Erika had always thought that she was blessed by luck. It was also one of the reasons she had picked up gambling in general, and later the [Gambler] class. This last week had challenged that belief more than once.

First, she had been taken into a smuggler ship. She was originally to be a slave, but had made her case as being way more useful working off her debt normally. In that sense, she had been kind of lucky. She technically wasn’t a slave slave, but her debt had been enforced by a magical contract, meaning she wasn’t technically a slave and could work normally, but breaking it would have dire consequences. It was still a shit situation.

Later, she had almost died in what had been a thruster accident. The timing had been very close to tragic. A few centimeters to the left and her brains would have had a most unwelcome invader in the form of a metal pipe. Instead she had simply had a small concussion.

Then, someone had come along to steal her friend Lika away from her, or so it had seemed. Instead she had kind of become friends with her. She still wasn’t a huge fan of Kali, but she was okay in her book. Maybe for the simple reason of not taking too much Lika time away from her. Smart girl.

All in all, she could see her luck helping her out in each case, but only because she had previously been immensely unlucky. Which begged the question if she really was a lucky person or not. If you were lucky after every disaster you survived, were you lucky, or unlucky?

Right now? She was in the middle of the next disaster, waiting for that lucky break. Something unthinkable had happened. Something so insane she wouldn’t have believed it if someone had told her the story. She knew no one was going to believe her when she told it herself. Which showed how insane it was.

Magic had up and disappeared. Like literally. There was no mana or magic on the whole ship. Which had been unthinkable in itself. But that was just the beginning. Her part of the ship had then crashed against something and depressurized completely. Her room had been airtight enough that only a small leak happened, meaning she had had the time to put on a space suit instead of being sucked out into the void.

But in all honesty, she was still stuck at the no mana part. It was so unthinkable for it to happen, and she had never heard it happen in any history book in school. Of course there were urban legends of null-zones, but they had always been static, something that existed and you could enter and leave.

She had never even heard of magic simply disappearing in an area. Like it suddenly became a null-zone. Null-zones weren’t supposed to move.

Looking back to the present, she saw a frozen corps slowly float by. Yeah, you should have put on a space suit mate. When magic had disappeared, well, she had been lucky enough to have the time to do so.

Thinking about space suits, she marveled at the fact that it was one of the few items that existed which worked without magic. Could it have been that they had made the space suits with magic failure in mind? That seemed crazy and paranoid, but the space guild did tend to be paranoid about things. Good call all things considered. Even if they didn’t believe in the null-zones, they understood that maybe, just maybe something similar could happen.

Originally, Erika had planned to stay in her room and wait out the anomaly, but after the ship had depressurised, or at least her part of the ship, she wasn’t sure it was safe to stay. Looking at the frozen passenger float down by, she hadn’t been the only one thinking maybe this wasn’t the safest spot.

Pushing herself forwards, she floated down the long hallway towards the cafeteria. She couldn’t be the only one lucky enough to survive. There had to be a whole lot of others that were safe and sound. The cafeteria was the closest common room, and she hoped to find others there.

She saw more than one person taken by surprise by the violent depressurization. With no gravity and no magic, it meant even the heavy doors weren’t really locked. Which in turn meant that the vacuum of space tended to invade deeper than it should have. If magic would have been a thing, like it should, then a depressurization of a part of the ship wasn’t that big a deal.

Of course it was dangerous, but there were many failsafes, like doors closing automatically, and a temporary hardmana barrier to plug the hole and repressurize. It depended on how much they had spent on safety of course, which, now that she thought about it, might not have been a priority on this ship.

Floating to the last corner before the cafeteria, she was happy to see that she had only come across two more dead people. No one alive for now. It was probably because when the mana had dissapeared, most people would not hole up in their room like her.

The scene was surreal as she arrived in the cafeteria. It took her by surprise because she hadn’t heard any sound, except her own beating heart thumping away in her ears. But it was only logical, as there was no way for sound to travel.

She had expected it to be empty because it usually was noisy when there was anyone there. But now, as she turned the corner, she saw what must have been a hundred people all floating and trying to communicate with signs. It looked extremely chaotic.

Some were patient in their ‘explanations’ while some had clearly lost all semblance of civility and were gesturing angrily at their uncomprehending audience of one or two. It was impossible to organize anything without being able to communicate.

This lack of magic was more troubling than she had initially thought and she wasn’t sure what she was supposed to do now. Luckily, she spotted a familiar face in the distance gesticulating to someone else.

Trying to float over wasn’t as simple as she had initially thought as it wasn’t always easy for people to move out of the way, and lightly pushing one person would have a kind of domino effect on others who would be pissed off.

It felt like her passage through the room added to the chaos, but not significantly. As she arrived, she saw Lika talking with Kali and someone else she wasn’t familiar with. He had a shaved head and the start of a beard. It was flimsy at best, but what really put her off about him was his yellow tinted glasses. Talk about tacky. It just made him look like he was trying too hard.

Still, she didn’t want to judge him too fast. They didn’t know each other. Maybe he was a nice guy with no taste for style. Lika and Kali were apparently hotly ‘discussing’ something. Kali was trying to convey a message at least, which if she had to guess, meant, ‘Take many small things, shake them and sort it out later’. Which made no sense, in any way shape or form. But she hadn’t ever tried to learn sign, so it was really a guess.

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Giving up on convincing Lika about something, she turned to the man and signed furiously towards him. Erika thought he had the right approach, he nodded like he understood, but when she clearly wanted an answer, he looked just as lost as her. So, probably faking it. She could dig it. Might even have done the same in his shoes, luckily, Kali didn’t seem interested in communicating with her.

After another minute of Kali gesticulating angrily at them, she simply dragged the man with her and went off in a hallway with no explanation. Lika seemed sad and resigned about it. Had she actually understood what Kali had wanted? It kind of looked like it, at least the gist of it.

They turned to look at the rest of the cafeteria where chaos continued. Some, like them, had given up trying to ‘talk’ to others, some were clearly having fun with it. Others were more aware of how exceptional and strange the situation was. They were the serious types.

Naturally, people were creating groups without any verbal communication about where they stood on the issue, and the chaos slowly cleared itself over the next few minutes. It was still strange as anything she had ever seen, but some small groups started to appear uniting different types of characters.

Erika and Lika were clearly in the spectators eating popcorn types and had been joined by a few others. But just as she was about to try and show Lika how funny it was that the serious types were trying to argue with the making jokes types, everyone suddenly fell to the floor.

Magic was back.

*********************************

Admiral Parker had seen many things. He was a man who had experienced wild situations more than once in his life, and also one of the reasons why he was so high level.

He had played a major role in the purge of maggots as they called it, the liberation of Kalimar and many more noteworthy events. He was fairly old now, and had come to the inevitable conclusion at some point that, well, he had seen it all.

Which made what was going on so exciting for him. He felt twenty years younger as he boarded the ‘Descending Hawk’ with nothing but a space suit and no magic. His ship had crashed against the bigger smuggling ship, but he had decided that they would board it anyway.

His crew of ten was highly competent and no one balked at the small jump that was required of them. Not one hesitated, and not one failed. Even deprived of their Skills, they were still skilled individuals at what they did. And what they did was space battles.

Today, they had originally come to put some order on the shitshow that the ship was about to become. A captain dead and no second in command to take over, it was bound to become a bloodbath given time. So they had sent him, as it was one of the bigger contreband ships, and it still raked in quite the sum each year. It was important to keep the ship and its operations, well, operational.

Plus, apparently the captain had been the nephew of the big boss’s second in command. Hence the high bounty on the idiot that had done him in. Of course anybody that cared to look into it a bit would have known this, and should have backed off from their plan.

But if he had to guess, that’s not what happened. It wasn’t a planned assasination or anything of the sort, but a spur of the moment. Which also meant Marco had fucked up somewhere himself. In his personal opinion, this Philip man had done them a service by removing a weak element in their fleet.

Alas, an example was to be made for it had not been a random schmuck, but the family of an important member of the organization. Would he have done the same? Probably not. His own sons had disappointed him enough, and he didn’t think family was a valid enough reason to put up with their lazy incompetence.

He snapped back to the present as they floated through the empty hallways. They were getting close to the bridge of the ship if his memory was anything to go by. It felt strange not to feel the ship around him with his various skills. Something that had become second nature.

A big double door stood ajar in front of him. Inside he could see people silently argue with gestures. Opening the door, he made a grand entrance and floated upright forwards, but to his dismay, no one noticed him at first, wasting his efforts.

Clearing his throat, he then admonished himself for forgetting. No sound was going to reach them. Usually, his presence alone told people who he was and that he was the one in charge. But that was gone now. Some people had turned to look at the newcomers, but most ignored them, or made a shoo-ing motion, telling him to leave.

At a loss, he even looked down at his uniform, only to see the standard space suit. No wonder no one thought he was anybody. He looked like any other stupid schmuck. Still, his severe face riddled with battle scars should tell them all he needed.

Floating also wasn’t the best way to make your presence known. There was something kind of silly about it, making it very hard to make it look like you were in charge. Still, he tried to float forwards menacingly.

Still, no one paid him attention. Only when he accidentally bumped into them did they turn around, looking angry. His stare did make them flinch. Who did they think he was? There wasn’t anyone worth a damn left on the ship anyway, maybe he should start by killing some of them off to set an example.

He toyed with the idea, but before he could come to a decision, they all fell to the floor. He had been the only one not floating horizontally and landed perfectly on his feet. He looked at them all picking themselves up from the floor. Pathetic.

Soon enough, the ship repressurized, and he could feel his skills again. He looked down on the people who had been arguing, getting up and turning as one towards him.

“Who in the system's name are you?” One of them said with a snarl as sound finally traveled through space again. He made a discreet sign with one of his hands to one of his guys.

“I’m the one they sent to sort things out.” He said as the earlier guy's head went flying, cleanly separated from his neck.

The others had barely even seen the movement, and they all stared at him in shock. Ah, now they finally understood. One of them instantly turned with a nervous smile towards him, in that meak and disgustingly submissive pose.

“[Admiral] ! It is so good to finally have you here. If you need anything, feel free to ask, we are at your disposal.” He almost bowed as he finished. Unsure of what he thought of such things. Clearly that guy was a weakling and a coward, but it was useful in a group such as this, to make the others understand exactly what was going on, and that going against him would be disastrous.

With his skills, he already knew the ship had two major breaches and apparently a few intruders. Which didn’t come as a surprise. They had spotted their ship while on their way, but he wasn’t sure they would make a move once they had seen his ship. Apparently they had, which was ballsy. He already liked them.

Of course his skill didn’t tell him exactly where they were, but he knew there were probably four.

“You, get me a report on the ship.” He pointed to one of the more competent looking guys.

“You, get me a report on the crew status. How many wounded, dead etc.” He pointed to another one, he looked less trustworthy, but the task was less important than the first.

“And you, you’ll tell me all about the different factions on the ship trying to get control.” He ordered the coward last.

“Factions? There aren’t any factions trying to take control of the ship…” The person spluttered. He turned to look at him straight in the eyes.

“I won’t ask again.” He said in a cold voice that promised untold violence upon him. To which the coward nodded frantically and started blabbing. Most of it was useless, but apparently there were three ‘major’ factions. It was all relative of course. Well, apparently one of the factions had kind of dissolved as Philip, the wanted guy, had apparently been in charge of it had disappeared? Died? They weren’t sure but they believed him to be dead at least.

Funnily enough, that was not his priority. He was here for two things, to find a suitable replacement and set the ship back on track to continue its operations as normal. So first, he had to make them all understand who was in charge right now. Which meant rounding up the leaders, or at least survivors of the different factions.

Then, try to make one of them decent enough to leave things in their hands. Also, they had to repair a LOT of things apparently. He could barely believe how the ship had been seemingly damaged for no apparent reasons. Accidents never were, there was incompetence underneath it, and he would not only unearth it, he would purge it completely.

He would only leave this ship once it was running like a smooth clock.

But first, he had some intruders to kick out.