Starship's Mage: Episode 4 (6 page)

Mikhail Azure, leader of the Blue Star Syndicate, crime lord and master of the underworlds of a dozen systems, floated in zero-gravity in a perfect meditation pose. His eyes closed, he felt the world around him through the tiny twitches of energy and matter carried to him by his magic.

Through
his magic he felt the pulsing energy of the
Azure Gauntlet
, his personal warship. Stolen from the Martian Navy years ago, she represented the ultimate iron fist of his organization. It had been some time since he had been aboard her, and the sense of sheer power the stolen cruiser represented was… calming.

The door to his private
zero-gravity meditation room opening should have been a surprise – only one person on the ship would dare interrupt his meditation and only if it was important – and yet, he had known it was coming.

Azure would never claim to any man or woman that he could see the future.
Neither magic nor science, for all their many gifts to mankind, had ever managed to peel back the veil of time. He often found, however, that he had flashes of insight into the future. He had known he would be interrupted this time, and it would be good news.

“Mister Wong,” he said softly, without opening his eyes.
“What news?”

“The
bounty hunter has found Rice’s ship,” the man who commanded the
Azure Gauntlet
for Mikhail told him calmly as he walked into the room. The scuff of the soft slippers Wong wore aboard the ship was loud in Azure’s ears, revealing the other man was using magic to keep his feet on the floor of the chamber.

“But has not captured him,” the
crime lord said softly.

“They are at Amber, and he lacks the courage to challenge even that world’s lax
defenses,” Wong replied.

“Do not be fooled by their single aged destroyer, Mister Wong,” Azure replied.
“The Amber Defense Co-operative is a stronger force than they pretend– no lesser threat than your
Gauntlet
would suffice to overwhelm Amber.” He slowly rotated to face his servant, magic rotating his body without visible motion.

“Is Able prepared to pursue them?” he asked.
He found Wong’s refusal to use the name of anyone who was not a senior member of the Syndicate or a worthy enemy a… tolerable foible, most of the time. Nonetheless, there were enough bounty hunters in the universe that names helped.

“Once he had access to the
transceiver array, they had already fled the system before a Navy destroyer,” Wong told him.

“Able is a
Tracker,” Azure said flatly. “He’s almost as good as you are.”

He felt Wong’s self-effacing half-bow, and snorted to himself.
To his knowledge, fifteen men and women in all of human space had managed to master the trick of tracking a jump. For all that the jump itself was magic; the key to tracking it seemed to be technology – and an entirely intuitive art of reading the sensor readings of the jump.

Wong was the best at it, and it had made him utterly
terrifying as Azure’s main enforcer for years. No enemy would evade him by running away in a jumpship. He claimed to be able to track where a ship had gone for days after it had left.

Able wasn’t that good.
But he
could
track a jump and he’d been
in
the system when the
Jay
had left.

“They are shaping a course for the
Excelsior system,” Wong said simply. “Able intends to ambush them in the asteroids there.”

Azure opened his eyes and lowered himself to the ground.
He stretched, towering over the small form of the cruiser’s commander with the lanky height of those born and raised in low gravity, artificial environments.

“
He will fail,” the leader of the Blue Star Syndicate said calmly.

“
I agree,” Wong said simply.

“Able has
underestimated Rice and Montgomery before – at Chrysanthemum,” Azure continued, ignoring his ship’s captain. “He will do so again, and I do not believe he will survive repeating the mistake.”

“Make your course for
Excelsior, Mister Wong. If I am wrong, then we will need to make Mr. Able an offer he cannot refuse.”

“If I am right, we will have to clean up his mess.”

Stealey
stalked through Heinlein station like a thunderstorm. The locals who didn’t get out of her way at the ominous cloud hovering over her head tended to clear out when they saw the golden hand icon of her station hanging around her neck.

The people who lived on Amber had little respect for authority, but what little they had tended to be for the Mage-King and his Hands.
Stealey and her fellows had shed sweat, tears, and blood to prove themselves the champions of justice and compassion throughout the Protectorate – despite being the only men and women who could act as judge, jury and executioner.

Protectorate
agents on Heinlein Station had identified the merchant Rice had dealt with before she arrived. Stealey knew Keiko Alabaster by reputation, and the woman should have known better.

Entering
the office hidden away on the bottom floor of the gallery of Heinlein’s Quadrant Gamma, Stealey fixed an agate gaze on the young, mocha-skinned, woman sitting behind the reception desk.

“I need to speak with
Miss Alabaster,” she said calmly. “Please inform her that Alaura Stealey is here to see me – she knows who I am.”

“
Miss Alabaster is not in today.” The girl was both smart enough to at least not deny whose offices these were, and loyal enough to shield her boss.

Alaura sighed.

“Miss Jenna Alabaster,” she said calmly. “I am aware that your aunt entered this office at seven forty five Olympus Mons Time this morning. Despite this office having three separate concealed exits, she has not left since. Please tell her I am here.”

“It’s all right Jenna,” a voice interjected.
“Though I would think a Hand would have better things to do than try to intimidate my staff.”

Alaura turned an assessing gaze on Keiko Alabaster, who returned the
favor frankly. Where the merchant was tall and slim, Alaura was short and stocky. Where Alabaster was as pale as her name, the Hand was swarthy, her skin worn by years under the sun of space. Where Keiko was young and red-haired, Stealey was aged and graying.

Stealey
sighed, nodding acceptance of the rebuke.

“I did not mean to
intimidate anyone,” she said calmly. “I am in a hurry, however, and both lives and the security of the Protectorate are at stake.”

“I do not
know what assistance I may be to a Hand of the Mage-King, but please, step into my office,” Keiko instructed.

Alaura followed the younger woman into her office.
It was a surprisingly cramped space for the mistress of a billion-dollar trade empire. A massive desk filled much of the space, with a single holographic screen that Keiko closed with a wave of her hand as she sat behind the desk, gesturing the Hand to the single seat in front of the desk.

She had to move a stack of papers from the
seat. If the dream of a paperless office had died anywhere, it was in Keiko Alabaster’s office. Every surface, from the desk to the bookshelves to the guest chair, was covered in paper. Alaura recognized many of the cover pages as belonging to finance and political think-tanks across the Protectorate. In that, at least, the office was what she expected of Keiko Alabaster.

“How may I assist the
Protectorate, Lady Hand?” Keiko finally asked, her helpful words at odds with a body language that accentuated her height and position behind the desk.

“I need to
know where you sent the
Blue Jay
,” Alaura said bluntly.

“I don’t believe I own or contract with a
ship by that name,” the merchant princess replied. Her eyes were level and her voice didn’t waver – this woman was
good
, the Hand reflected.

Unfortunately
for her, Alaura had done her research before she’d ever stepped into the office.

“No, you don’t,” she agreed calmly.
“You did, however, act as agent for Captain Rice to acquire a cargo of two
million
tons of aerospace craft and maintenance supplies, ground and aerial terraformers, and advanced farming equipment. Given that the
Jay
is capable of hauling
three
million tons of cargo, I can’t help but feel that you and the good Captain came to an agreement on what to do with that other million tons of cargo. A load of weapons, for example.”

“Such a contract would not be illegal on Amber,” Keiko pointed out.
“I would have no reason to conceal such a transaction.”

“Please, Miss Alabaster,”
Stealey said quietly. “I have spent the last ten years resolving rebellions in the Fringe. I know where the guns for the more moral ones are coming from. If you were less picky, you and I would have had a discussion a long time ago.”

That, finally, pierced the other woman’s
armor of perfect calm. She obviously hadn’t realized the Protectorate knew about her little sideline.

“That is
neither here nor there,” Keiko said slowly. “I did not engage the
Blue Jay
to haul a million tons of weapons, if that is what you’re asking.”

“I honestly don’t care if you engaged them to fight a fucking war for you,”
Stealey snapped. “I care if you know where they went, and I know that you damned well know.”

Keiko’s hand smacked her desk with a resounding clap.

“This is Amber, my Lady Hand,” she said coldly. “Your authority here is not unlimited, and I will not be bullied. This interview is over.”

“Do not push me, Keiko Alabaster,” Alaura
warned, her voice equally cold. “Amberites tend to believe their lack of laws limits the power of a Hand here – but this is a matter of
Protectorate
Law. In that, I am the highest authority outside of Sol. Did Rice even tell you why the Protectorate might be looking for them?”

“They broke his Mage
out of one of your prisons that he’d been jailed in on trumped up charges,” Keiko said. “He was surprised there was no warrant for his arrest.”

It was an
improvement, Alaura reflected, that the merchant was no longer denying she’d met Captain Rice.

“There are no warrants because I
canceled them all,” she told the other woman. “The local Guildmaster didn’t understand what was going on, and handled it completely wrong. I’ve spent the last few months trying to
fix
that.”

“If the charges
were
trumped up, then just let them go,” Keiko snapped, and Alaura noted the flush in the Amberite’s cheeks. There was more going on here than just the usual stubbornness of Amber merchants or protecting a contract. This was… personal for Alabaster.

“I can’t, Miss Alabaster,” the Hand said finally, after a long silence.
“The
Blue Jay
has been modified – her jump matrix has been turned into an amplifier.”

“That isn’t
possible
.”

“It is,” Alaura told her.
“And those with the knowledge to judge such things tell me that the
Jay
could be used as a template to do that to
any
jumpship.”

“In the
hands of a pirate, that ship would allow them to produce an entire
fleet
of covert raiders, utterly indistinguishable from regular merchant ships until they unleashed magic on their unsuspecting prey. Can you imagine how bad our piracy problem would grow then?”

Alabaster
’s face had grown even paler than before, and Alaura knew the merchant was imagining it just fine.

“The
Blue Star Syndicate already wanted Rice dead,” she continued. “Now they know what the
Blue Jay
can do. They will hunt the
Jay
to the ends of the Protectorate – you can’t save them. I can’t protect them – not if I can’t
find
them.”

“They won’t
be harmed?” Keiko demanded, suddenly and incongruously a young woman concerned for her friends. “Any of the crew?”

“I swear to you,
upon the honor of Mars, none of the
Blue Jay
’s crew will be harmed,” Alaura told her. The Hands voice was firm as she made a commitment that bound not merely herself, but her King, and, in a sense, the
entire Protectorate
.

From Keiko Alabaster’s face, the other woman
knew what it meant for a Hand to swear upon the honor of Mars.

“
Excelsior, Lady Hand,” she finally admitted. “I sent them to the Graveyard at Excelsior.”