NOVEL FROG Chapter 52: Greg and Trix
Chapter 52: Greg and Trix
Location: Estriduros Republic; Bon Delaaz System; VS Stargazer
With the addition of Simon, our crew consists of six people. We spent the last eleven days traveling to make it eight hopefully. That’s why we cruised to the Bon Delaaz System after Maja finalized the transfer of all our money to the new accounts belonging to our fake IDs and MARA Deliveries.
So why are we in the Bon Delaaz System? Well, it’s simple. For one it’s the home system of Solitur Transportation where Trix is working and secondly, it’s also where Greg is currently residing with his security company. Simon was the last one who received news from him, and that was only two months ago, so chances are very high that he is still here.
Even better, as we’re in the same system now, we can simply send him a message and it should reach him without much delay. Now it’s just the question of who gets to initiate contact… We’re all criminals in the eyes of the republic. Well, all except one of us. That’s why we’re currently all looking at Ronja. She’s technically still on leave from the academy, so she’s free to go where she wants.
“It has to be you, Ronja,” Jack starts. “Even if you don’t know Greg, a message from you won’t ring any alarm bells. We just have to get an answer, then Maja can track him.”
Ronja nods. “I can try… Let’s hope he replies. You said it yourself; he doesn’t know me.”
It takes another day, then we’re finally in orbit above planet Delaaz. Solitur Transportation has its headquarters inside one of the space stations above the planet and Ronja finally receives a message from Greg, even if it is an angry ‘How did you get my contact data? Leave me alone!’ followed by a block. It’s enough for Maja, who traced it back to an address down on the planet.
We all meet back at the bridge, and everyone looks at me expectantly. “Well, it looks like we’re going to split up again. Maja takes care of Solitur Transportation… Now who wants to join me down on the planet looking for Greg?”
“I go with you,” Simon immediately replies.
“Yeah, me too,” comes from Jack.
“I smile. “So the old academy gang reunited. It’s just Lucy who’s missing if Greg agrees to join. What about the others?”
“I think, I’ll stay on the ship. I still have to sort a few things in the Medbay,” Ronja shrugs. “If you need me, I’ll join of course.”
“No, I think you’re good. Alex, what about you?”
Maja clears her throat. “I think it would be good if Alex is joining me on the space station.”
“Huh, why?” Alex and I ask at the same time, then we look at each other and laugh.
Maja shrugs. “I figured, I go with the Space Rangers disguise again, but I noticed, that they are mostly in pairs if they go somewhere. So how about Alex dresses up as a Sergeant or something and joins me as my aide?”
Hmm, if that’s the case, why not? “What do you think, Alex?”
She shrugs as well. “I can do that. If the uniform fits of course.”
I clap my hands. “Alright, it’s settled then. Maja, Alex, you two get the Stargazer.” I look at Jack and Simon. “We’ll take the yacht down to the planet. Let’s go!”
Location: Estriduros Republic; Bon Delaaz System; Delaaz; Zuril
We land the yacht at Zuril spaceport, which is right next to the same-named city Maja traced Greg’s message back to. S-57 connects to the city net and a bit later I’ve got a map showing up on my interface. I send it to Jack and Simon. I feel a bit bad now as Simon takes out his tablet, while Jack taps in the air using his new interface as well. I have to ask him if he wants one too…
But that’s something for later. He seems to be quite happy right now and is making great progress with the Personal Teleportation spell. Speaking of spells, I’ve finally got a grip on Telekinesis! The others are a bit annoyed as I’ve got things floating around on the Stargazer all the time, but hey it’s Telekinesis. Something I've wanted to have since I first saw it. Now though, we have to act like normal human beings, meaning no Telekinesis or Teleportation.
S-57 marks Greg’s location on all our maps and I take a closer look. Huh?
Simon is the one who voices my thoughts. “It’s a hospital?”
“Why would he be in a hospital? And why is he still there? I’ve never been there for more than a few hours… And I’ve been hurt a lot as a kid.” Jack shakes his head in confusion.
“Looks like we have to go and take a look… Let’s hope he isn’t hurt too bad.”
The others agree and we all start walking toward the hospital. Half an hour of walking later, we arrive at a big white building with a giant red cross above the entrance. The sliding doors open up at our arrival and we step inside and greet the young brown-haired woman behind the wooden counter.
“Hello there, how can I help you today?” She asks cheerfully and I step forward. “We’re looking for our friend Gregory…” I have to think a moment, as I’ve never used his last name. “Franklin.” There it is, an everyday name, no wonder I forgot. The others all have quite uncommon names, just like me. Storkis, Raphdani, and Valterion. Franklin is the odd one when you look at it from our perspective…
Anyway, the woman looks into open air – another holographic interface – and comes back a short moment later. “He’s on level 6, room 609. And please be aware, that he’s not in the best mood right now. I hope you can cheer him up.”
Not in the best mood and still in the hospital? What’s wrong with him? That doesn’t sound good. We anxiously thank the woman and walk toward the elevator. Once inside, Simon breaks the silence. “I hope it wasn’t because of his job as a Mage… He already lost his father who was an A&D Mage for Star Force…”
Jack slowly nods. “Yeah, that did a number on him.”
My eyes go wide, finally hearing what everything was about back then. “So that’s why he hated being A&D so much back then! Dang, I sure hope the reason why he’s here is something else.”
A few minutes later, we anxiously stand before room 609. No one dares to knock. I sigh, someone has to do it. I lift my hand and knock at the door.
“Come in…” a resigned voice answers a few heartbeats later.
I grab the handle and push the door open. It’s a typical hospital room besides the fact, that it’s only a single bed. And inside said bed lies Greg with a sad expression on his face while reading something on his tablet. The rest of his body is covered by a big white sheet, so we can’t see anything besides his head. His dark hair is unkempt, and his beard looks like it hasn’t been groomed for over a week. At least he's able to grow a proper beard now…
He doesn’t even look up and mutters. “You can drop the food on the nightstand, but then leave me alone please…”
We look at each other, not knowing what to do. We haven’t stepped through the door properly and are still standing there quite awkwardly. When he doesn’t hear any food being put next to him, he slowly looks up. His gaze looks around the room, crosses over me and the others, and returns to his tablet. Then his eyes snap wide open and he focuses back on us.
“What? Jack, Simon, and Sara, what are you doing here?”
We all chuckle and fully enter the room. The door closes behind us and Simon steps closer to the bed. “Well, we’re obviously not bringing your food. As for why we’re here… I guess Sara wants to tell you a bit of a story and offer you a job. Care to tell us how you ended up in a hospital of all things before that? Sara’s story might take a while.”
Greg smiles wryly and lifts an arm from under the blanket to lay the tablet on the nightstand. “It’s pretty obvious once you see it…” He uses his hand to flip the blanket aside and we all stare at him in disbelief.
His right arm is missing! It ends with a stump right below the shoulder. “What the hell,” Jack exclaims. “When did this happen and why didn’t they fix it?”
He’s right. That small nanite package inside the mediwand was enough to fix my calf, so a proper hospital should easily be able to fix an arm. I quickly fire up my interface and do a short search. There it is. Missing limbs can be regrown! So why didn’t they do it?
Greg’s expression turns sad. “Just last week… We were hired as bodyguards for some random guy… What we didn’t know at that point was that he had a connection to a local drug cartel and stole from them. So when the hitmen came, we still tried to do our job and protect him… But they were too many and my Novice Shields were overwhelmed time and time again. They kept shooting at us and a few of my colleagues were hit when my shields were down.” He pauses to swallow.
“Two of them even died… The client escaped in the chaos, but no one noticed, and they kept shooting. I threw up barrier after barrier and we slowly retreated. My colleagues kept firing back and we were about to win… only two hitmen remained and then it happened. My magic ran out and I just stood there stupefied. It had never happened before, as this was the first time we were ambushed that badly. Someone shoved me to the side and probably saved my life… But the bullets and lasers still shredded my arm.”
We all look at him in sympathy. But I don’t think Simon and Jack know what it means when someone dies next to you… I step closer to Greg and hug him. “I’m so sorry, I know how you must feel…”
I think something in the tone of my voice showed that I really understand, and he hugs me back with his remaining arm. I can feel him shaking a bit. “It’s okay, we’re here now.”
When I release him, there are tears in his eyes and my own vision is blurry as well. I wipe my eyes and look at him. “Can you explain why no one fixed your arm?”
He sighs. “It’s because I’m a Mage… Everyone told me that they can’t regrow my arm, as it interferes with my magic.”
“Bullshit!” Simon and Jack exclaim at the same time, and I scratch my chin in thought. Could this be true? But why should it? The magical core isn't in our arms and while we often use our hand to point or direct a spell, it isn’t necessary as far as I know.
I notice that everyone is looking at me and I clear my throat. “I don’t know if it’s true or not… But I also don’t see any reason why it should interfere with your magic. The only thing I can think of is that you can’t cast anymore through that hand, but you still have another one, and well, you actually don’t need your hands to cast anyway.”
“You don’t?” That’s Simon asking and I chuckle.
“No, or how would you teleport through your hand?”
He facepalms. “You’re right… So we can buy the things needed for a new arm and Ronja can take care of him?”
“Pretty much,” I nod and look back at Greg. “As long as you want of course. I guess, it’s now time I tell you a bit of what happened to me in the past months and what we are going to do in the future.”
I sit down to tell him the shortened version of what happened. I’m quite adept at it now, having told it several times. I do mention the part that it’s possible to learn another class of magic, as he clearly still dislikes being an A&D Mage. This also brings his attention to our missing collars, and he even looks a bit happy when I tell him that I can remove his as well. It’s not as strong a reaction as the others had, but still a reaction. Probably because of said fact with his dislike of his class.
In the end, he agrees to join us under the condition that he doesn’t have to use his magic if he doesn’t want to, and that we get him a new arm. We happily agree and take care of his transport. Late in the evening, we’re back at the Stargazer and introduce the now collarless Greg to the others.
Ronja especially looks horrified when she sees his missing arm and hears the story behind it. She immediately takes him to the Medbay to start his treatment. Apparently, we already have everything she needs to regrow an arm.
On the plus side, Maja and Alex managed to get information about Trix’s whereabouts during their trip to Solitur Transportation’s headquarters. They went in under the guise of looking for one Sara Nelson for recruitment to the military and were quite sad after hearing that she was killed during a pirate attack.
Location: Estriduros Republic; Ugwald System; VS Stargazer
I still don’t know if this is the universe making a joke at my expense or not, but Trix is still aboard the Solina, and they are currently in the Ugwald System. Yes, the Ugwald System, the system where I was kidnapped by pirates…
So here we are, a few days after we picked up Greg, currently cruising along with a fully deployed cloak around the Stargazer, slowly getting closer to the Solina.
“What does the scan say?” I ask Maja and she grins.
“They’re just using electromagnetic shields to protect the ship from debris.”
I mirror her grin. “So we can jump there. Simon, are you sure you’ve got the spell all done?”
Instead of responding, I feel magic emanating from him and a second later he disappears, just to reappear next to me. “I think I’ve got it,” he smirks.
“Good, Alex, please cut all acceleration and keep us steady, that should make it easier for S-57 and Simon’s AI to calculate the coordinates for our return jump.”
“Gotcha, Captain!” Alex hurries for the steering console and sits down to do her job.
I glance back at Maja. “You got us some coordinates?”
“I do. They’ll put you into the engine room as there are good chances that Trix is there.”
Alright, my second jump from ship to ship, even if I’m not the one doing the spell this time. Stupid gravity restriction. I glance at Simon, and he nods. He’s ready.
He closes his eyes and focuses on the spell. Then I feel something intangible getting a hold of me and my Space Sense informs me that I can resist if I want. I don’t resist of course and a few seconds later, we reappear inside the Solina. I guess, I just found out a new facet of my Space Sense…
A few meters away from us stands Trix who looks at us with very wide eyes. The tool she was holding slips out of her grip and lands on the ground with a clang. “Aaaaahhh,” she shouts, and I quickly lift my hands to show her, that we come in peace. That’s how they do it in the movies, right? Showing that they are unarmed.
“Hey Trix, it’s me, Sara.”
She takes a step back and shakes her head. “No, you’re supposed to be dead… How can you be here? Everyone was informed that the Solano was lost, and you and Captain Amal Shan died to the pirates. Does that mean?”
I shake my head, sadness starts to overcome me again. “No, he isn’t… They killed him right before my eyes. I got taken in by the pirates and had to work for them… Due to circumstances, I escaped and now have my own ship. That’s why we’re here…”
I tell her a bit of the same old story and she “oohs” and “ahs” at the right points. In the end, I make her an offer as our engineer and she’s now deep in thought.
A few minutes later, she’s still thinking, and I’m glad that no one has entered the engine room until now. Looks like she’s the only one on shift right now. Finally, she looks back up, ready to answer.
“First of all, I’m glad you’re still alive. We haven’t known each other for long, but you’re still part of the Solitur family… And that’s also one of the reasons why I have to decline your offer. You said that you don’t plan to return… I can’t do that. My whole family works for Solitur Transportation. I’m the third generation here, and even if I’m the only woman here on the ship, I still like it. Also, I can’t leave my parents behind. So yeah, thanks for considering me for your crew, but I can’t accept, I’m sorry.”
I offer her a hand to shake. “Don’t be sorry, if you’re happy, I’d be cruel to pull you away from here. We’ll take our leave then. It was nice seeing you again.”
We shake hands, then I give her one final piece of advice before Simon jumps us back to the Stargazer. “Oh, and please don’t tell anyone that I’m still alive. At least for the next month. Then we should be gone.” I wave her goodbye and Simon triggers the spell.
We arrive back on our ship and tell the others the news. Then I can hear Simon mutter something to Jack. “Why do I feel like a glorified taxi?”
I break down in laughter and the others quickly join in.