Starship's Mage: Episode 4 Read Free Page A

gravity, rendering docking straightforward – Rice headed towards the shuttle bay to meet Kellers for their sojourn onto the station.
    He found the engineer in the corner of the shuttle bay that had once contained a handful of armored lockers, and now contained row upon row of neatly strapped down cases and crates containing enough guns and body armor to arm and protect every member of the Blue Jay ’s crew.
    Rice stopped in surprise when he did spot the engineer, though. Normally, he saw Kellers either in a suit when the senior officers of the ship had to meet clients, or wearing a set of coveralls covered in enough muck to be as dark as his skin.
    Today the black-skinned man was wearing a pair of camouflage fatigue pants and a black tank top that clearly emphasized the sharp-cut muscles of a man who worked with his hands and heavy, dangerous, equipment every day.
    The sparse outfit did absolutely nothing to conceal the holster strapped to Kellers’ hip containing a Martian Armaments Caseless Six Millimeter automatic – and even less to conceal the stungun carbine in a quick release strap over his torso.
    “Are we expecting a war?” David asked finally, standing at the edge of the new armory area and eyeing his Chief Engineer warily.
    “We’re in Amber space,” Kellers replied. “It’s considered rude to go unarmed – and only slightly less rude to use lethal force first.” He gestured towards the solitary bench in the middle of the crates of weapons, where he’d laid out a similar set of harness and weapons for Rice.
    “Is everyone going to be armed?”
    “Yes,” the Amber native said flatly. “Most Amber children begin firearms training between six and eight years old and regularly carry an automatic like this from the age of ten.”
    That took David a moment to process. Protectorate gun laws were up to the judgment of the individual planets, but generally boiled down to ‘you can get a permit for that if you have a reason for it.’ The thought of everyone going armed all the time on a planet without immediately dangerous wildlife was strange to him.
    Nonetheless, he was wise enough to listen to a native guide and started strapping on the harness.
    “What about the Hunters? They’re a kind of police, right?”
    “ Sanctioned Hunters aren’t police,” James told him. “They’re the folk charged with bringing in people who refuse to voluntarily appear in front of a court, or charged with Protectorate crimes. Since they’re basically bounty hunters, though, your right to self-defense still applies.”
    “It is,” he continued after a moment, “considered rude to use lethal force against Hunters – and is likely to result in them delivering you to the Judicial Co-op’s courts in pieces.”
    “Wonderful,” David replied dryly, double checking the quick release strap on the stungun. “And this contact of yours? Is he going to sell us to these ‘Hunters’??”
    “Keiko owes me,” his engineer replied. “We went to school together, and she’s already agreed to the meet. She runs a shipping company now, so she should be able to get us what we need.”
    David nodded and re-strapped the stungun to his torso. Two magazines of the stunguns SmartDarts and four of the clips for the MAC6 went on the harness as well, and then Kellers carefully checked his gear.
    “I’m not as good a shot as Narveer was,” Kellers said quietly. “I’d really prefer to avoid trouble, boss.”
    “You and me both,” David told him. “This is Amber, though. How likely is that?”
    Kellers shrugged.
    “Even if we hadn’t pissed off the Protectorate, the Blue Star Syndicate has a bounty on us,” he admitted. “Those Sanctioned Hunters aren’t averse to collecting un-sanctioned bounties.”
    “And we’re in the system responsible for building almost every pirate ship in existence,” David Rice said wryly. “Why did I think this was a good plan?”
    “You didn’t,” Kellers replied. “None of us did. It