Read Starship's Mage: Episode 1 for Free Online Page B

carefully. “Our last Ship’s Mage died jumping too early to get us away from a pirate attack. Jumping for us may be risky, and will definitely get you in trouble with the Guild. Why?”
    The youth shrugged again. “I Jump-qualified in the same year as six children of the McLaughlin clan,” he said quietly. “Their families have connections and wealth to buy favors. My father was a baker, and died several years ago.”
    Rice nodded slowly. “What you’re saying, Mage Montgomery, is that we are both desperate?”
    “Exactly.”
    The Captain eyed the young man across the desk for a long moment. To qualify as a Jump-Mage, a Mage had to have made at least twenty supervised Jumps, but he suspected that those jumps were the only time Damien had ever cast the spell. He hesitated to put his life – and his crew’s lives – into the hands of a youth with no experience.
    “Are you prepared to have me review your Jump calculations?” he asked bluntly. Normally, a Jump Mage’s work was extremely private, with no oversight except maybe a more senior Mage. After thirty years on merchant ships, though, David knew enough to at least tell if the calculations were wrong.
    Damien paused again; then nodded. “I think that might even make me more comfortable,” the young man admitted, looking sixteen again for a moment.
    “Fine. You’re hired,” Rice told him. “Jenna will find you a bunk – we only just got our Ribs rotating for gravity, so you may have to lend a hand cleaning up around the ship if that’s all right?”
    “There is a lot I can do to help ‘clean up,’ I suspect,” Montgomery told him. “If nothing else, I will need to review the rune matrix before we jump. From what I saw of the damage, I want to be sure it wasn’t compromised.”
    That wasn’t a thought that had occurred to David yet, and he shivered at the potential danger. Hopefully the young Mage in front of him knew his job. At best, a compromised rune matrix wouldn’t work. At worst… it would scatter the ship in pieces across the full length of the jump.
    “What about registering your employment with the Guild?” David finally asked: another unpleasant thought.
    “I… would prefer to do that in a system not Sherwood,” Damien suggested, and the Captain laughed.
    “I think we can both agree to that.”

#
    Damien took a long, slow look around the tiny room he’d been living in for the last two months. It had never been much of a room, though Grace had managed to add some pleasant memories to the space before vanishing out of both the room and his life.
    When he’d left the surface, he’d sold or given away anything large or heavy he’d owned, so it had taken him under ten minutes to pack a single mid-sized bag with all of his worldly belongings. Now, the room was sparse and empty, merely awaiting a simple transmission to the landlord to deliver his last payment and cancel his access code.
    Once he left this room, it was done – he was leaving Sherwood, and unlikely to return. Even if he switched ships later on, the McLaughlin was unlikely to forget that Damien had defied his blacklisting of the Blue Jay and returning to Sherwood would be unwise.
    From the moment he’d tested positive for Mage Gift and his life had changed forever, Damien had known he wanted to be a Jump Mage. He’d failed the entrance exams for the Protectorate Navy – by the skin of his teeth, in a year when no Mage on Sherwood had passed the exams – which meant the merchant ships were the only way to Jump.
    His family had passed on before he graduated with his degree. Grace had left aboard the Gentle Rains of Summer . Nothing held him to Sherwood, but he still hesitated for a moment.
    But it was only a moment. He sent the transmission to the landlord, shouldered his bag, and headed for the Blue Jay .

#
    Jenna was waiting for Damien when he reached the transfer tube onto the Blue Jay , a zero-gravity transfer cart waiting by her. She glanced at his single bag