming once again aware of her surroundings and Lorka behind her, still holding his cup of tea.

  Persia let out a loud breath, then pressed play on the message that had come in.

  “Stand down. You will not be allowed to leave. You will not meddle in fights that are not yours. Trust me, we will find you.” The voice was Corinna’s.

  “So much for hoping they wouldn’t be too angry,” Lenah grunted. But she also couldn’t hide her wide grin. Without the tracker on board, and with them in the depths of the galaxy, it would be a lot more difficult for Corinna to make good on that promise.

  12 Lorka

  “What if we got rid of one tracker but let another one on board with us?” Persia whispered so low that Lenah had to lean forward over the common room table.

  “But what was his motive to help us?” Cassius said, furrowing his brow and leaning back comfortably in the chair next to Lenah. “He couldn’t have known that we were about to find the tracker.”

  “How am I supposed to know? What motivations would mage spies have?” Persia looked at Lenah as if she should have all the answers.

  “Don’t look at me. I’ve never been to the Guild, nor am I a mage.”

  “You have magic. That makes you a mage, don’t you think?”

  “But I have mind magic, not warp magic. Or rather, I had…” Lenah trailed off. She had been so acutely aware of not having access to her abilities and suppressing her instincts to use them while on UPL station, she hadn’t even tried to see if they were working again. After all, she hadn’t noticed anything off about them before landing on the station. She gathered her focus, and, immediately, the shapes of her friends’ minds became visible.

  “Thank the stars! I can see your minds again!” she exclaimed, tempted to try influencing them but holding back. Friends didn’t react well to losing their free will.

  “Can you influence us like normal?” Cassius asked.

  “I don’t know. May I?” she asked him and was surprised to see him nod.

  She sent an image of him as she had met him a couple of weeks ago—dreadlocks and overgrown beard—paired with the emotion of discomfort. Cassius jumped up from his chair, touched the short hair on his head and was halfway to the hatch before Lenah dropped her influence.

  Cassius stopped and turned on the spot. “I guess that’s a yes,” he grumbled but smiled at her, as he returned to his seat.

  “Back to Lorka,” Lenah said, “I agree with Cassius. He didn’t just assist us. He is the only reason we were able to escape.”

  Cassius shook his head and looked down but didn’t say anything. Lenah could guess what he was thinking.

  “It’s not your fault they have crazy futuristic weapons against cyborgs hidden in their ceilings,” she said, patting his forearm. It seemed to lighten him up a little, but he still looked stern.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Lenah continued.

  “You’re going to read his mind?” Persia asked. “I thought you’d never suggest it.”

  “Actually, I meant that we go talk to him. As long as we don’t think he’s trying to trick us, I don’t want to invade his privacy.”

  “But he’s a weird guy with unknown motives from a mysterious and powerful organization, and he’s on our ship,” Persia insisted.

  “Unknown and mysterious, not evil,” Lenah answered. “But I agree that we need to be careful and watch him.”

  “It’ll be too late if he cages us all in a warp bubble and takes the ship back to UPL. Or worse—the Mage Guild,” Persia said through pursed lips.

  Lenah didn’t disagree, though she was hoping that her talents could push back any warp bubble as she’d done with the mage who attacked them a couple of weeks ago. But she was not willing to condemn Lorka before at least giving him a chance to explain.

  “He’s been resting for hours. I’ll go get him, and we can talk.”

  Persia threw her hands up in a frustrated gesture, but she didn’t object again. “Fine, fine.”

  Cassius, on the other hand, nodded when Lenah got up to walk the few steps down the corridor to the cabin Lorka had claimed. It couldn’t really be called a cabin, more like a servant’s closet with a bunk. Only half the size of the other cabins, it wasn’t much more than a mattress with one drawer on the opposite wall for storage. No table, not even room to walk around. But the young mage had preferred it over the other option Lenah had presented him with: the storage cabin where they had dumped everything inherited from the smugglers that they didn’t want anymore.

  The Star Rambler wasn’t a big ship, and with the six people they now were, it almost felt crowded. The good kind of crowded. Lenah didn’t think she’d be able to handle this new life of hers without the people that surrounded her.

  Lorka opened the door a second after Lenah had knocked on the hatch. Had he been able to sense her coming? Or maybe it was so small in there, he could easily reach the entirety of the room within one second. Looking around, that seemed likely.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked, taking in the spikes of black hair sticking in all directions and the crumpled mage robe he was still wearing.

  “Better. That tea and a nap really helped.” He yawned and looked up at her with a lopsided grimace. “I know, a real mage wouldn’t need any rest after that little bit that I did, but…”

  “Aren’t you still in training?” Lenah asked, both wanting to reassure him and curious to hear any detail on how the Guild trained their mages. They were one of the most secretive organizations, and Lenah didn’t think any information about their training was public.

  “I guess,” Lorka said and looked at his feet. “I’m supposed to be able to hold my bubble for several hours at least. Not with so many people in it though.” His belly gave a low rumble.

  Lenah grinned. “There’s food in the common room. If you come with me, I will even let you choose between chicken and urash for your rice dish.”

  “I love rice!” the young mage exclaimed when he sat up on his bunk to follow Lenah up the corridor.

  “I recommend the chicken, it’s really not bad at all. Though it’s no caviar canapés,” Lenah said, remembering the bites she’d had at the UPL party.

  “And thank the stars for that. I hate water stuff.”

  “Water stuff?”

  “Yeah, gross things that live in the oceans.” Lorka shuddered when they stepped into the common room.

  Lenah proceeded to the small kitchen area to heat a chicken dinner for Lorka who
timidly stood next to her.

  “Sit. And don’t worry, Persia looks fiercer than she is,” Lenah told him, and he took a few hesitant steps toward the table.

  “Um, okay.”

  “Cassius here is nice too,” Persia said, knocking on his metal shoulder. “When he’s not too busy kidnapping people.”

  “Kidnapping?” Lorka’s eyes went wide, and he looked like he wanted to bolt out the room again. “Who did you kidnap?”

  “Oh, that was Lenah and me,” Persia said, grinning widely when Cassius kept glaring at the young man, who settled stiffly into a chair, his robe entangling itself into the leg of Persia’s chair. If he was a spy, he was doing an excellent job at appearing harmless.

  Lenah got the heated dish out of the oven unit and put it in front of Lorka with a smile. “Eat. And don’t listen to these two. They are just trying to scare you off.”

  “Not off, we’re trying to scare you into telling us the truth,” Persia corrected.

  “The truth?” Lorka asked, looking up from spooning in large bites of chicken and rice.

  “About why the stars you helped us.”

  “Oh.” He shoveled in some more bites.

  “Well?” Cassius prodded, flexing his arms in a casual gesture but managed to bring his cyborg fist closer to Lorka’s face.

  The young man froze midbite.

  “Cassius.” Lenah warned. She didn’t know why, but she wanted Lorka to be comfortable with them. Not that she wasn’t curious to know what had driven him to help.

  “It just felt like the right thing to do. Besides, I liked you,” Lorka finally said, looking at Lenah.

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, you were very patient with me and, I don’t know, you seemed honest. Not like everyone else around. Besides, ah, it seemed fun. More fun than brewing coffee and making paper copies. I mean, that’s not what dad had in mind when he sent me anyways. I think.” He waved his spoon around the room in a gesture of frustration.

  “Paper copies?” Persia asked. “What in the galaxy is that?”

  “It’s a figure of speech. Thousands of years ago, humans didn’t have wristpieces and every text or image they wanted to duplicate was physically copied on another paper by a machine.”