glance around the workshop. All the equipment looked relatively standard. “Nothing that I can check quickly,” he told her. “I’ll need a few hours to get used to the gear and the setup before I do much of anything, but you said we have a few days?”
“We do,” she confirmed. “Enough of the crew is living aboard that we need to rotate the ribs during the night, so we can only load for one of Sherwood Prime’s twelve hour shifts each day. Even with all of their gear, it takes two full shifts to attach three hundred ten thousand ton containers to the keel.”
“That’ll give me time to review the gear, and go over the ship’s rune matrix,” Damien told her. He had never had a chance to inspect the rune matrix of a jump ship in detail before. He saw and identified power flows and purposes better than any other Mage he knew, but it still took time to examine as complex a spell as a jump matrix.
“Speaking of which,” Jenna gestured carefully towards the simulacrum chamber. “The rest of your Sanctum awaits you.”
Damien did n’t wait for her to catch up with him once he’d kicked off, and touched the panel next to the hatch. It slid gently open, and he slipped into the only space from which he would be able to jump the ship.
The same runes that coated the room on the outside were visible on the interior as well, continuing up onto the roof and the floor and coating the room on all sides. The inlaid silver runes stood out against the thousands of tiny optical diodes around them that projected the image of the outside of the ship. Right now, Damien saw the docking arms and the base of the hub of Sherwood Prime, but beneath him fell away the black of space, and if he looked carefully up and to the side, Sherwood itself was visible past the bulk of the space station.
In the exact center of the room, unsupported yet utterly incapable of moving from that position, was the simulacrum. Forged by magic from molten silver when the ship was built, it exactly mirrored every part of the ship’s exterior. The Blue Jay ’s four ribs rotated around. Her forward radiation shield still showed the damage where the last repairs were being done. Damien drifted, unthinking, to the model – exactly one-thousandth the size of the ship itself, catching himself on the immobile engines. His hands on the simulacrum, he felt the ship, and with the screens around him, he saw what the Blue Jay saw.
“This place is always awe-inspiring to me,” Jenna said quietly from the edge of the room, and Damien glanced up from the impossibly perfect model of the ship to look at her. “I don’t understand any of how what you do works, but this room… this is the key to the stars.”
“That was the Compact,” Damien half-whispered, reveling in the power pulsing around him. “Peace between Mage and Mundane, between Mars and Earth… and in exchange, we gave you the stars.”
#
“How’s the firewood loading going?”
Captain David Rice turned around, carefully, in the bridge’s zero-gravity to face his executive officer.
“I think the company paying for a million tons of premium hardwood would be … displeased if it was used as firewood,” he observed drily. “Or were you referring to the forty-five containers of luxury furniture made from said hardwood?”
Jenna shrugged, grabbing a handhold and positioning herself to review the video screen Rice was watching. On it, the dozens of manipulator arms of a major docking station were carefully maneuvering the Protectorate’s standard ten meter by twenty meter by fifty meter; ten thousand ton rated mass; cargo containers onto the Blue Jay ’s keel.
“Did you follow up on the secondaries?” he asked her.
“Yep,” she confirmed. “Corinthian is just major enough that people are shipping there, and just minor enough that no one has shipped out for two months.”
There were dozens of cargos to be shipped between the worlds under the protection of the Mage-King of Mars, but
“We do,” she confirmed. “Enough of the crew is living aboard that we need to rotate the ribs during the night, so we can only load for one of Sherwood Prime’s twelve hour shifts each day. Even with all of their gear, it takes two full shifts to attach three hundred ten thousand ton containers to the keel.”
“That’ll give me time to review the gear, and go over the ship’s rune matrix,” Damien told her. He had never had a chance to inspect the rune matrix of a jump ship in detail before. He saw and identified power flows and purposes better than any other Mage he knew, but it still took time to examine as complex a spell as a jump matrix.
“Speaking of which,” Jenna gestured carefully towards the simulacrum chamber. “The rest of your Sanctum awaits you.”
Damien did n’t wait for her to catch up with him once he’d kicked off, and touched the panel next to the hatch. It slid gently open, and he slipped into the only space from which he would be able to jump the ship.
The same runes that coated the room on the outside were visible on the interior as well, continuing up onto the roof and the floor and coating the room on all sides. The inlaid silver runes stood out against the thousands of tiny optical diodes around them that projected the image of the outside of the ship. Right now, Damien saw the docking arms and the base of the hub of Sherwood Prime, but beneath him fell away the black of space, and if he looked carefully up and to the side, Sherwood itself was visible past the bulk of the space station.
In the exact center of the room, unsupported yet utterly incapable of moving from that position, was the simulacrum. Forged by magic from molten silver when the ship was built, it exactly mirrored every part of the ship’s exterior. The Blue Jay ’s four ribs rotated around. Her forward radiation shield still showed the damage where the last repairs were being done. Damien drifted, unthinking, to the model – exactly one-thousandth the size of the ship itself, catching himself on the immobile engines. His hands on the simulacrum, he felt the ship, and with the screens around him, he saw what the Blue Jay saw.
“This place is always awe-inspiring to me,” Jenna said quietly from the edge of the room, and Damien glanced up from the impossibly perfect model of the ship to look at her. “I don’t understand any of how what you do works, but this room… this is the key to the stars.”
“That was the Compact,” Damien half-whispered, reveling in the power pulsing around him. “Peace between Mage and Mundane, between Mars and Earth… and in exchange, we gave you the stars.”
#
“How’s the firewood loading going?”
Captain David Rice turned around, carefully, in the bridge’s zero-gravity to face his executive officer.
“I think the company paying for a million tons of premium hardwood would be … displeased if it was used as firewood,” he observed drily. “Or were you referring to the forty-five containers of luxury furniture made from said hardwood?”
Jenna shrugged, grabbing a handhold and positioning herself to review the video screen Rice was watching. On it, the dozens of manipulator arms of a major docking station were carefully maneuvering the Protectorate’s standard ten meter by twenty meter by fifty meter; ten thousand ton rated mass; cargo containers onto the Blue Jay ’s keel.
“Did you follow up on the secondaries?” he asked her.
“Yep,” she confirmed. “Corinthian is just major enough that people are shipping there, and just minor enough that no one has shipped out for two months.”
There were dozens of cargos to be shipped between the worlds under the protection of the Mage-King of Mars, but
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