Chapter 76: Story Time

Location: Magicon Empire; Valterion Duchy; Valterion System; Nua; Alburgh; Valterion Mansion

I sleep like a baby and when I wake up the next morning, I feel better than ever. My magic courses through my body and it feels just so strong. I shudder at the thought of how long I missed out on it. I can’t wait to finally test it out. My fingers itch to just do it, but I promised Mom to wait until after the story.

This still doesn’t stop me from jumping into the shower while whistling happily. I enjoy a good soak and Clara takes care of everything else. Half an hour later, I’m dressed and ready for the day.

I join my parents for breakfast. This time it’s only the three of us. Maja returned last night to the others after promising to only tell them that I’m a master Space Mage for now. My parents had this point as non-negotiable. I hope they allow me to tell them after I told my story… I’ve spent so much time with my friends, I feel like they deserve to know. After eating, we step outside and sit down on comfortable chairs in the garden. Mom flicks her wrist, and some magical field protects us from the sun. The Redhead Savior spell. I snort at that thought.

My parents look at me questioningly and I just shake my head. “It’s nothing…”

“Alright, let’s start then. You already told us about your youth with Thomas and Shay. I know that you have something important to tell us, but I’d still like to hear the rest of the story… We missed too much of your life. Let us at least hear of it.” Mom looks a bit sad again in the end and even sniffs a little.

“Okay, so I stopped right at my Mage testing last time. Immediately after, I was treated quite differently than all the other Mages around me. Can you guess why?”

Mom shakes her head and Dad jokes. “You were the prettiest of them?”

That makes me laugh. “No, not at all. I learned it later on the ship when the Ranger Captain told me. There’s a difference between Space Rangers and Star Force, but that’s not important. I guess The Empire has its own military branches. Anyway, she told me that Space Mages such as I are special because they make travel between systems possible.”

Mom interrupts me. “Wait, you didn’t know that?”

“Nope, I had no clue but that was an eye-opener as I saw the treatment of the other Mages firsthand. During the travel I met Simon, my fellow Space Mage and we arrived at the Mage Academy Station a few days later. This was my home for the next two years, where I also met Lucy, Greg, and Jack. We became good friends and were pretty much inseparable. There was another test where they determined our power level and assigned us a class of magic. Well, everyone besides the Space Mages. That’s also when most of us got to know their future jobs…”

“Those bastards!” Dad exclaims. “Where is the free choice?”

“Yeah, we reacted the same until they shocked us into submission with the Mage collars.” That has Dad fuming even more and I can imagine him taking the biggest ship he has and blowing the republic to pieces.

“Anyway, we couldn’t do anything against it and most of my friends ended up as A&D Mages. Then the lessons started and after the excitement of learning about magic in the beginning, it was very boring and Lucy and I had the feeling, that they left out a lot of knowledge. Turns out we were right. We didn’t even know that a Mage could get a second core…”

“Huh, how come that you had two when you arrived then?” Mom and Dad ask at the same time.

“That comes later,” I smirk, quite enjoying keeping up the tension. “After I accepted the fact that I was only a Novice and got my AI, not Maja by the way, the class-specific lessons started. We only learned one spell though… Wormhole Navigation and the Seniors got extra courses for Non-Wormhole Travel later on. Still, those classes were pretty much the best part as the actions of the instructor saved my life later on.”

“How come?” Mom asks surprised and I continue.

“Well, it started when she looked at me strangely, almost like she recognized me or something. When I asked her later on about the strange feelings I had, she told me that it probably was Space Sense, but she had no explanation for why I had it. I don’t know exactly why, but she then taught me the Personal Teleportation spell in secret.”

“How did she know about Space Sense? And the Teleportation spell? You said information was very limited.” Mom asks.

“Ah right, I forgot to tell you… She’s from the Starseeker Kingdom and was somehow captured by the republic.”

“Huh, that’s our neighbors,” Dad says, but I ignore him and continue.

“Anyway, two years later I gradua…” I trail off, Dad’s words registering in my brain and I start to connect the dots. Neighbors to the Empire… The republic on the other side of the galaxy… Miss Baker captured by the republic… She seemed to recognize me and taught me a second spell in the hopes that I could escape someday. Was it the Valterion hair or something else? Maybe guilt?! I now know that my parents weren’t freighter people. The people from the freighter were my kidnappers… Maybe?

“Something wrong?” Mom asks.

“I don’t know… I just had a weird thought. What if Miss Baker was one of my kidnappers? I know it’s far-fetched, but it still could be, right?”

My parents stare at me with wide eyes. “Maybe,” Mom says. “Marcus said there was a female Space Mage.”

Dad seems to agree. “Would be worth a shot.” He looks back at me. “Can you describe her?”

I nod. “Sure, I think Maja even has the personnel files from the station.”

“Perfect, we’ll get Marcus as soon as you finish your tale. Time to get to the bottom of this!”

“Who’s Marcus?”

Mom scowls. “He’s the one who brought you to the kidnappers.”

Oh, that’s going to be awkward for everyone…

The silence stretches till Dad asks me to continue.

“Okay so after graduation we all got split up and I joined a company called Solitur Transportation and worked as the Space Mage of a small freighter. The Captain was really nice and kept my magic unlocked so I could train more. That’s also where I did my first teleportations. It felt sooo good. Unfortunately, this didn’t last too long. After almost two years at the job, we were attacked by pirates. We tried to run, but one of the crew was a hidden pirate and killed the Captain right before my eyes.”

I sniff, poor Amal. Mom leans over to hug me. “The pirates offered me a choice. Join them or die. You can guess what I chose. The pirates butchered the freighter and added a few weapons. It was now the second ship in the small pirate gang with me as the Space Mage. The new Captain was an absolute idiot and got greedier with every successful raid. That brought us to a border system where he wanted to attack a military supply freighter…”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Dad snorts. “Oh, I can guess how that ended for him.”

“True enough,” I grin. “He even ignored a military blockade around a double wormhole in the system, saying they are too far away.”

Dad snorts even louder.

“Of course, one ship immediately jumped over and demanded our surrender. Funnily enough, I later learned that Thomas was on that ship, but that’s not important. What’s important is that the pirates opened fire at the military ship, and they were quick to retaliate. They went for complete overkill and even fired a missile.”

“Oh shit,” Mom swears.

“We were close to a wormhole at this time and the Captain asked if I could get us out. I said yes but said he should send the crew to escape pods just to be sure. Luckily, he did so, as I had no plans of saving the ship. You see, my dumb AI detected a ship that was seemingly without gravity generators, meaning I could jump there. That’s also what I did once my magic was unlocked. I say dumb AI because the ship in question had gravity generators and was right in the middle of the military blockade… It was their target.”

Mom starts laughing. “Oh, I didn’t expect that. I’d pay to see the pirate Captain’s face though.”

“Yeah, that’s a sight I’ll never forget. Anyway, I still managed to jump into the ship with gravity, probably because of my true strength. The man inside was about to blow up his ship, as he was about to be captured. He was a programmer of the first sapient AI of the republic. When he learned about the plans for her, he destroyed all the research and fled till they caught him. My arrival changed things and he gave me the AI chip and stuffed me inside a small yacht in the hangar bay. As a Space Mage, I had the advantage of being able to use the nearby normal wormhole instead of the blocked enhanced one. Can you guess who the AI is?”

“Maja,” They shout in unison, and I nod.

“What were their plans though,” Dad asks.

I grimace. “They wanted her to take over a Mage’s body and so get controllable drones… But don’t worry we made sure that all the research is gone later on.”

A glass cracks and Mom looks really angry with blood dripping down her hand after she crushed her glass. “Those bastards. I’m going to kill them all!”

Dad rushes over and tries to compose his wife. It takes a few minutes, but then they both settle down again.

“Okay, so I took Maja and the yacht and slipped through the blockade. Sean, who was the programmer, bought us time as he still blew up his ship. I just entered the wormhole when pieces of debris struck, and it collapsed.”

I let that statement hang in the open air. Mom gasps. “How… How are you here then?”

I grin. “The Stargazer pulled me out of hyperspace.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I didn’t know that at this point, but Maja and I found out later. The ship was hidden at the edge of the system we appeared in, and the gravitational anchor was what pulled us out. Can you guess where?” I flash them a big smile.

Dad shakes his head. “Nope, not a clue. And I have a feeling that everything I say is wrong.”

“True enough, I laugh. I emerged from hyperspace in…” I make a dramatic pause, causing Dad to groan. “The Solar System together with a not-so-destroyed Earth.”

That has them sitting up straight. Both look at me in disbelief. “No way!” Mom shouts.

“Yes way,” I counter.

“Impossible!” This comes from Dad, and I struggle to stay composed. I’m probably the first person to see the Duke and Duchess so completely out of it. “Do you have proof?”

I shrug. “Maja has it…”

A second later, Maja appears next to us and looks around in bewilderment. “What the…?”

“Sorry about that,” Dad says, “but you have to confirm something for us.”

I send her ‘Earth’ over my interface, and she nods. “Sure.” We all get a ping, and she sends us a picture of the planet, and then one of each company headquarters we visited.

“Unbelievable… Why weren’t we told?” Mom struggles with the news.

“I’ll come to that in a moment. Can I continue? Now follows the interesting part. Maja, you better stay for that. I’ll give Jack a call and explain.”

Maja nods and Dad starts to stutter before he catches himself. “T…The interesting part? What was that until now?”

“Uhh, the appetizer?” Maja snorts and I use the moment to cast the Communication spell and connect to Jack. Well, after I got a nod from Mom of course. I’m allowed to use my magic again, yay.

Anyway, Jack is quick to understand and promises to tell the others. I tell him that I visit them as soon as possible. I still have to tell them about college after all.

“Okay so we first landed on the Moon and found out where we actually were and believe me, it was quite a shock for me as well. Then we caught a signal from the planet and rushed down in case there were still people. There weren’t of course. It’s been 11,000 years since the evacuation, but the signal led us to a facility in a city once called Brisbane. Deep underground there was a door panel that emitted the signal.

“Maja couldn’t connect to it unless I physically touched the panel. It spat out a few at this time confusing words like DNA print recognized and Ferdinand Benson, but after Mom told me who her family is, things became clear.”

“Magicon!” Mom cries out and I give her a thumbs-up.

“Absolutely right. It was their planetary headquarters or what was left of it. In there, we fought off a few security robots, found Maja’s body, and also my Utility core we later implanted after we saw a video recording about what it was.There we also learned of the Worldender Ship for the first time.”

Dad sucks in a sharp breath. “That ship…”

“Wait, did it make other appearances over the years?”

He nods slowly. “Yes, there are sixteen confirmed sightings including the first one in the Solar System. Each time it was destroyed when it killed the system, but somehow a new one still appeared. The last one was used 200 years ago in the Reluni Republic, one of our allies. Your grandfather, probably the strongest Space Mage since Conor Valterion himself, tried to stop it… That was the day I became Duke.” He sniffs and I stand up to hug him.

“I’m sorry…”

Poor grandpa, but something’s wrong there… It takes a whole year to charge. How did he die?

“Uhh Dad, I know it’s hard, but what happened there? Grandpa should have had enough time to escape.”

He shakes his head sadly. “No, unfortunately not… I still don’t know how they even got a ship like this. They were a terrorist group… They hid the ship inside a small asteroid and slowly flew the asteroid into the system from far out. It stayed in the asteroid belt where not many sensors were and slowly powered up. When everyone noticed it was too late. Your grandfather and lots of other Space Mages including me and your Mom tried to save as many people as possible, but it was too late. Your grandfather waited until the last possible moment, then sent everyone away. He stayed back and tried to stop the ship until the last moment. Unfortunately, he didn’t make it, and half the population of the star system died with him.”

Fuck, that’s hard. So many people… But at least I now have a solution.

The silence weighs heavy, and Clara delivers us some food. Smart AI, I have to say. We eat in silence, then I’m ready to continue.

“So with Maja now walking on her own, we decided to visit the other planetary headquarters as we found out their locations in some intact Magicon computers. There’s not much to mention until we found the half-submerged Valterion Island near Chicago.”

That gets their attention again, and they both listen more closely now. “Inside a message from Conor Valterion waited for us. Maja, can you play it?”

“Sure, one second.”

My parents watch it open-mouthed. Conor Valterion. My dad’s and my ancestor.

“We have to check that vault as soon as possible,” Dad states and I can only agree. I want to see the message that should have started the Earth adventure as well. “He said 20,000 years though…”

“Yeah, I guess their predictions with the radiation were a bit off or I wouldn’t be here right now… Anyway, we went deeper into the facility and Maja tried to hack the final panel at the vault. The message was for Conor’s descendants after all not for me, a random girl out of the Estriduros Republic. Let’s just say the hack failed and a turret opened fire. I caught a bullet before I could bring up my shield and my blood splattered the panel… That’s how I found out that I am a Valterion.” I chuckle slightly while Mom grimaces.

“Oh, my baby…” she whimpers.

I look at Maja and she gets the clue. The next recording from Conor starts playing. This one has them even more shaken. “A design flaw!” Dad exclaims. “Is it true?”

“Yes,” I continue. “We found the proof aboard the Stargazer. It was the stealth ship, Conor left behind. There is a short moment when you can move the Worldender Ship away!”

Maja sends them all the scanner data and Dad has tears flowing down his face when he reads it. “Finally! We finally have a way to stop it.” He looks at Mom. “I trust Conor at this… Do you agree to keep it secret, even from your grandfather?”

Mom nods slowly. “Yeah, we can keep this a secret for now. But if it works, we have to tell him.”

They discuss a while longer, then they look back at me. “Anything else?” Mom asks with a smirk.

“Nothing much… Just my trip back to the Estriduros Republic, how I got my friends out, and how we traveled here. Oh and how they falsely recognized me as a Valterion Envoy, which led to me being imprisoned in the end.”

“Go ahead, we have time,” Mom chuckles.

I grin back at them. “Okay, here goes…”