Mage-Provocateur Read online

  “I have confidence that you and Captain Campbell could make it work, but I’ll warn you ahead of time that it’ll be an uphill struggle.”

  “It would be a challenge,” Kelly admitted slowly, “but I think I could do it.”

  The challenge was tempting all on its own. It wasn’t often you were offered the opportunity to stretch your skills that far. Leaving her partners behind on Red Falcon would be…suboptimal, but her understanding was that the two ships should be meeting up relatively regularly.

  “So do I, or I wouldn’t be offering it to you,” Rice told her. “But if you want to stay on Red Falcon, I do have another option.”

  Kelly nodded, leaning back in her chair to let him speak. The only way she could see to stay on Falcon would to remain as a secondary engineering officer, maybe with a bump in authority to make her Kellers’s second-in-command.

  She could do that, and it would be good experience, but she wasn’t sure it would be worth it. She knew she could make more of a difference aboard Red Falcon than aboard Peregrine, but she couldn’t hamper her own career, either.

  “James Kellers, obviously, is staying on as Chief Engineer, and Maria isn’t going anywhere,” Rice reminded her. “Connor Daniels, our new Third Officer will be arriving later today, freshly retired from the Navy and connected to us by the Agency.

  “That does leave one open position for a Mate-certified officer,” he concluded.

  Kelly stared at him in silence for several long seconds. He couldn’t be saying what she thought he was saying.

  “Red Falcon’s crew is one of the better ones I’ve worked with,” Rice noted. “Our ridiculous proportion of ex-Navy probably has something to do with that, but with three experienced ship’s officers and a solid crew, we can probably handle bringing a green executive officer up to speed.”

  His words were still barely processing. That was a massive offer—an insane offer.

  “It’s the deep end,” he continued. “Nothing deeper, in fact, but Maria has been executive officer aboard a warship, and I still remember most of the drill myself. You’ll have to hit the ground running, but we can at least point the way for you.

  “If you want the job.”

  “You.” She paused, considering. “You want to make me XO. Second Officer.”

  “Yes,” Rice confirmed. “We’ll back you all the way. Both Maria and I know what you need to do, and we’ll make sure you keep your head above water.” He grinned. “I can’t promise that James will go easy on you, but we’ll make sure Connor knows you’re his boss.

  “Two options, Kelly,” he continued. “I won’t tell you which is better. Both would be challenges. The Peregrine role is probably closer to what you should be doing at this point in your career.

  “But I think you can do the XO role here. I’d rather have someone whose skills I know and that I know I can trust at my right hand, Kelly.

  “What do you say?”

  She exhaled sharply, shaking her head as she looked up to meet her Captain’s gaze.

  Executive officer. Second Officer of an armed megafreighter, a covert ops ship that was going to go looking for trouble. If she wanted to make a difference, she couldn’t see anywhere better to be.

  “Hell, yes,” she told him. “I’m not leaving this ship if I’ve a choice, Captain, so if you want to stick me on your bridge, I guess I’m learning to fly this barge.”

  “Hey!” her Captain objected. “Call my Falcon a barge again and I might change my mind!”

  Kelly wasn’t sure if Rice had told people in advance of his plan or if Red Falcon’s Chief of Security had been advised afterward.

  Or, potentially, had worked it out on his own. “Chief” Ivan Skavar was also Lieutenant Ivan Skavar, Royal Martian Marine Corps Forward Combat Intelligence—and he saluted briskly as he met her in the corridor.

  “XO, the new tactical officer just reported aboard,” he informed her brightly. “I figured you and the Captain would need to sort out your plan before meeting with him, so one of my girls is showing him to his quarters.”

  Right. Quarters. She was going to have to move—had Campbell even moved out yet?

  It was the executive officer’s job to know that. She’d hit the ground, but she wasn’t running fast enough yet.

  “I’ll consult with Rice,” she confirmed. “XO? Does everyone know already?”

  Skavar laughed.

  “I don’t know about everyone, but I did the math two days ago—and you just spent an hour closeted with the Skipper. Two plus two equals new executive officer, I think. Am I wrong?”

  She chuckled. Skavar was ten years older than her, but there was something infectious in the Marine officer’s sense of the world.

  “You’re not wrong,” she confirmed. “I’ll ping the Skipper and see what he thinks, but right off the bat…”

  Kelly checked her wrist-comp. The smooth plastic tablet strapped to her arm was linked in to Falcon’s far more powerful computers, and since it now had the executive officer’s codes, it could access the Captain’s and Ship’s Mage’s schedule.

  “Let me confirm with Rice”—she had, after all, been executive officer for under an hour—“but it looks like Maria is due back aboard in forty minutes and we’re all free in ninety.”

  “Sounds like a plan, ma’am,” Skavar replied. “I’ll make sure Mr. Connor Daniels is where he needs to be.”

  3

  Somehow, Maria Soprano wasn’t surprised to find her evening interrupted by one of MISS’s seemingly ubiquitous polite older men. It took her a moment to recognize Brent Alois, the silver-haired gentleman who’d originally recruited her.

  “Brent,” she greeted him, trading a nod with her old friend behind the bar. “Xu, drinks for us both?”

  “I see you two are getting along better now,” Alexis Xu rumbled, the big shaven-headed Asian man smiling at her. “Things worked out, did they?”

  She shook her head, a shadow passing over her thoughts as she remembered people who were no longer around to say that things had “worked out.”

  “In some ways,” she admitted. “Not in others.”

  “I know how that goes,” the bartender agreed, sliding two beers across the bar. “You know which booths have privacy fields,” he continued.

  Shaking her head, Maria led Alois to the farthest back booth. The agent followed her unspoken suggestion and carried the beers behind her, taking a seat across from her and smiling sadly.

  “I’ve heard the details of your trip,” he noted. “The Hand was impressed. I hear we even drafted your new boss.”

  “Among others,” she agreed. “What’s this about, Brent?”

  “About forty percent checking in on my recruit,” he told her calmly. “Sixty percent passing on data. Nature of the job, Maria, is that you’ll get bits of the mission from various sources.”

  She sighed.

  “I suppose I should have expected the cloak-and-dagger bullshit when I agreed to be a spy, huh?” she asked.

  “Yep,” he agreed. “My understanding is that you’ll be getting the data on what you’re supposed to be doing via your new gunnery officer. The piece I’ve got is how you get there.”

  “I’m listening,” Maria replied.

  “Cobalt Interstellar Elements is shipping a massive cargo of refining gear to the Desdemona System,” Alois told her. “Their original shipper has fallen through and it’s a fifteen-megaton cargo—most of the core pieces of a new orbital platform destined for Desdemona IV. They’ll realize Red Falcon is perfect pretty quickly.”

  “And I’m sure MISS had nothing to do with the falling-through or how quickly they’ll realize that,” Maria said dryly, earning herself a chuckle from the man.

  “Not that I can admit to, no,” he confirmed. “In Desdemona, you’ll want to look for a shipper named Jan Lomond. I’m not sure what we’ve got on them, but they’re sending a cargo Red Falcon’s size over to the UnArcana world of Snap.”

  Alois shrugged.

 
“I have not been briefed on why we want you in Snap or what’s going on there,” he admitted. “My job was to pass on how you’re getting there without drawing attention.

  “I’ve also got a heads-up for you: Stealey’s heading this way, she’ll want to meet with you and Rice as she passes through. I suspect that will be the third and final part of your briefing,” Alois concluded, “but it’s not my place to make guesses like that.”

  Maria laughed.

  “Sure it isn’t, Major Alois,” she replied. “Sure it isn’t.”

  “Whatever it takes to do the job,” he replied, offering his hand across the table. “From what I’ve heard, you’ve done a better job of digging your way up than I dared even hope when we first met, Mage Soprano.

  “I’m pleased to have been of service,” he concluded. “And it sounds like we’re all the better off for it.”

  She smiled.

  “It hasn’t been easy,” she admitted, “but it’s been good—and we’ve done good. I plan on keeping that up.”

  Most of their meeting ended up being quiet catch-up, the senior MISS agent curious about how Maria was adapting to life aboard a civilian starship. When they were done, Alois insisted on picking up the tab.

  On his way out, he paused and leaned back on the table to bring himself back into the field of the white-noise generator.

  “I know I’m the one who dragged you into all of this,” he said quietly, “but listen to me for a moment: be careful. Watch your back.”

  He shook his head.

  “The Agency is traditionally better-intentioned than many organizations like it in history, but remember that at our best, we’re interstellar covert ops—but at our worst, we’re interstellar secret police.

  “It’s far too easy for someone sitting in a ship or an office a hundred light-years from anywhere to decide a risk is worth the benefit. They aren’t the ones who do the bleeding and dying if the risk goes wrong.”

  Maria smiled thinly.

  “I’ve seen what happens when the back office decides not everyone needs to know what’s going on,” she said quietly. “I have no intention of watching Falcon’s crew suffer the same fate.”

  “We’re out there for a reason,” Alois told her. “But take care of yourself, Maria.”

  “Why, Major Alois, whatever would your wife think?” she told him with a wicked grin.

  “She’d think I was being the overprotective team dad she married still,” he replied with his own grin. “You know what I mean.”

  “I do,” she agreed. “We’ll be fine, Major Alois. I promise.”

  “I’ll hold you to that!”

  As she was returning to Red Falcon via the zero-gravity docks, Maria’s wrist-comp pinged with a note from the Captain informing her that the new Third Officer was aboard and asking if she was available to meet with him.

  She checked and fired a note back saying she was, before accelerating her course. It only took her a few minutes to make it to Falcon, though the ship’s own impressive length delayed her making it to the Captain’s office.

  Maria was still there before the new officer, arriving to find Captain Rice in his usual space behind his desk—and Kelly LaMonte ensconced in the seat to the Captain’s right that had been Jenna Campbell’s usual spot.

  “I see the promotion went through on schedule,” she said with a chuckle. “Welcome to the hot seat, Second Officer.”

  “Oh, don’t worry,” LaMonte replied with her own smile. “I plan on hiding from any real heat behind you for at least, oh, two days.”

  “Take at least a week,” Maria told the younger woman. “Trust me, I’m pretty fire-retardant.”

  “Maybe,” LaMonte agreed easily, “but I’ll be a shitty XO if someone else is taking my heat, won’t I?”

  Maria bowed her head in acknowledgement. The new XO at least had a handle on where she needed to be. That was a good sign.

  “Ivan is bringing Mr. Daniels down as we speak,” Rice told his two senior officers. “He comes highly recommended and this is mostly a meet-and-greet, but Kelly, I suggest you let Maria and me take the lead.

  “That said, you are the XO, so don’t hesitate to speak up if you see something that needs saying.”

  “All right,” LaMonte said, her voice calm but steady. She seemed to be handling the deep end relatively well, from what Maria could see.

  A sharp rap on the door interrupted any further preparation, and Ivan Skavar escorted the new Third Officer in.

  Connor Daniels was a rippling hunk of a man, almost distractingly attractive to Maria’s eyes. He was tall and broad-shouldered, with perfectly tousled brown hair and eminently kissable lips.

  Ivan Skavar was equally tall and broad-shouldered, but his dark hair and sharp features made him pale into near-insignificance next to the specimen he was escorting.

  The man’s attractiveness, however, was not enough for Maria to miss that the Chief of Security had escorted Daniels all the way into the office. That shouldn’t have been required, and the Chief’s body language was wrong for it to be as simple as two alpha males posturing at each other.

  Something about the new officer had the Marine concerned, but Skavar didn’t say a word. He just escorted Daniels into the room, showed the ex-Navy man to his seat, and left with a silent salute.

  He didn’t say a word…but his presence alone spoke volumes, and Maria studied Daniels with a far more critical eye than she might otherwise have. She was used to men being distracted by her chest, but most got over it in short order.

  The new tactical officer’s gaze lingered on her figure for a good second longer than appropriate—and lingered on LaMonte’s much less voluptuous form for almost as long before leveling on the Captain…without meeting either woman’s gaze.

  “Captain Rice,” he introduced himself, and his voice was a baritone purr that ran right down Maria’s spine.

  “Pleasure to meet you. Connor Daniels, formerly of His Majesty’s Starship Measures of Safety,” he continued, offering his hand.

  Rice shook the younger man’s hand, then gestured to the two women with his chin.

  “Likewise, Officer Daniels,” he said slowly. “This is Mage Maria Soprano, Senior Ship’s Mage and First Officer, and Officer Kelly LaMonte, Executive and Second Officer. You’ll be working closely with both of them as you get situated.”

  Daniels turned his gaze on LaMonte, managing to physically look down on the smaller woman despite being seated.

  “That sounds like fun,” he murmured. “Miss LaMonte is the executive officer, though? She seems…young.”

  “Miss LaMonte has saved this ship and her crew from all kinds of problems,” Rice replied. Something in his careful tone told Maria he’d also picked up on Skavar’s silent warning. “I hope you won’t have a problem working under her?”

  “I’ll have no problem at all working under her,” Daniels replied cheekily, and for one long, glorious, moment of temptation, Maria considered teleporting him into the vacuum outside the ship.

  That was probably overkill.

  “I’d suggest refraining from comments like that,” Rice told the new officer, his voice very low. “This isn’t a small ship, Officer Daniels, but her crew is smaller than you may be used to. We’re a family here, and we look after each other.”

  “Of course, of course,” he agreed. “Outside the Navy, of course, there’s fewer fraternization rules, eh, XO?”

  The idiot had the gall to wink at LaMonte, who straightened and leveled him with a death glare she must have been practicing for months.

  “There are still, however, standards of consent, discretion, and common decency, Officer Daniels,” LaMonte said icily. “Do you expect to continue having difficulties meeting those?”

  The young woman flashed Rice and Maria a quick glance. Maria managed to not openly send her a thumbs-up—and Rice made a very clear “go ahead” gesture.

  “Just talking crap, miss,” Daniels replied easily. “Don’t mean anything by it. You’ll le
arn to tell the difference with more experience.”

  “That, Officer Daniels, should be ma’am, not miss,” LaMonte said coldly. “It seems my question didn’t quite register. Are you prepared to follow orders and do your job? Or is my being younger and female going to be a problem?”

  “Miss, you being female is the opposite of a problem,” he said with a grin. He finally actually met LaMonte’s gaze as he spoke, however, and the smile faded.

  LaMonte looked at her seniors again, and Maria caught David’s single, cold nod.

  “Speak to Chief Skavar about having your things delivered on your way out,” LaMonte told the ex-Navy man gently. “I don’t think you’re going to fit in with Red Falcon’s crew, and it’s better for us to get that sorted out right now.”

  Daniels looked shocked.

  “Hey, now, this is a covert ops ship, ain’t it?” he demanded. “I was assigned here. That’s—”

  “That’s not how this works,” Rice cut him off. “This is my ship, Mr. Daniels. The Agency assists in making sure we have qualified crew, but they appear to have made a mistake in this case.

  “I would suggest you learn to keep your mouth shut better in future,” the Captain concluded. “MISS is hardly fond of people who blabber classified information at the drop of a hat.

  “Chief Skavar will escort you off Red Falcon,” Rice continued, backing up LaMonte completely. “I apologize for the waste of everyone’s time this appears to have been, Mr. Daniels.”

  4

  “Connor Daniels is currently very, very grumpy at you, Captain,” Hand Alaura Stealey told David as she poured herself a generous splash of scotch into a glass.

  It had been five days since they’d kicked their intended Third Officer off of Red Falcon, and David had joined the Hand of the Mage-King of Mars in her hotel suite on his own. Based off his own experience with in-suite hotel bars, he’d have hesitated to be quite so free with the alcohol, but the Hand didn’t seem perturbed by any amount of liquor, in his experience.