Beyond the Eyes of Mars: Starship's Mage Book Twelve Read online

  BEYOND THE EYES OF MARS

  STARSHIP’S MAGE BOOK TWELVE

  GLYNN STEWART

  CONTENTS

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  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

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  Preview: Conviction by Glynn Stewart

  Chapter 1

  Conviction by Glynn Stewart

  About the Author

  Other books by Glynn Stewart

  Beyond the Eyes of Mars © 2022 Glynn Stewart

  Illustration © 2022 Jeff Brown

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to any persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

  Published by Faolan’s Pen Publishing. Faolan's Pen Publishing logo is a trademark of Faolan's Pen Publishing Inc.

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  1

  Sharon Deveraux was dead.

  This was something she still wasn’t entirely comfortable with, though the evidence was hard to argue with. Her brain currently resided in a tank full of nutrients and wires buried deep in the Engineering department of the First Legion interstellar assault transport Ring of Fire.

  She’d been conscious to that concept of her existence and current state for about a year. Her…masters had given her access to the ship’s internal sensors as one of the first things after they’d lifted her from her semi-coma.

  They had direct access to her brain. Pleasure and pain were the push of a button for the people who commanded Sharon, and they used them freely to command her.

  And yet…she’d done the math. She’d spent three years in a coma, only awoken by electronic commands forcing her to cast a single spell. Her body might be long gone, cremated in the morgue of a far away laboratory, but her magic remained.

  For three years, she’d been nothing more than a component in a system that teleported Ring of Fire from star system to star system. But the Legion had needed more, so they’d carefully, oh so carefully, woken her up and trained her.

  And yet she was still dead. But back when she’d been alive, fifteen-year-old Sharon Deveraux had trained puppies. She recognized response-reward training…and eighteen-year-old disembodied brain Sharon Deveraux was determined not to be trained.

  But she had no intention of letting her masters think that. So, she’d begged, sat up and rolled over—and now she had an incredible scope of access to the assault transport’s computer systems.

  “Sharon, do we have a course worked up for Aquila?” Colonel Tzafrir Ajello asked. Ajello was Ring of Fire’s Captain, once an officer of the Republic of Faith and Reason’s Space Assault Force.

  “We do,” she told him. The voice that emerged on Ring’s bridge was computer-generated—Sharon no more had vocal cords than she had hands—and it showed none of Sharon’s thoughts.

  She spoke with the soft contralto of a much older woman, with nothing to the generated voice to remind Ring of Fire’s crew of what horrors lurked in the heart of their engine room.

  “If Lieutenant Zhao keeps us on course as planned, I will teleport us toward Aquila in four hours,” she continued. “We will teleport every twelve hours after that for six days, arriving in Aquila on the sixteenth.”

  “Very well,” Ajello replied. “Zhao, engage on course.”

  The transport shifted in space as her massive fusion engines engaged. The First Legion had no ability to produce antimatter, and their limited stores of antimatter left over from the Republic or stolen from the Protectorate of Mars were restricted to missile production.

  “We’re picking up passengers in Aquila,” Ajello told the bridge crew—and Sharon. She was listening.

  She was always listening. She wasn’t sure anyone on the starship really understood how thoroughly the brain they were using as a cyborg administrative and navigation computer was woven through their systems.

  “Another tranche of workers for the Exeter Fleet Base,” the Colonel continued. “No assault forces for us, not yet. The crew and organic troop complement will be responsible for security and making sure that the workers don’t cause trouble.”

  Even some of the living crew looked uncomfortable at that, but that was how the First Legion worked. Four of the Outer Colonies, worlds that had hidden themselves from Mars and the Mage’s Guild, had been conquered by the Second Independent Cruiser Squadron of the Republic of Faith and Reason—what was now the First Legion.

  The populace of those worlds served the Legion as indentured labor—and much like Sharon Deveraux, they had no choice in the matter.

  She’d been enslaved to the Prometheus Drive for four years now, but the last year, she’d become something different. Still a brain in a jar, she had mental fingers woven through every system of Ring of Fire.

  She was dead. No longer human. She was something new—and she and the other awakened Mage brains that held together the Legion’s empire had chosen the only name that fit.

  Born of the horror of the Republic’s Project Prometheus and bound to the fate of the First Legion, they were now their own people.

  They were Prometheans.

  2

  Whoever had set up the seating plan for the dinner in Commodore Chad Ó Luain’s flag mess appeared to have had it in for Mage-Commander Roslyn Chambers, Captain of the destroyer Voice of the Forgotten.

  Commodore Ó Luain was responsible for security at the Royal Martian Navy’s Legatus refit yard. Tucked well away from the main fleet position and out of sight of the still arguably occupied planet’s populace, the yard still drew on the industrial might of the star system that had led the revolt against Mars.

  Ó Luain’s command was a trio of destroyers and a dozen heavy defensive platforms. It was enough to hold out until the fleet in orbit of Legatus itself could teleport themselves to the rescue of the yard’s facilities and people.

  As a refit-and-repair yard, C
enturion Base didn’t build new ships. It repaired battered existing ones, like Roslyn’s own command. By the end of the first known battle against the First Legion, a remnant of Legatus’s Republic of Faith and Reason, Voice of the Forgotten had been beaten to a pulp.

  It was almost all surface damage, and Centurion Base had quickly settled to work making it right. If the price of that was regular dinners with the Commodore’s officers, Roslyn was more than willing to pay it.

  But tonight, the slim redheaded Tau Cetan Mage had been seated next to Mage-Captain Harriet Beaumont. Beaumont was a gray-haired woman with the unfortunate distinction of being one of the most senior Captains in the Navy.

  There appeared to have been a reason she’d never been promoted past command of a division of barely mobile sublight battle platforms—and why a Mage had been put in command of a force without a single amplifier matrix between them.

  “These young officers today,” Beaumont muttered as the dinner plates were cleared away. “They think that just because they’ve seen a war, that makes up for the years of experience they don’t have.”

  Roslyn, who held the distinction of being among the youngest officers the Royal Martian Navy had ever promoted to Commander in peacetime, held her tongue. The Ruby Medal of Valor she wore, a marker that she’d received the Protectorate’s highest award for valor in combat twice, was a silent reproach to the older woman’s words.

  Unfortunately, Roslyn knew that dessert was still coming and that Commodore Ó Luain would be offended if she left early. That meant she needed to keep her peace until the food arrived.

  “I mean, look at Voice of the Forgotten,” Beaumont continued.

  Roslyn was now very sure the woman was intentionally needling her. She’d grown used to competent and supportive senior officers, but Beaumont was something different.

  “I’m surprised her Captain escaped a Board,” the old woman declared, seemingly aimed at the officer to her right instead of Roslyn at her left…but Roslyn had no illusions she was being addressed. “That level of damage in peacetime against pirates? Only the most inexperienced destroyer Captain would be given that much trouble by a single pirate!”

  “Said ‘pirate’ was a Benjamin-class cruiser,” Roslyn pointed out before she could stop herself. “A First Legion warship, a leftover of the Republic.”

  “We don’t generally expect our ships to stand off a twenty-to-one mass advantage,” Commander Boleslava Ivanova said carefully on the other side of Beaumont. The Earth-born Russian officer reported to Captain Beaumont, though she was only two years older than Roslyn.

  Like Roslyn, she’d served on Second Fleet as Mage-Admiral Her Highness Crown Princess Jane Alexander had smashed her way through the Republic’s resistance. Ivanova had seen war—war against Republican cruisers, at that.

  “Of course we don’t,” Beaumont agreed crisply. “But the rest of Voice’s squadron isn’t here, are they?”

  “My squadron was scattered across half the outer rim, looking for the First Legion raiders,” Roslyn murmured. “We’d landed our Marines on the logistics base and couldn’t leave them.”

  “You expect anyone to believe that you took on a Benjamin with a single refitted destroyer?” Beaumont asked derisively.

  Swallowing a sigh, Roslyn turned to squarely face the woman next to her. Even in the full black dress uniform of the Royal Martian Navy, she still only wore the Ruby Medal of Valor in its entirety.

  She still had a row of ribbons marking a dozen other medals, including a newly designed one that declared that she also held the rank of Lieutenant Colonel of the Royal Martian Marine Corps to go with Mage-Commander of the Royal Martian Navy.

  That dual rank was not yet a tradition of the Protectorate of the Mage-Queen of Mars, but Her Majesty Kiera Alexander had awarded it to Roslyn for the very battle they were discussing.

  “We were lucky. We had advantages they didn’t expect. And we were desperate,” Roslyn said quietly. The fact that a Martian Interstellar Security Service stealth ship had been in-system, providing her with near-real-time data on the Legion cruiser via the FTL Link communicator was still classified.

  “But yes, Mage-Captain Beaumont, that is exactly what happened. We paid for the logistics base our intelligence services are still tearing apart with blood and fire—and I will hear no disrespect to my crew or my dead.”

  “Watch your tongue, Commander,” Beaumont snapped. “You are speaking to a superior officer.”

  A long silence covered their part of the table, and even Commodore Ó Luain seemed to be ignoring it. It seemed that Beaumont knew exactly what she could get away with.

  The silence was broken by an emergency chirp on Roslyn’s wrist-comp. She broke the staring contest with Beaumont to stare at the device for a moment.

  “Did you forget to even silence your comp for this?” Beaumont asked, a gleeful contempt in her voice.

  “Admirals can override that remotely,” Roslyn replied calmly as she read the message. She took a certain degree of pleasure in the Mage-Captain’s sudden shock.

  “If you’ll excuse me.” She rose without waiting for a response from Beaumont and addressed Commodore Ó Luain at the head of the table.

  “I apologize, Commodore, but Mage-Admiral Jakab has requested my presence on the Link for an update on the status of my ship.

  “Dinner was excellent and I’m sorry to miss dessert—but duty calls for us all.”

  Roslyn didn’t have the time—or the need—to return all the way to Voice of the Forgotten to connect with her commanding officer. The Centurion Base command station had all of the modern fixtures, including a Link station of its own.

  Mage–Vice Admiral Kole Jakab’s name got her into the base’s Link conference room without much difficulty. She sealed the room behind her with her own security codes and then connected with her staff on Voice.

  The broad-shouldered and towering form of Lieutenant Commander Amber Salucci appeared on the wallscreen in front of her.

  “Captain Chambers,” she said crisply. “I’m glad I got through. I apologize for interrupting dinner, but, uh, when the Admiral calls…”

  “Commanders jump,” Roslyn agreed. “Thank you, Lieutenant Commander. Is the Admiral on the line?”

  “Flag Lieutenant Kumar is, sir,” Salucci told her. “He was to inform the Admiral when you were available.”

  Roslyn winced. Being delayed enough that the Admiral had delegated waiting for her wasn’t great. Mage-Lieutenant Krystoff Kumar was quite competent…but he was also very junior, a very larval form of staff officer.

  Having served in the role for Jane Alexander, she was quite familiar with the nature of the Flag Lieutenant role.

  “Transfer the Link connection to Centurion Base on these codes,” Roslyn ordered. “I am available at the Admiral’s convenience.”

  Somehow, she was unsurprised that she didn’t even see Kumar long enough for the younger man to say hello. The dark-skinned Tau Cetan native—a distant cousin, the Mage First Families of Tau Ceti being an unofficial aristocracy with all that meant—was almost immediately replaced by the tall and pale form of Mage–Vice Admiral Kole Jakab.

  “I didn’t realize, until Kumar reminded me, that I had misjudged the time,” Jakab told her. “I did not mean to interrupt your supper, Mage-Commander.”

  “Sometimes, sir, interruptions are surprisingly welcome,” she admitted. “And as your junior starship commander, I fully understand the priority of the Admiral.”

  “I both regret and appreciate the priority the stars give me,” Jakab said quietly.

  Vice Admiral was a new rank, one born out of the reorganization of the RMN after the war. Roslyn had seen firsthand the difficulties created by the Navy’s lack of middle flag ranks, when every officer at a major fleet briefing shared the same rank.

  Jakab had served out the war as “Mage-Commodore with special duties,” operating under the direct authority first of Hand Damien Montgomery and then of the Crown Princess, Mage-Admiral A
lexander. He’d been part of the first batch of the Protectorate’s new Vice Admirals.

  “The priority is what it is for a reason, sir,” Roslyn allowed. She was more comfortable with Jakab than she was with, say, Commodore Ó Luain, but there was still a vast chasm between their ranks.

  “How may I and Voice of the Forgotten serve?”

  “The question I am actually concerned about at this moment, Mage-Commander Chambers, is when can you serve?” Jakab asked. “The question is more urgent than you might think, though I still didn’t need to interrupt your dinner.”

  He gave a one-shouldered apologetic shrug. He might not have meant to interrupt Roslyn’s dinner, but he clearly wasn’t going to send her back, either.

  “The armor plating and dispersion-web layers have been replaced, as have our damaged weapons,” Roslyn told him. “We’re down to final tests and the installation of replacement external sensor pods.”

  The multilayered active armor used by Protectorate warships was a miracle of engineering, capable of withstanding direct hits from antimatter warheads and multi-gigawatt lasers. Its efficacy also meant that most of the starship’s sensors had to be mounted on the outside of the armor, which made them vulnerable.