Chapter 21 Fuel

Thaum was messing around with the ship's fabricator. He found the secret stash of blueprints easily enough. They were on the Captain's corpse.

He scrolled through the expected weapons, armor, and drugs but found several unexpected things, medicine, farming, and standard manufacturing equipment.

Ellora walked up and said, "Those are illegal unlocked versions. They normally have DRM built in, so you can only manufacture what you have a license for, which you have to buy even if the equipment is 100 years old and barely works." She signed, "One of our mining ships broke down, I spent a week on station negotiating with David, the slimy tech salesman, just so I could get permission to print a part I already had the design and material for."

Thaum sighed, "Buy my marvelous machine that can create anything that can only do what profits me..." Thaum understood merchants, but their ability to make even the most magical things feel like shit to use always amazed him.

Ellora shrugged, "Just the way it is."

"is that why Alice's world is poor despite having adequate natural resources? No one could afford to get the equipment to exploit it."

Ellora paused with a far-off look for a moment, "Well... it's more about politics. The Empire made laws to limit what could be made by who. Of course, they said it was for everyone's safety. They can't have pirates making ships, after all. Now any outer worlds are severely limited in what they can do."

Thaum chuckled, "It is always for the people's protection. And I don't remember pirates being the kind of people to build their own ships."

Ellora huffed, "Exactly, now you can figure out why my mining company was struggling, crap equipment, restricted places to mine, assholes waiting with a credit terminal for looking at the stars too much." she waved her hands around in the local version of fuck you, but to everyone else in the galaxy. "anyway, I'm here to tell you about a problem, fuel."

Thaum continued scrolling and stopped on a tank as large as a building, "intercom not working."

"bored." She shrugged. "ooh, that's the pirate fortress. They are so self-sufficient that edge worlds have been captured for decades by one of them."

Thaum hummed non-committedly. The tank had four sets of tracks that would break under the tank's weight without the hover pads taking up most of the work. While powered down, dozens of legs extended and held it up from crushing itself.

It had a miniature refinery and mining section and could make almost all of its own parts. The tank reminded Thaum of a castle golem he once made. Only he was slightly embarrassed that this tank seemed to do a far better job of what he was trying to make, a mobile base.

"I want one." said both of them. Ellora grinned while Thaum chuckled, "A long-term goal then."

They left the fabricator and found Alice in the Captain's chair. She spun around, "figured out the fuel problem."

Thaum said, "We came here to discuss it."

"Oh." said Alice, "well, we haven't run into a ship in a long time, so we cant buy excess fuel, not that any we've asked before were selling. We need more fuel to shoot past the sensor net and any pursuers."

Thaum scratched his 2-day stubble, "worst case; we go to a station."

Alice's eyes widened, "we just stole this ship, and wouldn't they recognize you?"

Ellora laughed, "The smugglers aren't going to report their full of illegal shit ship stolen. Even if law enforcement got the ship, it would only come back to bite them."

By the time Alice looked back to Thaum, he had morphed his face into someone else. He said, "Magic."

Alice blinked slowly and rubbed her eyes as if she couldn't quite believe her eyes. Thaum raised a brow, "changing faces shouldn't be that surprising after you've seen what I can do."

Alice shrugged, "I guess? But can you change someone else's?"

Thaum deadpanned, "I can regrow limbs."

Ellora cut in, "What, not pretty enough." She wiggled her eyebrows, "found someone you want to impress."

Alice quickly denied, "No, just." She seemed to shrink in on herself, making her smaller, "Well, I was pretty enough to get the attention of Ralph, which was terrible, but not really enough to be picked up by a rogue trader." She glanced at Ellora, then Thaum.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Ellora smiled, "you don't have to compare yourself to me. All my people are beautiful by human standards."

Alice huffed, "I know how it works, Ellora--"

Thaum suddenly decided that he needed to go to bed. He started to leave and said over his shoulder, "Sure, I'll change you when we cross the border as a celebratory gift or something."

Ellora jumped, "Hey, wait."

Thaum half turned, "What does Alice becoming more beautiful have to do with you."

Ellora stuttered. Thaum smiled to himself and left before she could figure out a reply.

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Several days later.

They were nearing the border and had yet to see another ship. Even Allice was becoming suspicious. They weren't traveling down a major shipping lane, but not even seeing a sensor blip was inherently suspicious.

Thaum was forced to go to the last refueling station before the border. They would be going too fast to refuel at or near the border station if everything went to plan.

Thaum looked at the station through the screen. It was a risk, but within his safety factor, not that he had much of one anymore.

Everything was going well. They received permission to dock. There were two imperial corvets docked, but they weren't undocking or shooting them. They were probably there for a while if their thruster temperatures were any indication.

Ellora sat forward, "Alice, zoom in on the ships."

"which ones."

Ellora told her to look over them all, and her brows furrowed further with every ship, "nothing is moving. I don't like this."

Thaum looked closer, "explain."

Ellora rubbed her new arm out of habit, still slightly surprised when she felt it, "none of the ships are loading or unloading anything; why are they still here... I think we should leave."

Thaum paused and thought, "Okay, if you think we should. I think this is suspect too. However, if we don't get fuel, we are going asteroid."

Ellora growled, "fucking fuck fucked... I hope I'm only being paranoid about this."

Thaum shrugged. He found that getting supplies in questionable territory, while dangerous, is generally preferable to running out of things you need. Thaum can minimize threats from people by being smart. It is hard to mitigate the threat of the desert without water rations.

Alice looked between them, "Well, we are stopped now. Do I extend the airlock or not."

Thaum leaned up against the door with his arm behind his back, "Yes, Ellora, suit up."

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Thaum and Ellora stepped off the ship in full combat suits. Thaum adjusted his helmet and set the visor a few shades darker. Ellora's voice came over the coms," So why did we even leave the ship? Shouldn't we get the fuel and go?"

Thaum spotted a human ahead and quickened his pace, but the man saw them and ducked into a room, "because I want to know why this area of space is empty... And I'm far more dangerous when they can't pin me down to my ship."

The man didn't answer the call button on the door, nor when Thaum not so gently banged on the door. Thaum grunted and moved on. He spotted several more people in the distance, but they made themselves scarce the moment he appeared.

Ellora nudged him and pointed, "Toilet, only one way in and no cameras."

Thaum chuckled. A person just walked in, "I'm really starting to like you."

They entered after a minute. The man saw the two in the mirror and made for the stall. Thaum jumped forward and reefed the man's arm back, then slammed him into the wall, "You have three breaths to tell me!"

"what." The man stammered.

Thaum leaned in till his helmet almost touched the man's nose, "tell me."

The now-shaking man glanced towards Ellora, then back, "What."

Thaum pulled the man headbutting him, then slammed him into the wall again, "Say what again, I dare you motherfucker."

Ellora cut in, "Does that actually work."

Thaum shrugged, "sometimes being vague works wonders. They tell you things you did not even know you wanted to know, But I can see your point. Okay, I'll keep it simple, why is everyone on the station avoiding us."

The man said, "The soldiers are going to detain you for questioning."

Thaum suddenly started to get a headache. Ellora asked, "Why we are only here for fuel."

"Because the Emire is starting a war, they are going to make up some trumped-up charges to detain your ship until they have launched the first strike."

Thaum and Ellora shared a glance. The Empire wouldn't need to make up anything with them if they were detained. They were already fugitives. 'If,' thought Thaum. The man slumped over, and Thaum shoved him into a stall, "let's go."

Alice urgently came through the comms, "The docking clamps are moving; what do I do!."

Thaum looked at Allice's comm symbol, and the eye tracking turned on his mic, "Prepare for hostile boarding, NO BUTS, IT'S YOU OR THEM!."

Thaum grabbed Ellora, and they both became invisible and fell through the floor. They went to the station core. Thaum pulled explosives out of his pocket dimension he created with the Nightrunners fabricator. He and Ellora placed them on anything important looking, servers, control panels, even the engine powering the station.

Ellora Asked, "Do you think she turned them on? The Defences are kinda..."

Thaum peered through the station and saw a boarding group entering his ship. "Do you know how long it took Alice to decide to throw away everything she knew to come with me, a stranger at the time." Thaum chuckled, "A couple seconds. I could see it in her eyes. She was going before even she knew it. Alice's mind was just trying to catch up with herself by going through the motions of questioning it. She is a woman of action when it counts and is part of the reason I keep her around."

They had slowed their advance Thaum could practically feel the question through Elloras growing empathic powers, he was too busy to block out the effect, and he was surprised by how strong it had become. It was still abysmal, but such quick growth without practice was rare.

Thaum wanted to pressure Alice to use the defenses with his absence.

On the Nightrunner. Alice watched the monitors as a dozen men stormed the hallway. Her hand hovered over a button, the defenses they installed earlier.

She gasped. She recognized the equipment they were carrying from one of Thaum's entertainment shows. Breaching equipment. The cockpit door would probably only last a few seconds. There wasn't any time to wait for Thaum.

They were getting close to the cockpit door, and her hand hesitated momentarily, then fell. [beep]

Explosions rocked the ship. Hull plates ejected into space, and with them, a dozen intruders as the air pressure ripped them from the ship. The few that survived the violent exit and had suits on wouldn't be found in time.

Thaum had a slight smile as he landed on the Nightrunner deck. He opened comms, "Alice prepare for takeoff. I'll deal with the docking clamps."

Thaum left Ellora in the ship and went to disable the docking arms. He waved a hand at each. The components melted to slag.

He found Ellora outside the cockpit door. The door was open. She said, "Alice is in the captain's chair bubble, so she has air, but I can't get past the doorframe, and I don't know why."

Ellora suddenly fell through the invisible barrier, and Thaum said, "I had made a magical barrier before I left."

Alice leaned around the chair back. Her eyes had a slightly crazed look, red and wide, "so that is why you were awkwardly leaning against the door before you left. You should have told--"

Thaum interrupted, "Go already."

The ship started moving. Both women were tense. The enemy ships followed but didn't fire. Thaum had disabled their weapons.

Several minutes later, they had out-accelerated their enemies. They were barely a blip in the sensors.

The Nightrunner was all engines, it could get to FTL far sooner than most ships and there was nothing in space preventing the ship from going faster. However, they were already low on fuel. After this maneuver, they wouldn't have enough to slow down. Alice looked at the gauges and, with a shaky voice said, "We are going asteroid."

Ellora grimly said, "And hopefully not meteor."

Thaum rolled his eyes, "just point the ship where we need to go. I'm going to work on the stealth spells for the ship. Oh, and Alice, Good work."