Fleet Mage: Star Sorceress: Book Three, page 1
Fleet Mage
Star Sorceress: Book Three
Author: D. L. Harrison
Copyright 2024. This is a work of fiction. Names, Characters, Places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission.
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Afterword:
About the Author
Other books by D. L. Harrison:
Book Description
Chapter One
It was a hot day out at the advanced spell range that first Saturday morning after the start of first term. The hot summer’s temperature holding on for a little longer, a haze of sweltering heat rising off the ground in the large dirt field that was scarred with destruction. The upper classmen all turned in surprise to see second year cadets approaching the line.
Ashley couldn’t help the smile, as she admitted to herself that she’d been looking forward to this moment all summer long, ever since she’d broken two hundred and twenty five Solis potential. Earlier that week she’d been told she was at two hundred and ninety-five, and still on track to be in the high three hundreds by the end of the first semester, which meant she’d be maximizing her Solis potential two years before the rest of her year.
True, she was capable of much more profound destruction using her inborn spells, but she wasn’t allowed to use those on a planet’s surface. Which was reasonable, you didn’t take nuclear weapons to a gun fight either.
Regardless, she could cast the more advanced spells now, and she’d wanted to get a feel for them. Officially they wouldn’t be taken out to this range until their third year, which is why they were out there on a Saturday morning on their own time, before their first trip into the city.
She cast the first standard fleet advanced spell, area blast, which had close to the same effect as a fragmentation grenade using a combination of fire, sever, and blunt force magic. It was also two hundred and twenty-five Solis. The explosion sent a plume of dirt and dust into the air, anything within ten feet of it not shielded would be shredded and pulped, and the effective kill radius was twenty feet. She cast it a few more times, just to get a feel for the timing and how it worked.
The world slowed down around her slightly, at the adrenaline rush of it. That spell would’ve come in handy several times in her first year. Ironically, she didn’t imagine she’d need it this year, as Harbinger, or what was left of it, had gone inactive and were hiding. They’d feared she would destroy them, so had come after her hard, but ironically, it’d been the new ships based on her genetic magic spells that had seen that end arrive sooner than she’d had reason to hope.
It also wasn’t a spell she’d ever use aboard a ship, all of the advanced multiple target spells through multi-targeting or area of effect were meant for ground battle, and even then only when facing a large force. They were also killing spells, meant for war.
The second spell she cast was called burst shot. It was a multi-target spell as opposed to an area affect, and also two hundred and twenty-five Solis. It also had the advantage of being a precision tactical spell, and it could be used in a situation where enemy soldiers held hostages or were in a civilian crowd.
The bright ball of incandescent light rose above the field, and it fired twenty incandescent darts at twenty large rocks she’d chosen as targets while casting. The rocks all cracked, releasing a booming sound that washed over them. The spell was similar to sever in effect, but instead of a long line of slightly curved light, it was a pinpoint dart that would cut in a lot deeper, even into bone.
It was also worth noting at over two hundred Solis, they were spells that couldn’t be cast at power level two save by a handful of mages that had broken that typical bell curve of three twenty-five to three seventy-five most of the fleet mages fell in. But really, level one was devastating enough.
She cast that one several times as well, and given the looks on the upper-classmen she suspected her little Saturday morning jaunt to the advanced spell range was going to be all over the school before they got back from the city that night.
Those two spells were the only advanced anti-personnel spells.
The third spell wasn’t meant to be used on people, and it was against the law and the rules of engagement to do so. The penetration buster spell was two hundred and sixty-three Solis, and it would destroy unshielded ground vehicles and shuttles.
Well, so would a basic blunt force spell, at power level twenty which was only a hundred Solis. But blunt force had a relatively short range and could be dodged, and shuttles and assault vehicles moved fast. Penetration Buster had a much greater range, could take out a vehicle or shuttle miles away, and it tracked the target so was impossible to dodge like the blunt force spell could be. The only defense were shields of at least level ten. Both of those enhancements raised the Solis difficulty of the spell quite a bit. The boulder she hit with it was turned to rubble, as the spell penetrated deeply and then exploded with force in all directions.
It was pretty clear to her she’d done well in battle last year, but that none of the mages she’d faced had her true potential or were the cream of the mage crop. They were stronger than her in her first year at the academy, but if they’d been strong enough for the advanced spells, she didn’t think she’d have survived as handily. Not without her sorceress powers, at any rate.
The fourth advanced spell was thaums burst, which would simply rip apart any magic spell in its way. That was two hundred and five Solis. It was meant for use in taking down shield domes or walls, but it could also strip a person of their shield. It was a pure stream of magic, and not unlike the idea of a large wave knocking down a sandcastle on the beach. The Thaums that formed the spells were washed away in the strong and powerful flow of the spell. The spell could be resisted, but only by a level twenty-one shield or a level seven shield dome or wall, which had a higher Solis level and therefore a higher concentration of Thaums.
The fifth spell she tried out that morning was one of her own design, and this was the first time she was using it, because it hadn’t been safe to try it anywhere else. If it worked, she’d submit it for approval and licensing. She’d named it the Judas field.
“You have those weapons?”
Daniel said, “Yep,” as he reached into his bag and started to toss grenades and small rockets around the field out there with telekinesis. The pins were still in the grenades, and the rocket launchers were safety engaged. It’d taken some fast talking on Wednesday to get Cahill to sign off on them pulling them out of supply.
She took a deep breath, then raised a wall shield, which definitely got the attention of the upper classmen as they looked to see what the crazy second years were up to.
She cast the Judas field spell which swept across the field in a ten-meter long and high foot thick wave, and as soon as it touched the grenades or rocket launchers, they immediately went off, exploding and sending dirt and dust up into the air. Some shrapnel did hit the shield wall. The spell was a little over a hundred Solis.
Stacy asked, “That’s cool and all, turning their weapons against them, but why not just use multi-shot or area blast?”
She nodded, “It will work on real bullets and larger missiles as well. It’s only half the Solis and it can have a much greater area of effect by using their ordinance for the damage, rather than spell power. Plus, you could use it on a ship or space station to disarm and take down a large invasion force, and those spells are ground warfare only. You could also use it to sweep a minefield clear, which works better than stepping on the mines personally.
“It’s a quick mop up spell, after taking out all the enemy mage support it will either kill the rest of their force, or disarm them so they’re easily captured.”
Stacy snorted, “Nice. I can’t believe you said that with a straight face.”
Her lips twitched, “You mean about being better than stepping on the mines to find them? I thought that a reasonable observation.”
Ella giggled.
Stacy laughed, “Fine.”
She winked.
She cast a control earth spell at level twenty, and then proceeded to fix all the damage in short order, including the stone and small boulder targets she’d destroyed as well as filling in the explosion craters. It wasn’t a rule, but it was courteous to restore the range to how you found it before leaving. It took a couple of minutes, then they headed out.
In third year, they’d be getting new teachers, but for second year they had the same teachers and same three classes Monday through Thursday, just reversed. Fleet operations class was on Monday and Wednesday, while magic spell class and weapons and tactics were on Tuesday’s and Thursdays.
Their new electives were psychology two, thaumatology, and biogenetics. That last one so she could have a better under
Thaumatology was more about the underlying theory, so not at all like magic class which was all about the spells knowledge and concepts, spell schematics, Solis values, and Thaums expended. Magic class for fleet was all practical knowledge. The elective was the theories and underlying principles that made it all work, including exploring where thaums came from, which loosely speaking was another dimension of the universe.
Mages naturally gathered thaums in their body from that dimension, which could be used to power spells, while the thaums regeneration spell increased the speed and breadth of that absorption. At least, that was the prevailing theory of the age, as such a dimension hadn’t been explored or proven outside of the thaums regeneration spell working. The spell wouldn’t work, if the underpinning concept was wrong. There was still plenty they didn’t understand about it all, but they had a general idea of the underpinnings of the biotechnology.
Time passed quickly for her, as she dove into the workload, deepened her connections with her inner circle of friends, enjoyed time with her other friends, and ignored her detractors. Other than silly angst which she didn’t allow to poison her, the rest of her time at the academy wasn’t all that different than anyone else’s without people trying to kill her all the time. Surprisingly peaceful, gloriously challenging, and she loved it.
The only other surprise her bioengineered existence had for her, as her brain development crossed that threshold in the middle of last year, was mastering spells.
It was only two weeks into her second year, when at the range her basic spells came together. She was rapidly firing blunt force, sever, shield, detect magic, and even shield dome and wall. A full year and a few months sooner than the rest of the cadets in her year. It availed her little, save increasing her notoriety and infamy in her year depending on the peer, especially since she’d be joining the flight club this year, so she wouldn’t be using it to give herself even more of an edge in the competition.
She’d also mastered her own spells. The cleaning spell and contraception spell.
It also kind of made sense to her, all her advantages that way were due to the incredible focus her mind was capable of, not just in intensity but in length of time. It’d increased her Solis advancement threefold, made her build spells incredibly fast, so why not also help her to master spells in half the expected time. A little over a year, instead of just over two years. Relatively speaking it didn’t really help her much, since as had already been said, no one wanted to fight or kill her anymore. By the time such mastered spells were needed to protect herself, all of her peer will have caught up.
It was the middle of that second year when she reached her Solis limit, which was high on the top of the bell curve but not beyond four hundred which only a handful of mages in the Union were capable of. Her permanent Solis limit was three hundred and ninety-seven Solis, which wasn’t bad when considering only a little over two hundred mages in the union exceeded three seventy-five yet fell below four hundred. She was in good company, if not quite the elite handful.
While she finished out the academy, the real world outside moved on too. There were two more worlds in the union, after starting two more colonies, and finding a glut of empty worlds that would be suitable for more. In those three years about a third of the fleets had been replaced, and there was at least one fleet of the new powerful ships protecting each world.
Although that would be the only warship class ship in the fleet, or would be when the refresh was complete, it wasn’t the only ship type. A ship that small couldn’t carry large marine detachments or SAR or combat shuttles, so the carriers retired were undergoing a refit to modernize them. They’d still be needed, for search and rescue operations, ship boarding operations, and landing a large number of troops on the surface. The fighter bays were retired, so that left plenty of room for storage as well, which was used in colonization efforts.
Ironically, the smaller ships were just more powerful, given an equal access to magic potential the old carriers had a lot more real estate to shield, the more that power was spread out, the weaker the shields were. So they were support fleet ships, not warships, even if they were quite capable of taking out a full fleet of old style ships.
Harbinger was quiet those three years, and outside of bluster and normal political double talk and empty threats, the other two interstellar governments did little but race to reach parity, which was only a matter of time. They were no doubt working on their own bioengineered spell enhancements to their ships, but it would take a while. The Union had only taken a little over two years to get there, but they’d had all that test data of her to use as a baseline, while the other governments just had the theories without data. It would take them years longer to make the breakthroughs, and a lot of failed tests on the way.
Tensions were a bit high, but for now there was nothing they could do about it, and the Union seemed disinclined to invade them in return. In that age, there was simply no reason to invade save an ambition to rule all of humanity, which the Union did not have. Recourses of all kinds were simply too plentiful to be arguing about.
It wasn’t all peaches and cream, there were growing pains as well, but for the most part the people of the union were optimistic in this new age of expansion, growth, and possibility. It was probably just a matter of time before things went a little wrong, or maybe a lot, but she’d be there to face it, as would the rest of the fleet.
The din in the dimly lit restaurant was barely noticeable in the romantic atmosphere. The table distances, the white noise and music, dim lighting, and ambience were all designed to ensure privacy. The food was fantastic as well.
It was in her fourth year, during the winter semester break, and it was just her and Crandall that night. Ella and Daniel were off on their own private date, and Stacy was back at the mansion with her own guest. Stacy’s relationship with Brent had ended in their second year, but she’d been dating Victor Winter for the last year and a half. Victor was in another platoon, and that relationship was going as strong as theirs still was.
Crandall said, “You look stunning, tonight.”
She smiled. She knew she looked good, her body as lithely athletic and supple as it was three years ago, with generous breasts. Her face had changed though, she’d never be classically beautiful like Ella was, but her face had thinned some as she lost the vestiges of youth, which had made her more striking.
“Thanks.”
No relationship was perfect, but Crandall was pretty close to perfect in her eyes, and when they did argue it never lasted long. Despite discussing their future and plans often, and what they wanted, it still took her completely by surprise when he stood up, moved around the table, and went to one knee.
Her heart felt like it might explode, as her eyes widened and sparkled, and she felt entirely breathless. They’d talked about it, that to stay together they’d need to be married so fleet would keep them on the same ship, if in different departments and chains of command. They’d spoken about after ten years of service, starting a family and what life would be like for the couple back on Aquarius.
Really, it was all about him, the man he was, and she’d have never imagined this moment when she asked him that very question three years and four months ago. What kind of man he was, well now she knew.
It wasn’t the money, and while she wouldn’t have chosen a marriage with politics involved as her first choice, she could admit she enjoyed the challenge of a political dance just as much as she did a test on the battlefield, and he would be worth that price. Politics tended to simultaneously disgust and fascinate her, and she knew she could fit that role, even if some in that set would look down on her for marrying up.
He looked confident, which in no small part was probably because of how she reacted in that moment. After three years, she was very sure of him, it wasn’t a decision based on fear of separation. If anything, she’d have married him sooner, if it wasn’t against regulations for cadets.
“Ashley, the last three years have been amazing, and I can’t imagine a life without you in it, by my side as long as we both have breath. I love you, will you marry me?”
She said yes in a voice she barely recognized, breathy and overwhelmed, and the tables closest to them clapped while he leaned in and kissed her lightly, as he slipped on a diamond ring. She couldn’t wear it while in uniform, but she’d have it on otherwise.
