Chapter 39: Being Back
Location: Estriduros Republic; Olovis System; VS Stargazer
With a massive purple flash, we reappear in real space.
Back in the Estriduros Republic.
Back in the Olovis System.
Back where the wormhole collapsed after I saved myself from the pirate ship.
We did it. WE FLIPPIN’ DID IT! My exhaustion completely forgotten, I jump toward Maja and give her a massive hug. “Thank you, Maja! Truly thank you. Without you, I would have been stranded in the Solar System.”
Maja returns the hug. “You’re welcome, Sara. That’s what friends are for.”
After the excitement of being back, relief settles in, and I start to calm down a bit. A bone-deep exhaustion comes with a vengeance. I used way too much magic in the past hours, but I know we can’t stop right now. “Did anyone notice our arrival? Err, scratch that. How many ships and sensors noticed our arrival?” The flash of our arrival was truly massive, and everyone has to be blind to miss it.
Maja winces. “A lot… The wormhole next to us is busy. I blocked all incoming communications from the freighters there, as it’s the norm for military ships. It might satisfy them, but I don’t think we should stay here and test it. As for Star Force ships? There we are in luck. There aren’t any in the vicinity, and the closest ones are far enough away, that they shouldn’t detect the flash for another minute.”
That’s actually a very good outcome I have to say. Luckily the military blockade around the wormhole is gone. That would have been very bad. “I agree with leaving, but we can’t use the wormhole right here. It’s too busy and we are sitting ducks in the queue. Can you fly us over to the next wormhole? I don’t care where it leads to… Just get us out of here. Let’s just hope there isn’t a Senior Space Mage close by. But even if there is, the Stargazer is quite stealthy, even without the spell, right?”
Before Maja replies, I feel the gravity anchor disappearing and the engines spinning up again. “I’ve set a course. We will take a wide flight around the edge of the system for the next eight hours, then we'll reach the next wormhole. And yeah, the ship was built for stealth, so we should be good. If they don’t know exactly where to look, they won’t find us.”
“Good, can you keep watch? I think I need some rest. That took a lot out of me.”
I receive a thumbs-up. “Sure, see you later. I’ll call if something comes up.”
I wave her goodbye and take the bridge lift, that leads right to the door of my room down on deck 01. There I don’t even bother to shed my clothes and simply fall onto my bed. I think I’m asleep before touching the pillow.
Something shakes me and I wake up with a cry. “Ahhhhh!”
Maja quickly removes her hand from my shoulder after she shook me awake. “Sorry, but you didn’t react to my calls, so I came down here to check on you.”
I wipe the sleep out of my eyes and sit up. “Naaah, it’s all good. What’s up?”
"We are close to the next wormhole, so I need you to jump once you’re ready. And don’t take too long, Star Force is currently looking for us from what I can detect on our scanners. Our sudden appearance has them on edge.”
A yawn and a stretch later, I’m finally awake enough. “That’s concerning. Have they found us yet?”
She shakes her head. “No, not yet, but if they aren’t incompetent, they should find us in the next hour.”
Hmm, one can never count on incompetence. I look down on myself… A shower can wait. “Okay, it’s better we do the jump right away. Lead the way.” We both walk out of the room and take the elevator back up. After arriving on the bridge, I sit down in the Captain’s chair and look out of the front-facing window. What greets me is the view of a wormhole a few hundred kilometers away. There is a short line of two freighters waiting before it, but those are the only ships in sight.
“What are they waiting for?” I ask with a questioning look on my face.
“Dunno, but I guess we can ask them? I mean for them we probably look like a mercenary ship or something. There is no reason for them to report us to Star Force.”
“You’re right, and even if they do try and report us we can simply overtake them and disappear through the wormhole. Can you hail them?”
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Instead of answering, Maja just nods and the screen of my console changes to show me the status of the outgoing call. Ahh, that was too fast! I don’t even know what to say. Please don’t accept right away. The edges of the screen flash green and a deep male voice echoes through the speakers. Dang it! I'll have to make something up on the fly. I hope he buys it. I shoot a scowl at Maja who sits there with a smirk.
“This is Captain Soler from the Esmeralda. Who am I talking to?”
Okay now. You can do it, Sara. I take a deep breath. “This is Ensign Thomasson from the Stargazer.” I decide to leave the VS out of our ship name as I don’t want to be identified as Valterion right now, even if nobody knows of the Valterions here anyway. “We were wondering why you are waiting before the wormhole.”
Captain Soler starts to laugh. “Let me guess, you are not from here, right?” I mumble my agreement and he continues. “You see, we don’t have a Space Mage on the Esmeralda, so we and the Frituna are currently waiting for the shuttle service.”
Huh, shuttle service? What’s that? I shoot a questioning glance at Maja, but she just shrugs. Right, we can find out later what that means. “Okay, thanks for the information. May we fly ahead of you and use the wormhole while you wait?”
“Sure, go ahead, why waste your time if you have a Space Mage in your crew? Happy cruising, Soler out.”
The freighter Captain cuts the connection and Maja slowly accelerates us toward the wormhole. We keep our distance from the freighters and while we are getting closer, the wormhole flashes, and a small ship appears. It heads right for Frituna and disappears in a hangar bay.
Ohh, so that’s the shuttle service. It’s quite genius when I see it as a neutral observer – a small ship with a Space Mage that jumps back and forth and takes bigger ships with them. The only problem is the location we are in… The Estriduros Republic. That means the poor Space Mage is collared and doesn’t have a choice in what to do. But we can’t do anything about that right now.
While the Frituna prepares for their jump, we are finally close enough and Maja cuts the acceleration and gravity. My turn! I flex my magic and cast the Wormhole Navigation spell. The bubble forms around the Stargazer, this time not in the exact shape of the ship, as I don’t have the power boost from the battery, but still good enough, and we enter the wormhole.
Maja and I work in tandem, and the trip goes very smoothly. One and a half hours later, we are through and reappear in a new system.
Now the question is, where are we?
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Location; Estriduros Republic; Trivolu System; VS Stargazer
Turns out the wormhole led to the Trivolu System. A let’s say middle-range System. It’s not as fancy as the home system of Lucy and the others, but leagues above the Acordus System. We are currently cruising along the main trade line that leads straight across the star system toward the next wormhole.
Maja was able to retrieve some data from a nearby refill station, that helped us get the information we needed. Besides the system name, we now have a plotted-out way to the Estriduros System. It’s going to take us another four jumps till we arrive, which takes a little over a week with our current velocity.
That gives me enough time to get the Stealth spell ready. It’s going to be very important in the future, especially in the Estriduros System. While out here nobody cares about our obvious weaponry on the Stargazer, the closer we get to the core systems, the more we will stand out. The main problem is the magical weapons at our bow. Those things simply don’t exist here in the republic and if they get identified as such, there will be lots of questions I’m not ready to answer.
That’s why I’m about to start practicing the new spell. It’s similar to the Remote Control spell in complexity, so it won’t be as easy to learn as Engine Enhancement. There is one advantage though. It’s modular in size, meaning I don’t have to encompass the whole ship right away. Instead, I can only focus on the magical guns in the beginning. While we’re still pretty heavy on weapons for a civilian ship, it shouldn’t be too much. Another advantage is the interaction of the spell with the Magitech inside our hull. This means once the spell is cast it can be sustained by our magical battery.
I wave goodbye to Maja and leave the bridge. She can control the ship on her own. My destination is the hangar bay – specifically our yacht. While deck 01 is completely furnished, there is one thing missing: Food. The kitchen and adjoining pantry are both empty of things to eat. I make a mental note, that’s another thing to take care of. We need to stock up!
After eating I return to my room and sit down on my bed cross-legged – time for some magic practice. I roll out my tablet and admire it a bit. After everything, this thing is still working. I open up the explanation for the Stealth spell and get to work.
Progress is slow, but at least there is progress. After four hours of concentrated work, I’m exhausted. I quickly initiate a call to Maja and ask her how long it takes to the next wormhole.
She tells me that we’re still 13 hours out and I can do whatever I want. She’s going to take care of flying. I make good use of that time and fill up the hot tub in my bathroom. Once filled, I turn on the bubbles, take off my clothes, and get in.
Ahhhh, this is so nice. I’ve only known hot tubs from movies before… My orphanage on Acordus 3 was way too poor to afford something like this. I submerge everything beside my head in the water and simply relax. I am back! I can finally search for Thomas. Everything starts to sink in, it’s like a new beginning, but with a massive power-up in the form of a second class of magic and a super nice starship.
It feels like hours later when I exit the hot tub and rub myself dry with a towel. Lying in there made me quite tired and I send a short note to Maja before I jump into my comfy bed and sleep.
I wake up on my own this time and am still feeling completely relaxed. Nice! Now I’m ready for the challenges ahead. I move to grab a fresh shipsuit but come up empty-handed. Shoot, they are still down in the yacht! Argh, that’s annoying. I wrap the towel around myself and walk back down. All that walking… I can’t wait to be at least Junior in strength to avoid the gravity restriction.
Back on the yacht, I begin the process of emptying the wardrobe and then I move all the clothes up to my new room. It takes a while, but clothes are important! I should probably buy some new ones too when I get the chance. But that takes money… Something I have absolutely nothing of right now. We really need to plan out our next steps!