Valterion: The Space/Arch? Mage

Location: Solar System; Above Venus; PAS Andala

The day starts like any other when Maja enters the bridge in the morning. She's just finished her rest period, where she was only playing Dina, the Andala's fake AI, and now returns to active duty. Kevin Opal, her third officer, greets her with a tired smile and happily hands over command of the starship.

"All yours, Captain," he says, and continues to give her a summary of what happened during the night: nothing. As Maja didn't sleep and kept her full awareness as Dina, she obviously knows this already, but still thanks the young officer in training, as no one besides Ellie knows her true nature.

Maja sits down on the captain's chair and watches most of the other stations on the bridge change their shifts as well.

Nothing happens during the morning hours, and Maja spends her time simulating hundreds of different scenarios in her mind. When they start to get overly ridiculous, she knows it's time to do something else.

Let's check in on Shay. Maybe they've found something already.

As she can't use magic and simply use a Communication spell, Maja does the next best thing and directly connects to the Andala's transceiver array. Seconds later, Shay picks up the call.

"Hi Maja, what's up?"

Maja replies by sending her voice directly down the transmission without speaking out loud. "Not much… Just wanted to check in and maybe ask how things are going."

A chuckle sounds in reply. "Oh? And I thought you missed little old me. Anyway, you've got good timing. We just headed out to where Dave suspects the main command center of the shipyard to be. If we find something interesting, then there. I'll keep you updated!"

"Nice, and thank you. Hear from you soon."

Maja cuts the connection and leans back in her chair. Around noon, the watch schedule calls for another change, and Ellie takes over Maja's command. Not needing to eat, she takes a stroll through the ship and checks on various critical systems like the engines, life support, and ammunition. Everything checks out, and Maja returns to the bridge to chat with Ellie. On her way, her thoughts wander.

I wonder when we'll get our first assignment… Commander Lackney was very clear on this. While our main job is to keep our team safe, we will also have to complete assignments that directly pit us against our fellow recruits. Cadet Chen will be one of them. He can't be allowed to beat us again!

Meanwhile, she arrives back on the bridge and has one of the empty grav chairs floating over. She has it settle next to Ellie and sits down. "Anything new to report? How's our surveillance going?"

Ellie sighs. "Not so good… We only have mundane satellites sent out, and the delay sucks… I mean, we have every ship of note accounted for around Earth, but that data is multiple minutes old. Someone could literally appear right next to us and we would be none the wiser."

The Andala's sensors detect a sudden spike of Space magic in their immediate proximity, and Maja's automatic response has the bridge lights turn red and an alert blares through the speakers. A fraction of a second later, Maja consciously comprehends what just happened and would have laughed if she hadn't recognized the starship that had just appeared right next to them.

Holy shit, what's Prince Kai doing here? That's going to be a hard one! Still… The irony… Ellie couldn't have timed it better.

"Status report," she barks out and sits up straighter.

The young man at the sensor station immediately speaks up in a crisp voice. "An unknown ship that has just been identified as the SKS Duskstar jumped into our outer engagement zone and is currently approaching on a high burn. Current estimations have them arriving at the inner engagement zone within the next five minutes. First threat assessment marks them as hostile. There've been no responses to our pings so far. Communications is informing our ground team as we speak."

"Thanks, Lieutenant Gronin," Maja replies before addressing her bridge crew. "Prepare for battle! Protect our charges, and as soon as they attack us, return fire. We're not giving this shipyard away!"

Multiple Shield spells begin to surround the starship, and Maja adds the more traditional magnetic shields as well. For now, she trusts the officer at the helm and watches her positioning the Andala between the enemy ship and their charges.

It doesn't take long until the first Tracer spells are flying. So far, Thomas and his fellow A&D Mages have managed to stop anything from coming close to hitting. The readings Maja gets are troublesome, though. There's a lot of power behind those spells, and their return fire gets shrugged off easily!

"They jumped again!" Ellie exclaims, voicing out what Maja's direct sensor access has already told her. Before anyone can react to the sudden jump, Jack's freighter is already listed as destroyed and quickly leaves the battlefield.

Dammit!

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Maja curses inwardly but doesn't get more than a moment to scold herself for failing to protect their charge as the enemy starship immediately does another jump and starts attacking Lisa's ship.

Lisa's stronger A&D magic proves its worth, and she manages to block the incoming attacks. From then on out, it's an open exchange of blows with the big difference that the Prince's ship stays very mobile with a lot of teleportations thrown in. Still, the combination of Lisa and Thomas's A&D magic from both starships is enough to keep the attacks at bay and to add some retaliatory attacks.

Maja exchanges a silent nod with Ellie, and her friend seamlessly takes over the overall coordination on the bridge. Maja, meanwhile, dives deeper into the digital world and adds more processing power to analyze Prince Kai's patterns. Slowly but surely, a model gets built, and Maja takes over a few of the Andala's lasers and railguns and starts adding her own potshots of training ammunition to her predicted locations.

The effects are small, but they do exist, and so Maja makes an executive decision and informs Tactical that she'll take over all mundane offensive weapons. Now she starts to actually hurt the other ship, which causes the Prince to change tactics more than once. Basically, every time Maja has a new model built, and adjusts the firing pattern. One thing soon becomes obvious, though, and Maja grits her teeth.

They are whittling us down! I don't think Lisa can last much longer. Shit!

Her prediction comes true a few minutes later when Prince Kai manages to slip a well-placed Tracer spell past Lisa's shields and hits the engines of the small starship. Maja curses out loud when their last remaining charge is listed as destroyed and leaves the battlefield.

She doubles down on figuring out the enemy's patterns, and the one-on-one battle continues. One thing quickly becomes obvious: The Andala is now within the Prince's sights, as the incoming attacks increase in strength quite heavily. So much that Maja has to give back the weapon controls to tactical and only continues to supply targeting data – everything under the guise of Dina, of course.

Her Dina persona then focuses on providing telemetry data for the helmswoman to dodge the incoming attacks, as even Thomas starts to get low on magic. For the next few minutes, their fight appears to be in a stalemate, but Maja doesn't trust it.

He must be trying something. I just have to catch it. It's bound to happen soon. Even the Prince can't have an unlimited supply of magic.

Another minute passes, and Maja's focus has never been sharper. She almost entirely blends out the proceedings on the bridge and fully immerses herself in the Andala's sensors.

Still, she's almost too slow when she detects a cloaked Tracer spell that somehow circumvented their shields and heads straight for the Andala's engines. Not having time to delegate, Maja issues a direct command to the rear thrusters and manages to move the starship's aft out of the way. The spell still impacts and does heavy damage, but not enough to count as destruction. The Andala is still kicking!

Fuck, we're crippled!

As their options get smaller by the second, Maja makes a tactical decision. "We'll retreat for now! We can't win this engagement right now."

As if he's been waiting for it, Simon immediately triggers a Starship Jump spell, and the crippled Andala flees from the battlefield.

I'm sorry, Shay… We tried our best.

Maja gets up and looks around. Everyone is tense; the defeat doesn't sit well with them. "We're not beaten yet," Thomas calls out and earns a round of agreement that escalates into a heated discussion among the bridge crew.

Maja lifts her hand to calm everyone down. "You are right. But we're in no condition to fight right now. If we jump back in, they'll destroy us. We have to be smart! For that, I need a status report. How's the damage? Get me everything, then we can assess the situation."

She turns back around to talk with Ellie. The tall woman looks at her with concern. "That final dodge, that was you, right? Did you blow your cover?"

"I don't think so… Jenny doesn't look suspicious of anything, and if anyone would notice it would be her at the helm. If she noticed anything, she probably thinks it was a failsafe by Dina," Maja shrugs at the end.

But Ellie is right. I risked a lot right there. During the whole engagement, actually. But if I hadn't, we wouldn't be planning on how to reenter the battle right now. I need to talk to Sara… Maybe it's time to shed both our covers soon.

While she's lost in her thoughts, the first damage reports come in. Ellie looks grim after reading and glances at Maja. "Have you seen it already?"

Maja shakes her head and lifts her finger. "One second." Then she accesses the report and quickly reads it in less than a second. "Oh…"

That's worse than I hoped but much better than I feared.

Ellie nods. "Our chief engineer estimates about an hour of quick repairs before we're combat-ready. It won't be a good job, but it should hold the Andala together long enough for a quick surprise attack."

"You think we should try it?" Maja asks. "It's risky."

"It is… But we've got people on the shipyard, and I think the Prince himself is looking for them. That gives us an advantage. We have to use it, and we owe it to our people left on the shipyard."

"Hmm, you might be right. Everything we have on the Prince indicates that he likes to do things himself. Okay, let's go for it. Either we get their ship and the Prince retreats as he's suddenly all alone, or we lose and join the others on the respawn cooldown."

Ellie grins and breaks the news to the crew. There are cheers, especially coming from the tactical section, as they've got to even the scoreboard.

Maja and Ellie retreat into one of the bridge-adjacent offices and talk tactics while the engineers work very hard to get the engines fixed as good as possible. Now that the two women are alone, Maja stops hiding her vastly greater capabilities and leads her friend through a complete threat assessment of the SKS Duskstar. Together, they come up with a solid plan of engagement and present it to the bridge crew shortly after.

Now it just depends on how well the engineers manage to do their jobs.

The Andala is back in action a little more than an hour later, and Simon locks in the coordinates for their jump. Maja has helped his AI, and now they should emerge right next to the Duskstar, which should deny them crucial seconds in which they could react.

Right before triggering the spell, Simon exchanges glances with Thomas one final time, and when he signals his readiness, triggers the Starship Jump spell. Maja's calculations were spot on, and the Andala reappears just a few kilometers away from the enemy starship.

Thomas doesn't wait for anything and immediately releases his strongest Tracer spell while his tactical department takes care of shields and traditional weapons. It's surprising how quickly the previously so threatening starship falls before the onslaught, and the whole bridge lets out a loud cheer when the main screen shows the Duskstar as destroyed.

The ship in question teleports away a minute later, which leads to another round of cheers. Maja sits down on her chair and looks through the window.

That's his whole support apparatus gone. But we've confirmation that he single-handedly wiped the floor with Shay and her squad… Does he even need support? Tell me, Kai, what will you do now?

Maja has her answer five minutes later when the Andala's sensors detect a quick flash of Space magic coming from within the shipyard.

He left!

Maja informs her crew and causes a third and final round of cheers.

But what will we do now?