Valterion: The Space/Arch? Mage

Chapter 57: Envoy

Location: Dakarti Federation; Gendi System; VS Stargazer

So here I am now. Falsely recognized as an Envoy from the Valterion Family of The Empire. I guess my career as an actress starts now. I mean being an Envoy is still more believable than what happened for real, right? Major Jackson is still on the call with Captain Rogers from the Tilda. I was quite surprised that they sent over a Major, who feels very strong magically speaking. At least upper end of Senior. But I guess it makes sense. I mean I would freak out as well if I suddenly detected a huge quantity of magic.

Major Jackson turns back to me. “Okay, Captain Rogers is ready to meet you. Are you fine with me taking you along for the jump?”

Is he a Space Mage too? But why was there another one panting when they jumped over? “Uhh, yes, I guess. But let me inform my crew real quick. By the way, are you a Space Mage too?”

He nods. “Sure, go ahead and yeah, I recently acquired a Junior Space core. Best decision I’ve ever made let me tell you.” Wow, it’s still weird hearing the big soldier speaking so casually after his sudden 180. I don’t have to type anything to Maja, as she was already listening in, but she decides that now is the right moment to reply.

“The same is happening down here, Sara. They all lowered their weapons and look quite embarrassed. The female leader from the first squad just told me that they’ll leave in the next few minutes, so all is good on our side. Now you just have to convince the Captain. No pressure. We get everything ready for our departure in the meantime. Good luck!”

“Okay, Major Jackson. I’m ready.”

He does a short check with his fellow soldiers as well and then I feel his magic enveloping me. Again, I get the feeling that I can resist if I want, but I don’t. We disappear. A fraction of a second later, I find myself in a closed room, about five meters squared. The walls are blank metal, and the room is completely empty. I feel a slight dose of magic in the air, but it’s much less than on the Stargazer. Major Jackson and his two subordinates appear around me and the Major taps something on an invisible screen before him. Then one of the walls slides open and shows a hallway beyond. He beckons me to follow him, and I quickly step outside. I raise an eyebrow in question.

He chuckles. “It’s one of our jump rooms on the ship. They are close to important locations, and we are to leave them as soon as possible to make way for future jumps. Just to avoid collisions,” he shrugs. “Well, it shouldn’t matter right now, as we aren’t part of a fleet where people switch ships more often, so there aren’t many jumps. We don’t have that many Space Mages anyway, but it’s hard to shrug off protocol.”

Hmm, it’s quite genius… I mean having a dedicated room that’s always empty as a jump destination enables safe jumps all over. I don’t want to imagine jumping right into another person, ugh… Not everyone has access to Space Sense right away, so that’s a superb substitute.

The Major must have interpreted my silence as a disagreement or something because he is quick to add. “I can understand your confusion. Why would we need something like this if our AIs could just calculate for an empty place on the ship? But let me tell you, compared to what you probably know, ours are way more basic. They are good for navigation and a bit of teleporting around but that’s it.”

Ugh, I hope he doesn’t think of me as a snob or something now. But from what he told me right now, I was Extremely lucky with my Hail Mary jump from the pirate ship back then with S-57 calculating the jump. Who knows what would have happened if the ship wasn’t almost empty? Hmm, I did have Space Sense though, so maybe everything was good?

Anyway, time for another channeling of Actress Sara. “Sorry Major, it’s just hard to wrap my head around such things sometimes. I mean we weren’t even supposed to end up here anyway…”

He barks a laugh. “Don’t be sorry, it’s just what it is. You can’t help it anyway.” He points at another door before us. It looks heavily reinforced. “That’s the bridge by the way. Unfortunately, I can’t let you inside. But the door right next to it is your destination. The Captain’s office. He should be already waiting for you. If we don’t see each other again, I wish you a nice trip back home.”

He actually salutes me. Right fist to the heart and a slight bow of the head. I can’t help myself and return the salute. “Thanks, Major, see you!”

I turn around and knock at the indicated door. “Come in!” The voice of Captain Rogers sounds through the door, and it starts sliding open. I turn my head quickly and give a short last nod to Major Jackson, then I step through into the Captain’s office.

I’ve only seen his head before but holy smokes, this man is packed! He could easily replace any bouncer at even the toughest of establishments. His big arms are almost too large to fit into his dark green uniform with golden stars on his shoulders. Maybe it’s a customized design to fit him? His brown eyes study me intensely, but the earlier hostility is completely gone.

“Please sit down,” he points at a grav chair opposite him, and I comply.

“Sorry for making such a fuss with our arrival, Captain.”

He waves me off, even showing a small smile. “Ahh, don’t worry. It was a good training exercise for my crew. Now, I’ve been told that not only are you on a mission for the Valterion Ducal family, but you’re also a Valterion yourself?” He continues to mumble under his breath, clearly not intending for me to hear. “I should have known with the hair…”

He clears his throat. “Anyway, what I’m meaning to ask is why did you introduce yourself as Valtron? Even if it’s meant to disguise yourself, it’s pretty weak, you know? It’s almost the same name.”

I grimace a bit. “Yeah well, first of all, Sara Valterion at your service!” I offer him my hand to shake, which he quickly does. His large black hand completely swallowing mine. “As for the name… It was a last-minute white lie; you see your ship is pretty intimidating up close and we just escaped a Cruiser of the republic that was chasing us through the wormhole. We didn’t know in what kind of nation we ended up here and if you even know about The Empire. The republic doesn’t from what I managed to grab from their networks. Me telling my name to Major Jackson was my last Hail Mary when he got very nervous about the high magical density on the Stargazer.”

Captain Rogers nods slowly. “Okay, that explains that at least. But why don’t you know? I mean you should have been briefed about where you are sent to, right?”

I manage a chuckle. “Yeah, that’s the next issue…” Man, it’s very hard to spin that tale… I really should look into acting jobs. “You see, our original mission was nowhere close to this section of the galaxy. We were traveling through a wormhole in the Starseeker Kingdom when it suddenly collapsed.” Thanks, Miss Baker for the name of that nation.

“My best guess is that an asteroid collided with one of the wormhole rings, but I don’t know for sure… Anyway, thanks to the fast reaction of my AI and crew, we managed to stabilize somewhat in hyperspace, and we exited through the deployment of a strong gravitational anchor. You can guess where we ended up.”

He snorts. “Right in the Estriduros Republic.”

I nod. “Bingo! Then we learned about the treatment of Mages there and decided to leave as soon as possible. And now we’re here, searching for a way home. We found out about the war between your two nations, but not the reason for it. But from what I’ve seen so far, it’s the good old difference in ideologies, right?”

I let out a long breath. I hope that was enough bullshitting now. I don’t know if I can spin the tale further… It’s just a matter of time till I mess something up.

“Oh my,” he leans back in his chair. “That’s not even close to what I expected of the day when I got up this morning… Getting lost in a wormhole… I can’t imagine one of our Mages would manage to save themselves. Your crew and you must be quite exceptional. But coming back to the war, you are right, of course. We want to free the republic’s Mages, while their government wants to enslave ours.”

He scratches his chin, focusing on my face again. “Now that you are here in the federation, you have nothing to fear anymore, and I can have the Tilda’s AI calculate the best route to your home if you want.”

“That would be great, thanks. We’re pretty much lost here. We planned to look for it ourselves on the planet but getting it from you right now would be way more convenient.”

“I can imagine. Just one more thing. I plan to give you diplomatic codes so that you can avoid further inspections here in our nation and a few of our allies along your route. But before that, I need you to confirm your identity. I’m sorry, even if you have the looks, it could still be faked, and protocol dictates to always have verification before giving out codes for foreign Envoys.”

I shake my head, smiling. “Oh, don’t worry, no need to justify yourself. I completely understand. I mean I would be suspicious of myself as well if I were in your shoes. Just let me call my crew real quick and they’ll send it over.”

I hope what I have in mind will be enough, otherwise, I’m screwed. I can’t believe I stayed so composed right now, holy smokes…

He leans to the right to grab a tablet. “Alright, you can use the tablet to use the Tilda’s communication suite to make your call.”

I hold up my hands. “No need, Captain. I’ve got it.”

He raises an eyebrow in question, and I quickly connect my cores to power up my Utility core. I deliberately let a bit of the magic slip into the environment. Now I get to see if he’s a Mage as well. If so, he must be either very weak, which I doubt, or he’s got superb control of his magical aura as I can’t feel a single thing from him. He twitches a bit, then he nods in understanding. Ahh, there it is, gotcha!

I let the connection dissolve again and focus on the Communication spell. Once it settles in, I connect my cores again and trigger the spell. I’m fast enough to do it in seconds now, so he didn’t notice the short delay. I reach out and find Jack over at the Stargazer and form a connection. My fellow Utility Mage is way easier to connect to and shines like a beacon to my magic.

“Jack?” I call out into the spell and a second later he replies.

“Sara, is that you? Are you alright? The others start to get worried. You’ve been gone for a while.”

“Yeah, I’m alright. I’ll be back soon as well. Tell Maja I’ll be probably teleporting back, she knows what to do. And have her send over the files that confirm my identity as Sara Valterion, please. Captain Rogers needs a verification so that he can give us diplomatic codes which should help us avoid situations like this in the future.”

Jack starts to laugh. “Of course, you would manage to get something like this! Hang on, I’ll go talk to her.”

He is silent for a minute then comes back to me. “Okay, she said, she’ll send the files over. You’ve got anything else?”

“No, thanks, Jack. See you later!”

“Alright, see you.” He cuts the connection and I focus back on the Captain.

“The files should be on the way to you.”

He nods, staring at empty air. “Yes, I’ve already got it, thanks. Looks like everything checks out. Thanks for your understanding, Envoy. Do you have something where I can send your codes to, or should I send them back to your ship? Also, quite impressive to already have dual cores at your young age.”

“Oh, you can call me Sara,” I smile. “And you can send the codes and the route directly to my interface if you have them already. One sec, let me open a connection.”

I tap the menu button on the right side of my interface and then proceed to open up a wireless access point. “There, it’s open. And speaking of cores, yeah that’s another special thing of me… You see, I’m only a Novice in Space magic, so I’ll need a gravity-free room later to jump back.” I grimace.

The man starts to laugh. “Oh, that’s a relief… Don’t get me wrong, I can imagine the annoyance of being a Novice, but it’s also extremely reassuring for me. I was afraid the whole time that I almost blew up a scion of the main Valterion line. But you being only a Novice puts you into one of the branch families. No offense, right?”

Oh wow, that was quite the insult, right? But on the other hand, it’s also pretty much the first confirmation I have about my position in the Valterion family. Not that I had any dreams of being the kid of the Duke and Duchess anyway, I mean my parents died on that freighter. Or maybe that was another secret diplomatic mission, and I was born during it? Who knows?

Anyway, I decide to let my actress persona slide the insult and only grimace a bit more. “Non taken, Captain, but be aware that not all of the other Valterions are so chill. Now are we finished? I fear my crew is starting to miss me.”

The Captain blanches a bit. At least he now realizes what he said… “Ugh, sorry. Yes, we’re finished. Come, I lead you back to the jump room. We can deactivate gravity in there.

He stands up hastily and a wave of his hand opens the door. I follow him outside and we walk side by side toward the same jump room I entered the ship through. “Alright, Envoy, I hope you’ll find your way home soon and I’d be very glad if you have the one or other good word about the federation.” He salutes me just like Major Jackson before, and then gravity turns off.

“Thank you, Captain Rogers. I’ll see what I can do. Goodbye!”

With that, I channel my magic into the Personal Teleportation spell and disappear from the DFS Tilda.