Spectra's Gambit (13 page)

“Good thing, too. You might find it a bit chilly,” I said.

“Surely it’s not cold for you?” she asked.

“No, it is not,” I said as I leaned against the view port and looked out. “It is not cold, and it is not hot – it just is.”

“What if you get close to a star? Surely the radiance of heat from it would be something you could feel?” she said.

“No, not really, or not in the same way. I don’t know how to describe it,” I said and was quiet for a while. Then a thought struck me. “What does air feel like?”

“Air?” she asked.

“Yes, you are surrounded by air all your life. What does it feel like?” I asked.

“It … well … I don’t know,” she said.

“Neither do I know what space feels like. When you have been used to something all your life, you tend to filter it out.”

“Yeah, I guess so, but you travel from one to the other. Surely you notice a difference?”

“Yes: air is heavy, so very heavy,” I said quietly.

Before she could respond we heard an alarm go off, and she called out, “Come on!” and ran toward the sound. I followed, unwilling to let her run toward trouble alone. As we turned a corner we saw some big men shouting at Doctor Hawthorne
and waving blasters in his face.

Saraphym clicked on her helmet and sent a call to the others for help without slowing her charge.

“Back off!” she yelled.

The men looked up, saw her running toward them and laughed. “What are you going to do about it?”

I drew my blasters and said, “I think you’d better listen to her.”

I would have stopped there and found cover, but she launched into the air and flew impossibly far, right over Doctor Hawthorne’s head, and slammed into the leader. She spun off that blow and suddenly had a staff in her hands that I had not seen before. It swung and connected hard with the head of the second man, who collapsed.

I finally reached Doctor Hawthorne and sent him running. “Get help!”

Saraphym spun again after that blow and was now surrounded by attackers. They spread out, obviously respecting her staff. They had not yet fired their weapons and it concerned me how close we were to the airlock. A misfire could put a hole into the exterior, and that would be bad.

“Now I suggest you leave the station and do not return,” she said. There was ice in her voice which I had never heard before.

I could not get a clear sight on any of them without risking hitting Saraphym, so I drew my swords and moved in, ready for the fight that I knew was coming.

The leader laughed, threw his gun down and said, “I think you need to learn some manners, young lady.”

He had just started to reach for her when Saraphym’s foot connected with the side of his unprotected head. There was a loud crack and he went down. The others looked on in amazement as Saraphym completed her spin and said, “Anyone else need a lesson in the proper way to treat a lady?”

One of the men brought up his blaster, but I spun in and sliced it in half with my sword before he could fire. “Shooting a lady? That is not very polite.” Their leader was on the ground unmoving, and the others were getting nervous. “Go while you still can,” I said, keeping my voice emotionless.

Jade and Kymberly came running down the corridor followed by Doctor Hawthorne and some armed men, presumably station guards.

“Let’s get out of here,” called out one of the men, and they grabbed their fallen and ran for the airlock.

“Let them go,” said Doctor Hawthorne.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

Doctor Hawthorne sighed deeply. “Oh, we get that type from time to time. Usually I just put the word out about them, and I never see them again. It’s one of the things about my job that I really hate, but it has to be done.”

“But why did they start trouble?” I asked.

“They are furious about the ambush that happened a few days back. Apparently they think I took out a hit on their convoy and called in the pirates.”

“Why would they think that?” I asked.

He shrugged. “Everything that goes wrong out here is blamed on me. I gave up trying to understand it decades ago.”

“I see,” I said, breaking off the conversation because I noticed Saraphym lean heavily against the wall. “Are you all right?”

“Yeah. I just need a moment to catch my breath,” she said.

I helped her to a nearby bench and said, “That was some fight. You’re a lot tougher tha
n you let on.”

“Perhaps,” she said as she took off her helmet and shook out her hair. “Can we resume our walk?” She looked a bit shaky and I wasn’t sure she could stand, never mind walk.

“You need to rest a little first,” I said.

Kymberly came over with Jade and said, “Good work, Saraphym! But next time it would be wiser for you to wait for help.”

“I wasn’t sure there would be time. They seemed very angry with Doctor Hawthorne,” she said.

“Well, it seems to have worked out for the best,” Kymberly said and they left us alone again.

“Let’s walk,” she said with a slight tremble in her voice. Something was clearly bothering her besides adrenaline reaction to the fight.

“Okay, if you’re sure,” I said.

We walked away from the populated areas to a quieter section. She said, “He is dead.”

“Who?” I asked.

She turned to me with tears in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to kick him so hard. I just wanted to knock him down! I saw his life leave him as he fell.”

“Oh.” I didn’t know what to say so I reached out to pull her close and held her before I realized what I was doing. It just seemed natural. After a while her sobbing seemed to slow and I asked, “Is this your first mission?”

“Yes,” she said into my shoulder.

I was surprised to hear that, but it did explain her response. It seemed odd that they had brought a green recruit to such dangerous territory.

“Does it get any easier?” she asked.

“What? Killing?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said.

“For some it does, and some even learn to enjoy it,” I said.

She leaned back without letting go and looked into my eyes. “Enjoy?”

“Yes, some men take pleasure in death and suffering,” I said.

She leaned back in and seemed to think about that for a while, then asked, “What about you?”

“I have outlived many generations of friends and enemies, but no: I take no pleasure in it,” I said.

“They say I will someday,” she said.

“Who says that?” I asked.

“We are spiritualists, all of us. Other magi believe that spiritualists can only learn to be evil,” she said. “I don’t want to be evil. I didn’t mean to kill him.”

I gently patted her head and said, “You are not evil and you did what you had to. You are a Battle Wizard, and this station is under your protection. Those men were a clear and present danger, and you acted to neutralize that threat and save Doctor Hawthorne’s life. Those are not the actions of an evil person. Those are the actions of a hero.”

“Thanks,” she whispered.

I don’t know how long we stood there like that. Eventually I said, “And that was an impressive kick!”

“Oh, I cheated,” she said.

“Cheated?” I asked.

“Yeah. We are doing our best not to expose the fact that we are wizards, so I could not use any of my normal spells. Instead I used telekinesis to secretly enhance the power of my kick. That, plus my armored boot, is a powerful combo.”

“I would say so,” I said. “Now, how about getting some dinner?”

“Why do you eat?” she asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You drink energy for food, so why do you eat?” she asked.

“Ah. Well, just like you, I need to eat so that my body can process the food and turn it into the nutrients that this form needs to live.”

“So if you never took bipedal form, you wouldn’t have to eat?” she asked.

“I don’t know for certain, but I know I would really miss it,” I said.

With that, I steered the conversation toward much lighter topics. I knew it would take a while for her to accept her first kill, and that being a Battle Wizard meant she would have to kill again.

After dinner, I walked Saraphym back to the Nemesis and then went into the staff section of the hospital. Dusty was a man of his word, and I already had full credentials and access to the secure database on the station. Not only was I a full citizen, he had also made me a Battle Wizard, seventh rank, and assigned me to his unit. He told me that I was only the second mundane to hold the rank of Battle Wizard. The other one was an Imperial Navy vet who had been invited in to help create the Wizard Navy.

I did not yet know what my rank entailed or what would be expected of me. I would have to wait until they got back to learn that. Until then my orders were more of what I was used to:
investigate and get to the bottom of what was going on.

I did not fully trust the wizards yet, but the offer of safe harbor for my species was too good to ignore. I felt I had a responsibility to my people to try to achieve it. So far the wizards had done everything they said they would and I had no reason to distrust them, but it all felt a little too good to be true.

It seemed odd that they were in control of this station but did not want anyone to know it. I would have to find out more about that when Dusty got back. It seemed to me that the station would be much better off if the Wizard Kingdom openly owned it; instead, it remained in a limbo state where no one apparently owned it but everyone acted as if they did.

I found an empty office and viewed the security footage of the earlier incident. Doctor Hawthorne’s story did not make much sense, nor did his casual dismissal of the occurrence. The men who had attacked him were well-armed and were flying a high-end cruiser. They did not seem the type to strike without reason.

I watched as the ship docked. They sent what turned out to be falsified medical reports, to which Doctor Hawthorne and a nurse rushed to respond. As they approached the airlock, it cycled open and several men charged out with their weapons drawn. The nurse ran away, and presumably tripped the alarm.

“What is going on here?” asked Doctor Hawthorne.

“You’ll pay for what you did!” called out the leader of the men.

“What are you talking about?” asked the doctor. He was perfectly calm, but obviously puzzled.

“Don’t play games with me! You got my brother killed!” he said.

It was then that the alarm started to sound and the men with the leader became agitated. The leader took a swing at Doctor Hawthorne who, with the skill of a prizefighter, slipped out of the way of the blow. He made no move to counterattack or escape, other than that dodge. It seemed likely that he intended to try to defuse the situation before it escalated into a firefight.

Before the man could do anything else, I heard Saraphym call out and the two of us ran into the footage. I watched Saraphym’s fight again and was impressed by the speed and accuracy of her blows. I knew that Dusty and Spectra spent each morning doing combat training, but I had not realized it was so advanced. I would have to join them some morning.
Based on her skill, they may have something to teach me,
I thought.

I rewound the footage and watched her pull her staff right out of the air, and after the fight she put it back into the air. The camera did not catch where it came from or went; one moment it was not there, then the next it was. That was an amazingly useful trick. I wondered if she could teach it to me or if it was something only a magus could do.

I leaned back in my chair and listened to the dialogue again. There was no mention of the convoy, which disagreed with Doctor Hawthorne’s version of the story, but maybe he had assumed that that must be what they were referring to. It did seem the most logical guess in some ways, but not in others. Why would you assume that a hospital had taken out a contract on some of its clientele?

The hospital’s database had no entries for the ship or the men who had disembarked from it. I missed my access to the Phareon government’s database, but it was likely they would have not shown up there either. Their ship was stripped of all possible identification and their clothes were nondescript. They were obviously used to hiding.

I checked through the records of all recent patient deaths, but nothing jumped out. If one of them was connected to this in some manner, there appeared to be no way to tell. I also checked for any history of this kind of incident, and the database corroborated what the doctor had said. Seemingly random attacks like this just happened from time to time. There were even several reports that suggested a need for guards at all airlocks, but Doctor Hawthorne had denied the request every time.

My computer search having reached a dead end, I decided to go for a walk. As I strolled, I wondered about these magi I had joined. For the first time I was accepted and trusted on the basis of who I really was, not what I pretended to be or whom I represented or any leverage I had to use. I had full, unrestricted access to everything too, which was more than even Zah’rak had trusted me with.

As I walked I came across an office with the light on, which was unusual for this late hour. I poked my head inside and saw Shea tending to some plants.

“Oh, hi there! Come on in,” she said.

Her office was well-lit and filled with all kinds of growing plants, most of which I had never seen before. She had a small desk with a standard terminal on it, but for the most part the room was devoid of any of the normal office equipment; instead, everything was geared toward caring for her extensive garden.

“Hi,” I said. I was unsure how to address her and did not know her rank or official position. “Sorry, I did not mean to disturb you.”

“You are not disturbing me at all. Come in!” she said.

She had a way about her that made you want to trust and like her. I could not identify it, but its effect seemed universal. Everyone trusted Shea, and it seemed that everyone loved her too.

“Thanks, but really I was just wandering the halls, trying to understand this place,” I said.

“Well, maybe I can help you with that. What is bothering you?” she asked.