Low Flyer, page 1
Low Flyer
Black Ocean: Mirth & Mayhem, Mission 2
J. S. Morin
Magical Scrivener Press
Copyright © 2020 J.S. Morin
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
Magical Scrivener Press
20051 Colgate Circle
Huntington Beach, CA 92646
www.magicalscrivener.com
Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.
Ordering Information: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address above.
J.S. Morin — First Edition
ISBN: 978-1-64355-124-1
Printed in the United States of America
Low Flyer
Three of diamonds, ace of clubs, jack of clubs, nine of diamonds. Mort plucked the ace and jack from between the two matching diamonds and discarded them. The three and nine remained. Since they didn’t match in number and were the final remaining cards from the original deck of fifty-two, he’d lost again.
With a resigned sigh, the wizard collected the discard pile and started shuffling anew.
Eighteen days.
It had been eighteen days since the last time he’d used magic. Eighteen days since making Chuck a promise not to endanger his ship and family. Eighteen days adrift in the pauper’s lane of the astral, limping along at the behest of a star-drive coaxed into gentle service for lack of hurry in arriving at their destination.
From his two spots on the ship—the bottom bunk in his shared quarters with Brad and the rightmost seat of the living room couch—Mort had begun to come to a better understanding of the family he’d become a guest of.
The youngest two, Michael and Rhiannon, were inseparable; much closer than Cassandra and Cedric had ever been at the same ages. They played with blocks and dolls, colored on the same reusable techno-paper, and co-hosted tea parties to which he was thankfully not invited.
The eldest pair, Chuck and Becky, were oddly anachronistic, embracing every modern technology but clinging to an ethos that had been dead half a millennium. Mort had tried listening carefully to the mangled lyrics croaked out by their ancient idols and deduced a simplistic worldview revolving around carefree living and frequent copulation. Based on the amount of time the pair spent indiscreetly putting their philosophy into practice behind thin metal doors, they were lucky to only have the four children.
Absent since before his arrival, the mysterious Jamie was a mythic creature in the family unit. Mort hadn’t even been able to suss out the name of the vessel she served on. His only clues indicating she had a low-ranking shipboard job in the uncaring military machine that was Earth Navy came from the most interesting of the bunch.
Brad was being wasted on this ship.
The boy possessed a practical sort of plebeian genius. Oh, Mort had realized quickly enough that the boy wasn’t wizard material as he’d originally hoped. A shame, really. Had someone gotten to him younger, Brad Ramsey might have joined the order of Morpheus. He possessed a natural shrewdness rivaled only by his inability to apply it to anything but trouble.
Still, he was the closest thing to proper entertainment the starship Radio City supplied.
In an alchemical mixture of blessings, the boy was presently unavailable to keep Mort’s mind off his mystic abstinence. However, that was because the star-drive had powered down and they were preparing to land.
Chuck and Becky were amorously occupied in their quarters, trying without success to drown out their marital wrestling with the dulcet tones of what Mort had come to understand was called Bad Company. Apparently, nobody on Carson cared that a boy was piloting them in for a landing.
Or Brad was planning not to let anyone in on his identity.
Tucking the deck of cards into its plastic sleeve and placing it in his pocket, Mort felt himself compelled to head into the cockpit to make certain they weren’t making a fatal error in judgment.
“I see the star-drive’s performing to the best of its paltry abilities,” he commented by way of greeting, grabbing hold of the co-pilot’s headrest as a muddy brown planet rushed up at them. While he trusted the Radio City’s gravity stone to prevent his body from being tossed about the ship by the boy’s jerky maneuvering, his eyes and inner ear whispered lies and threats aplenty to his mortal flesh.
“Hey, Mort,” Brad replied brightly. “Grab some seat and watch a pro fly.”
Mort took the suggestion, though he maintained an air of skepticism. “Your parents pay you to pilot?”
“No.”
“Then in what way are you a professional?”
This flummoxed the boy only briefly. “Pro bono for a valued client.”
Mort wondered where the boy had picked up a smattering of Latin but suspected he didn’t even know it as anything but obscure English. “You know where we’re headed?”
The boy cast Mort a peripheral glare. “Yeah. Hey, since you’re up here, can you do me a favor?”
“Not without knowing what I’m agreeing to,” Mort stated firmly in reply. The begging of favors was a dangerous precedent with wizards. Break one Sumerian Death Seal for an old acquaintance, and soon enough they’d be lined up for days with every persnickety charm and cursed amulet they could lay hands on.
“I may be almost thirteen, but my voice hasn’t gotten deep yet. You mind talking to orbital control for me?”
Mort straightened in his seat. “No one’s ever wanted me within shouting distance of a star traffic authority before…”
“It’s fine. I’ll tap it out. You just read from the screen. You can read computers, right?”
The wizard narrowed his eyes. “In what language?” The less he knew of science, the better. If scientists had their own private computer language, Mort refused to so much as consider learning it.
“English. Duh.”
Mort harrumphed. “I’ll have you know that literacy in my native tongue is the least of my considerable talents.”
Brad had already begun tapping. Sparing a moment from the controls with both hands, he pointed out the screen where words began appearing.
“And… Go!” Brad flicked a switch, and a faint background static suggested an audience with some malevolent technological spirit.
Clearing his throat, Mort played the role of holovid newsreader. “Carson orbital control, this is the Radio City. Two words. We’ll be landing in a couple minutes and I just wanted you to know that Brad Ramsey is smarter than me—” He blinked and reread the words without repeating them. “What the—?”
Youthful laughter, cackling and gleeful, overcame the ship’s pilot. “Oh, man. I didn’t think I’d get you to read the whole thing.”
“Is there even anyone listening to us?” Mort demanded.
“There’s no orbital control on Carson.”
Mort wagged a finger. Brad might not have been his boy, but he wouldn’t condone clever little evasions—especially not after the prank he’d just fallen victim to. “You didn’t answer my question.”
Hooking a finger back toward the body of the ship. “Just them.”
“Heyo,” Chuck called out with a wave when Mort looked behind him. The comedian and his wife had emerged from their quarters. Becky was barefoot, wearing a simple frock and working on braiding her hair. Chuck had paused midway through buttoning up his shirt to wave. Both were flush-faced. “Don’t sweat it. Brad’s gotten me with that one a couple times.”
A rumble in the ship accompanied a sheet of flame splattering across the forward shields. They’d entered Carson’s atmosphere. Soon, they’d be on the ground. By the lack of glittering cities and vast swaths of dun-colored landmass, it was a backwater of a colony.
Perhaps sensing his disdain, Chuck clapped a hand on Mort’s back. “You’ll love it here. I doubt there’s a scientist on the whole planet.”
Mort snorted softly. Whether they accepted the title from their peers or not, all non-wizards were scientists. They were the laity of the religion of technology. Once again, Mort was going to be planetside among heathens.
And yet, with the prospect of exercising his magic again, he couldn’t even lie to himself that he wasn’t looking forward to walking around on Carson.
This was his life now.
The Radio City handled like a grav sled rented from a scrapyard, the kind where they squeezed a few terras out of a break-even sale by refusing to help haul away a purchase. The maneuvering thrusters imbalanced, resulting in a pull to the left that didn’t quite compensate for the irregular aerodynamic panel on the right side of the hull.
Brad took it all in stride with hardly a care in the world. He was at the controls of a starship.
Two years ago, the last time the Ramseys had come to Carson Colony, Dad still wouldn’t let him land planetside. How many of his friends could boast of handling a real shi
Their old landing site loomed ever larger out the front window. Brad switched from navigating by planetary coordinates and used his eyes to guide them to the ground. Dust-blown and flattened by years of traffic, the individual spots were marked by nothing but tall poles bearing a floodlight each, shining down on a zone roughly sized for a mid-sized personal interstellar craft.
The Radio City took a swoop past the parking yard, angling up on one side to give Brad a primo view of the neighbors.
Most of the ships he knew from past visits.
The Comet Runner 9 with the patchy black tint job belonged to the Gomezes. The long, sleek Haidu Interceptor with the mismatched, aftermarket blaster cannons was owned—possibly not legally—by Dad’s friend Cobra. The Mistledales were on Carson, as evidenced by their blocky green frog of a TransGalactica courtesy shuttle, bought at auction after the starliner switched to a newer model.
A couple new and unfamiliar vessels mixed in, but for the most part, Brad knew the story of every ship down there. He’d played cards and roasted marshmallows with these people, eaten their barbecue ribs, and listened to their drunken stories. Few of them would be described by society at large as “good people,” but they were friends of the family.
When Brad spotted the faded red of the starship Fragaria, he pulled in for a landing beside it.
There wasn’t a good spot in between the Fragaria and the adjacent Soul-Shredder. Both pilots had edged over toward the middle space, an old trick designed to discourage anyone from parking there and giving both a bit of undeserved extra room to breathe.
Brad wedged the Radio City into place like an ancient stone mason fitting the keystone of a bridge.
They touched down with an audible thud of landing gear.
Behind him, Mort grunted. “Gravity stone could still use a little work.”
“Sure. Whatever,” Brad replied absently as he squirmed his way past the wizard. After weeks in astral space with the guy, the novelty of having a wizard on the ship had worn off. Yeah, it was still smooth, technically. But once Mom and Dad put the kibosh on using magic mid-flight, the remaining appeal was limited.
Nothing compared to seeing his friends.
Brad raced through the Radio City, dodging parents and hopping over a pile of Plug’Em Blocks that Rhi was probably too young to be playing with. He blurted his itinerary in the hope of finishing it and exiting the vessel before anyone in authority could get a word in edgewise. “Off-to-see-Martin-and-Blake-and-the-guys-Be-back-in-time-for—ERP!”
The latter came as Dad caught him by the back of the collar and halted his forward progress. “Hold on just a sec, sport,” Dad said casually. “Remember, we’re here to let the heat die down back core-wards. Whatever you do, remember to fly low and keep under the scanners. Got it?”
With his feet back beneath him and the pressure from his own shirt easing up on his neck, Brad was able to reply, “Is that what you do?”
“Damn right, that’s what I do,” Dad replied, missing Brad’s sarcasm but not missing a beat. “And what does it mean to fly low?”
With a sigh, Brad recited, “No fights. No involving the cops. No thumb scans. No trouble.”
“And no girls,” Mom added to his surprise. That wasn’t normally on the list of forbidden activities. “Yeah, I see that look on your face. We share a datapad, remember?”
Brad’s cheeks warmed.
What had he left on there that might be incriminating?
Better question: what hadn’t he?
Playing it cool, he shrugged. “No chicks. No problem.”
Mom wasn’t buying it. She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. “Play it mellow all you want, but we’re parked so close to the Fragaria that we might owe them a new tint job.”
“So…?” Brad replied with a swallow as he backed toward the boarding stairs and weighed his chances of an escape.
“So, not to be a downer, but I expect you to keep your hands farther from Anji Williams than you parked us from her parents’ ship. You dig?”
Brad sought moral support, locking gazes with his dad and even checking for wizardly interest back in the direction of the cockpit. Strikeout. He huffed a sigh. After all, what was a promise worth? “Yeah. I dig it.”
“Go on,” Mom shooed him. “Have a blast with your friends.”
Brad didn’t need to be told twice. As soon as the stairs finished unfolding, he was on solid ground. The Carson air was dry and crusty, but it reminded him of good times. On the north side of the parking zone, the mid-tier colony city of Seca Mesa. Brad headed the opposite way, racing down a trampled dirt path that ran up and over a low ridge.
At the crest, he paused to wave. A festive campfire burned at the center of a cluster of tents, barbecue smokers, and picnic tables. Distant figures, too tiny to identify, enjoyed the folksy festivities. Scents of woodsmoke, grilled meats, and beer floated on the wind.
“Hey, guys! I’m back!”
A wooden deck swayed gently beneath slippered feet. Pao Wenling stood at the railing of the USS Constitution, the oldest water vessel in the known galaxy, clutching a silver urn. The wooden sailing ship waddled out into Boston Harbor, crewed by an honor guard from Earth Navy. Canvas sails snapped taut in a brisk wind, hauling the creaking assemblage of rope and wooden planks across the water’s surface.
Unlike many technological devices, Wenling held a basic understanding of how the ship worked. The wooden hull was crafted in a shape that repelled elemental water; sails yoked the wind like a farmer taming his oxen. If only more modern conveyances could operate so straightforwardly.
Joining her at the railing of the vessel, four other wizards held similar urns. The only difference from one to the next was the name engraved into each. Wenling carried the ashes of one Eloise Burnbaum, heretofore one of her enforcement staff on Orion IV and second-highest ranking of the deceased wizards from that ill-fated ambush who’d been native to Earth.
Whether it saved her face or buoyed that crusty bureaucrat above her, Wenling was glad that Bertram had taken the lead in performing the ceremony.
“And now, we commend these mortal remains to the care of Poseidon and bid farewell as the spirits of the departed journey to Elysium.” With that, the First Chair of the Convocation’s Grand Council extended his arms and released the silver urn from his grasp.
In a choreographed sequence, Wenling and the others among the first five chairs of the Grand Council released theirs as well. A quick series of splashes, and the urns disappeared beneath the dark, choppy waters of the bay.
Idly, Wenling wondered how many urns lay along the sea floor. Hundreds, certainly. Perhaps thousands. It had been centuries since Earth Parliament had ended the special dispensation for cemetery burial when it came to the Convocation. The Atlantic wasn’t as secure a resting place, but when Bertram had invoked Poseidon, it was a metaphor. Wards inscribed inside the urns would protect them against grave robbers. She almost hoped someone attempted such a desecration. Wizard Eloise might appreciate one last opportunity to enforce justice on someone deserving.
Not that her last attempt had been glorious.
The scene on Orion IV had been holographed and presented to the Grand Council.
The willpower it must have taken to overpower so many trained wizards…
The council had demeaned the crew cobbled together for that sloppy attempt to capture Mordecai The Brown. And fairness would have granted that they were not an ideal strike force. But sheer numbers ought to have been sufficient. It was a time-honored tradition around graduation for prep-school debate teams to take on their adviser. Six skilled high-school seniors against a seasoned wizard was considered roughly even footing.
But this was no high-school bowling alley. And six of the eight dead operatives were full-fledged wizards of the Convocation.
Two scenarios stood out as most probable in Wenling’s thoughts as she let her gaze linger on the water’s surface. The most likely was that Mordecai had enlisted allies. Curmudgeonly as his grandfather, he’d pet a lion’s fur backward just to prove he didn’t care for its opinion on the matter. Yet power had a charisma all its own. And it wasn’t as if there might not be dark wizards aplenty whose identities might be known to the Guardian of the Plundered Tomes and withheld in case of just such an emergency.
