Starship's Mage: Omnibus: (Starship's Mage Book 1) (26 page)

“Chrysanthemum,” Niska answered.

“No,” the Captain replied flatly. Chrysanthemum was one of the worst of the UnArcana worlds – a Fringe system notorious for finding any fault they could with the Mages coming through, and for running a military junta as a government. “I agreed to deliver to a civilized planet, not a Fringe hell-hole.”

“Your contract allows…”

“That clause is unenforceable, and we both know it,” David interrupted.

“Yes,” Niska agreed. “However, you would have to take us to court in a Protectorate system – a place that you have even less interest than us in ending up.”

“So if we deliver to Mercedes, you won’t honor the contract?”

“As the contract has now changed, we would not feel obligated to reimburse you for delivering to the incorrect system,” the LMID soldier replied. “That said, I am authorized to expand your remuneration if you do deliver to Chrysanthemum. As you pointed out so eloquently, the risk profile is significantly different.”

David cursed himself for ever taking a job from a Military Intelligence unit. Throwing the whole lot out of the airlock was tempting, but he wasn’t entirely sure that being vented into deep space would actually kill Niska and the other Augments.

“How much?” he grated out.

“I am authorized to double your compensation,” Niska offered.

Doubling their compensation would bring this job to ten times their normal rate for a delivery of this scale. It would easily set them up for the Fringe run that would keep them safe.

“That’s… almost worth it,” he said bluntly. “If this contract had been openly presented as such, I would likely have accepted it. Why the cloak and dagger?”

Niska seemed to relax slightly.

“Among Chrysanthemum’s longest-standing issues is a conflict with one of the large interstellar corporations from the Core,” he explained. “They worry, not entirely without precedent, that the corporation will use mercenaries – or possibly even outright Navy pressure – to force them to change their stance in certain negotiations.

“In exchange for certain contracts, promises, and domestic reforms, my government is providing them Group Commander Mons’ ships and crews at a token price. But we want to keep both that Chrysanthemum is arming, and that we are engaging in such a charity case, very quiet. Mercedes
could
buy the gunships, so we officially declare they are being shipped there. We re-direct now, light years from anywhere, and no one is the wiser.”

“And if someone
does
try and force Chrysanthemum, they run into a gunship squadron that shouldn’t be there,” Damien observed quietly.

“Yes,” Niska confirmed. “And since the core crew is Legatan, there is also an increased pressure on the Chrysanthemum government to keep their promises of internal reform. They’ve been giving the UnArcana worlds a bad name recently.”

“No one is going to argue with that,” David agreed. He sighed, and turned to Damien. “Once you’ve had a chance to rest, start plotting a new course. It looks like we’re visiting Chrysanthemum.”

#

“Welcome to Chrysanthemum, left butt cheek of the universe,” Jenna announced as the system resolved around them. Two weeks of jumping with the gunship crews and augments had started to grate on the
Blue Jay
’s crew – the ship wasn’t
that
big, and an extra hundred and ten bodies filled up the space on the Ribs more than anyone was used to.

Chrysanthemum was a six planet system wrapped around an old but unchanging K-class red dwarf. The outer three planets were gas giants, with the second planet easily habitable with a workable biosphere.

“I’m reading one station orbiting the fourth planet,” Jenna reported. “Maybe a dozen in-system ships shuttling back and forth between the station and Chrysanthemum, nothing over a couple hundred thousand tons and some change.”

“There’s no station over Chrysanthemum?” David asked.

“Yes there is,” Niska told them. The Augment had arrived on the bridge shortly before their arrival in-system. “May I?” he asked, stepping up to an empty console. David gestured for him to go ahead, and he manipulated the controls, zooming in on the habitable world.

“They pulled an asteroid into orbit when they colonized the planet,” he explained, highlighting the captured rock. “The plan was to eventually use it as a counterweight for an orbital elevator, but right now they’ve set up some fuelling infrastructure and a few micro-gee factories on the Rock.”

“Send a note to the planet,” David instructed Jenna. “And then set our course for the Rock.” He turned to Niska. “I suggest you and Mons’ people start going over the ships,” he continued. “I don’t really plan on staying here for long. When do I get paid?”

“Once the ships have been delivered and we’ve had a chance to inspect them,” Niska told him. “Give me a day or two once we’re in place – should let you find some kind of cargo on Chrysanthemum.”

“And just what does this place export?” David asked, eyeing the planet on the screen.

“Paranoia. Surveillance satellites. Tanks. Some really good fish.”

#

An hour passed in quiet. Niska eventually left the bridge as the
Blue Jay
slowly made its way towards Chrysanthemum. David sent Jenna to get some rest, as they were easily thirty six hours from the planet still. He was alone on the bridge when the transmission from the planet finally arrived.

“Chrysanthemum System Control to freighter
Blue Jay
. We have received your identifiers and cargo description. Please confirm that you can establish an encrypted link with the Group Commander of the LSDF contingent and stand by.”

David flipped open an intercom channel to Group Commander Mons quarters.

“Commander Mons, I have a request for an encrypted channel for you from the surface,” he informed her. With a four and a half minute delay on all communications, he had the time to check with her before replying.

“Thank you Captain,” she replied, sounding brightly awake. “I’ll link in and provide you with a code set to use to link them directly to me.”

A few keystrokes later, David had set up a connecting channel for Mons that even he couldn’t eavesdrop on, and then recorded his response to CSC.

“System Control, this is Captain Rice aboard the
Blue Jay
,” he introduced himself. “Channel 77-15-AC has been set up for an encrypted channel. Group Commanders Mons advises you to use encryption group Gamma-Five.”

He sent the message, and settled back into watching the ships move around the system. Five minutes for each transmission to travel one way made for long conversations.

Ten minutes later, his console advised him that an encrypted recording had come in on the channel he’d provided. A few minutes later, Mons used the
Jay
’s transmitter to send a response.

By the time several exchanges had passed along the encrypted channel, an hour had passed, and then he finally received a transmission directed at him.

“Captain Rice, welcome to the Chrysanthemum system,” the uniformed traffic controller told him. “Unfortunately, we have no ability to provide docking for a vessel of your size – any attempt to land a vessel of your size on the Rock would likely cause structural damage. I am transmitting an orbit that will allow Commander Mons’s teams to land the gunships without issue. Once that is complete, we will be able to send a tanker out to fuel your ship up – consider it our part of your fee.”

The man glanced over to one side, reading a message that must have come up on a screen that was off-camera, and then glanced back to David with a surprised look on his face.

“The President has also personally asked me to invite you and your senior officers to join us for the celebration of the Midsummer Festival,” he continued, slowly. “Your arrival is timely – the summer solstice for our northern hemisphere falls tomorrow night, so you should be able to enter orbit, offload the gunships, and make it down with time to spare. We should be able to get your ship fuelled while you’re on the surface.”

David waited for a long moment, trying to make sense of the man’s reaction. He wasn’t sure how comfortable he was with the tanker docking with the
Jay
while he was on the surface, but it would allow them to head out quickly if he found – or clearly wouldn’t find – a cargo. With a shrug, he switched the recorder on and smiled at the traffic controller.

“Thank you for the welcome,” he began. “Inform your President that my officers and I will be glad to attend.”

The best way to avoid a trap, in his experience, was to walk into it with your eyes wide open.

#

Damien had spent almost the entire trip either in his lab, the simulacrum chamber, or hiding in Rib A with Kelly, where none of the passengers had quarters. After his one meal with Niska, the only members of their Legatan passengers he’d seen had been the four Augments assigned to guarding the simulacrum. Those four young men had been unfailingly polite, if skittish around the Mage.

He was in his lab, ignoring the guards outside and looking forward to a planned dinner with LaMonte, when the Captain buzzed him.

“Captain,” he answered the intercom, flipping the feed from the bridge up onto his work-screen.

“Damien, how is everything looking on your end?” Rice asked, his eyes focused on his own screens, away from the camera.

“We’ve no issues,” Damien answered, somewhat confused. “All of the runes are clean, the amplifier is fully functional.”

“The locals have invited the ship’s senior officers to the surface to join them in a local festival,” David told him.

“You need me to mind the ship while you’re gone?” Damien asked. If the remainder of the ship’s senior officers were ground-side, he would technically be in charge. He wouldn’t leave the simulacrum chamber, but the console there would allow him to fly the ship – and the amplifier he controlled from there was the
Jay
’s only real weapon.

“That’s the odd part,” David replied, shaking his head. “They didn’t exclude you, and every other time I’ve been invited surface-side on these kinds of planets, they usually make that point very clear. I’m not sure they’re saying what they mean, and I want you to keep your eyes open.”

“You think the Legatans are plotting something?” Damien asked, thinking back over his limited encounters.

“No,” the Captain answered, sounding a little surprised himself. “I think Niska and Mons and their people are as level with us as they’re going to be, outside of the diversion. The locals though… I don’t trust them. I want you with us on the surface –
without
your medallion, Damien.”

Damien touched the gold medal he wore on a leather collar around his neck. The three stars and quill carved into it marked him as a fully trained Jump Mage. He’d earned those carvings, and technically Protectorate law made it a misdemeanor for him not to wear the medallion itself. Without it, though, there was no way to identify him, even for another Mage.

“I can do that,” he said softly. “Who are we leaving behind?” Unless they wanted to put his medallion on someone else, they could only claim four senior officers – Captain, First Officer, Chief Engineer and First Pilot.

“I’m leaving Narveer aboard, with that war-suit of his,” Rice explained. “They’ll be sending that fuel tanker over while we’re on the surface. The whole thing stinks, but I don’t see a way out without risking offending Niska – who still has our money. So we play nice, and take precautions.”

“Understood, Captain,” Damien replied, his fingers on his medallion. “We’re flying down when?”

“Late afternoon local time, about noon tomorrow Martian Standard,” Rice told him.

Before Damien could respond, a buzzer announced someone at the door to the Chamber. “I have a visitor,” he told his boss. “I’ll be there tomorrow.”

As he cut the video feed, the door to the room slid open and Niska stepped in. Damien turned on the platform suspended in the center of the ovoid room to face the Augment, who calmly stood on the screens that made up the walls.

“What are you after, Major?” Damien asked.

The Legatan soldier shrugged, hitting the button to slide the door shut behind him before he said a word.

“I’m here to warn you,” he said bluntly. “I heard about Chrysanthemum’s invitation – I’m sure your Captain is wise enough to see the trick in them not explicitly excluding you, but I wanted to make sure.”

“Most UnArcana worlds make the
use
of magic illegal,” he explained. “On Chrysanthemum,
being
a Mage is illegal. I don’t think they’ll risk pissing off Legatus by causing issues with your crew, but they’ve been known to use any excuse to arrest Mages and seize ships.”

“We weren’t planning on it,” Damien told him dryly. “I’ve been arrested, Major; I don’t care to repeat the experience.”

Niska shook his head. “Be careful, Damien,” he asked. “I know
you
don’t like me, but you’re one of the most humble Mages I’ve ever met. If all your kind were like you, the Protectorate might be a better place.