Starship's Mage: Omnibus by Stewart Glynn

Author:Stewart, Glynn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Faolan's Pen Publishing Inc.
Published: 2014-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

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Damien watched the gunships leave early the next morning from the simulacrum chamber, with Kelly LaMonte, one of the other junior engineers, two of the pilots, and a bottle of champagne. With the Blue Jay in orbit, the room at the center of the ship had no gravity, making pouring difficult, but the small celebration was worth the effort.

Each gunship detached from the cargo pylons on the side of the keel in turn. A few, carefully timed, jets of the maneuvering thrusters flung the small warship through the gap in the freighter’s rotating ribs. Once clear, the characteristic white flare of an antimatter rocket flashed into existence, and the ships headed towards the Rock, the captured asteroid fifty thousand kilometers ahead of the Jay.

“That went a lot better than I was afraid it was, even with their cloak and dagger bullshit,” the older of the two pilots, a buzz-cut young man named Kelzin, announced. “Can’t imagine it was comfortable for Damien here,” he nodded to the Ship’s Mage, “but they were polite to the rest of us.”

“The ones Niska let deal with me were polite,” Damien admitted. “I think if he or Mons had any people they weren’t sure could play nice, they kept them under wraps.”

“It is going to be so nice to have half the ship back,” Kelly observed. It was hard to cuddle in zero-gravity, but she was doing her best to stay snuggled up to Damien’s side – with his enthusiastic assistance.

“We’ve still got some time on station here,” Damien replied. “The Captain’s going to try to find a cargo – we may end up carrying passengers out, too.”

The pretty young engineer made a face.

“We’ll see what comes out of the party,” Kelzin told the others. “Singh says I have to pretend Damien is my boss.”

“What?” Kelly asked, turning to look concernedly at Damien. “Chrysanthemum is an UnArcana world, you can’t be planning on going down?!”

“There’s a lot going on the Captain isn’t comfortable with,” Damien told her quietly. “He’s hedging his bets by keeping the only one of us trained in boarding and counter-boarding up here, and taking the heaviest firepower we have – me – down to the surface.”

“I’m leaving my medallion behind, and pretending to be the Jay’s First Pilot,” he explained. “I’ll be fine.”

“Singh says the whole setup stinks,” Kelzin agreed. “We’re sticking a whole bunch of those carbines Singh found us aboard the shuttle.”

“I don’t think the Captain really thinks anything is going to go down,” Damien reassured Kelly. “But if it does, between the Captain, Kelzin and me, they don’t have a big enough army to take us down.”

He felt her shiver against him regardless.

“Be careful, Damien,” she asked. “You’ll be in more danger than us – the only thing the rest of us will be up to is hooking tubes into receptacles.”

“Yep – and you have lots of practice with that recently,” Kelzin told her innocently.

Kelly promptly emptied her champagne bulb into the pilot’s face, causing him to spin

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