Chương 102: Mystery Solved

Twenty minutes had passed since they'd cleared Prime Orbital's docking berth. Twenty minutes since the alarms had started blaring behind them, lockdown protocols engaging seconds too late. The bridge crew had settled into their rhythm. Carmen commanded from the captain's chair, her crew at their stations. The XO stood at her shoulder, posture relaxed but alert. The pilot kept steady hands on the helm, maintaining their automated flight path toward Astra Omnia.

The navigator plotted courses while the comms officer monitored sensors. The weapons officer ran through system checks with methodical expertise. Grimnir stood back, staying out of the way. Alexander near the rear of the bridge, still connected to the ship's systems through his powers. Annie leaned against the wall, unusually quiet, just watching. Talia observed from near the sensor station. Augustus stood with his hands clasped behind his back, the picture of dignified patience.

Felix wandered between stations, tail wagging, breaking the tension with canine charm. He paused at the navigator's console, looking up with those disturbingly intelligent eyes. The navigator glanced at Carmen, as if asking permission. She gave a slight nod. He reached down to scratch behind Felix's ears. The weapons officer spoke without looking away from his console.

"Lockdown engaged less than thirty seconds after we cleared the berth." The comms officer's fingers moved across her station.

"Lucky timing."

"Very lucky," the XO agreed. Several gazes flicked briefly toward the members of Grimnir. Alexander remained still, expression neutral, one hand resting on a console behind him. Carmen's voice was perfectly level.

"We're a legitimate vessel with a filed flight plan and registered transponder. Whatever's happening on Prime Orbital has nothing to do with us."

"Nothing at all," the navigator echoed, returning his attention to his displays. Felix chose that moment to trot over to Alexander, completely oblivious to the subtext. Alexander reached down absently, scratching behind the golden retriever's ears. The Chief Engineer's gruff voice crackled over the bridge comms.

"Captain, I just got done with my initial pass down here. These systems should've been fully checked before departure. I'm running diagnostics on a hot reactor while we're under thrust. This is not procedure—""Chief, you knew going into this who we were working for. That things would be irregular." Carmen glanced at Alexander with a hint of a smile.

"That we'd be kicking off in a hurry with a borrowed ship." A beat of silence over the comms.

"... Still don't like it."

"Noted. Keep me updated on those diagnostics." Carmen straightened, gesturing around the bridge.

"Grimnir, please allow me to introduce the primary crew properly. Ryan Torres, my XO. Yuki Tanaka, First Pilot. James Carter, Navigator. Petra Kovac on Comms and Sensors. Davis King, Weapons Officer." They exchanged brief nods and acknowledgments. Alexander and the team had reviewed their files already. Former military, most of them, with solid records. People who'd worked together before, which explained how Carmen had assembled them so quickly. Then Davis spoke up, still focused on his weapons console.

"So. The Argentum R&D raid. You really just tore the front doors off a building in the middle of the business district? In broad daylight?" Alexander's expression didn't change.

"It seemed efficient at the time."

"There were civilians everywhere," Petra added, glancing back.

"I saw the footage. People were screaming."

"They got out of the way," Annie said, grinning.

"Eventually." James finally looked up from navigation.

"What about that continental bounty? You know half the planet's hunting you for that reward, right?" Davis's voice was dry.

"Dude, that bounty was cancelled months ago. Keep up." James blinked.

"Oh. Right. The UEG investigation thing."

"You know," Yuki said from the helm, hands steady on the controls, "I watch the Throne of Scales live streams. Are you and Julia getting back together? Are you stronger than Maximilian? Who's winning the rivalry?" Alexander blinked at the barrage of questions.

"Uh…"

"It's a professional disagreement," Augustus said, stepping in to save Alexander.

"Nothing serious. And nothing that will threaten the crew."

"Professional," Petra repeated, amused.

"Is that what you're calling it?" Talia spoke for the first time.

"It's complicated." Ryan crossed his arms, still standing next to the command chair where Carmen sat.

"And the alien diplomats? Did you actually abduct them, or is Santiago making that up?" The bridge went quiet for a moment. Alexander met Ryan's gaze steadily.

"We rescued eight kidnapped aliens from a torture facility. Santiago called them diplomats to avoid explaining what he was doing to them."

"Ah," Ryan said. Then he gave an understanding nod.

"That tracks."

"Now that you're all acquainted," Carmen said, interrupting the conversation while tapping her tablet.

"I'm sending you your cross-training schedules. Each of the command crew is to learn enough to cover two backup positions." She glanced around the bridge.

"You're all being paid triple the standard rates for this kind of work. I expect you to step up." The crew murmured agreement. Carmen swiped to another screen, pulling up the ship's layout and showing the tablet to Grimnir.

"Cabin assignments. These sections are command-crew-designated. Given our skeleton crew, these are available, though some of you would need to double up. Guest quarters are at the other end of the ship, near the stern. Your call." Talia studied the layout.

"The guest quarters should go to our guests." She didn't say 'aliens' directly, but the meaning was clear. The team nodded in agreement. Augustus looked down at Felix.

"Would you be comfortable sharing a room? I'd rather stay near the bridge." Felix's tail wagged once. He nodded. Several crew members did a double-take at the golden retriever nodding like he understood. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. Talia spoke up.

"I'd prefer staying near the bridge as well. Annie and I can share." Annie grinned.

"Works for me. Slumber party." Alexander studied the layout for a moment, zooming in on the crew section.

"Give me a few weeks. We can knock out some walls, expand the rooms. A small crew means we have the space." The crew looked pleased. Carmen glanced at the chronometer.

"It'll be another seven hours until we reach Astra Omnia. I'll comms you when we're getting close." Grimnir took it as the polite dismissal it was. They filed off the bridge, Felix trotting alongside Augustus. Alexander made his way to Gabriel's suite, located opposite the captain's quarters near the bridge. The door opened at his touch, recognizing his biometric signature. It was a novel experience, allowing a security system to do its job in his presence. The bedroom was first.

Luxurious and expensive, exactly what he'd expected from Gabriel Santiago's personal yacht. A bed large enough for three people, expensive linens, built-in closet systems. Alexander gave it a cursory glance and moved on. The entertainment room was interesting. It was large, easily four times the size of the bedroom. Sofas lined one wall, expensive leather that probably cost more than some people made in a year. A long table dominated the center, surrounded by high-backed chairs. Display screens lined another wall.

Storage cabinets along the remaining space. It was the perfect place for a workshop. Alexander walked the perimeter, already planning the layout. Workbenches here. Tool storage there. The displays could show schematics. The table would be ideal for assembly work. He'd need to source materials, but Augustus had expanded the Storage Closet with his rune magic, giving them enough space to bring a significant amount of equipment. He settled onto one of the sofas, closing his eyes. Time to learn the ship properly.

Alexander's awareness spread outward. He'd already performed the Ensoulment at Prime Orbital, binding the vessel to him. Now he needed something different. Familiarity. Understanding every system, every space, every quirk of this particular ship. His powers flowed through the Sleipnir methodically. Technopathy traced data pathways and control systems. Metallokinesis felt the structural framework, the hull integrity, the placement of every bulkhead. Electrokinesis followed power conduits and energy distribution.

Animachina wove through it all, sensing the ship's presence as something more than just machinery. He started with immediate surroundings. His suite. The corridor outside. The nearby crew quarters. Then pushed outward in expanding circles. Bridge systems. Engineering sections. Life support networks. Weapon arrays. Storage bays near the stern where the guest quarters waited. An hour passed. He could sense crew members moving through the ship now. Talia and Annie settling into their cabin.

Augustus showing Felix their shared space. Carmen still on the bridge with the XO, reviewing something. The Chief deep in engineering, muttering while working. Another hour. The mapping grew more complete. He knew where every access panel led. Which corridors connected to which sections. How power routed from the reactor to different systems. The ship's layout existed in his mind now, updating constantly as he maintained the connection. Everything felt right. The escape had worked. They'd gotten away clean.

The crew was competent. The aliens would be picked up soon. They had a real starship now, not borrowed but theirs. Then something nagged at his awareness. A power discrepancy. Small, easy to miss unless you were paying attention. Energy disappearing somewhere that didn't account for physics, and wasn't powering any ship system he'd catalogued. Alexander frowned. The anomaly felt familiar somehow. Then it hit him. The island. He'd noticed something similar back at their base.

Spent days investigating it, checking every possible explanation. Analyzed the power grid. Monitored the reactor. Ran diagnostics. Never found the source. This was the same thing. Alexander opened his eyes and stood. Time to get answers. He moved through the corridors, awareness spread across the entire ship. Everything accounted for except for that one persistent drain that bypassed physics entirely.

He tracked crew positions through their bioelectrical signatures and the subtle electromagnetic fields they generated. Most were stationary, in quarters, engineering, the bridge, and the mess hall, if his memory of the map was right. But two were moving, their signatures familiar to him. Augustus and Talia, together, making their way through the ship. They stopped. The power drain spiked. Then they moved on. Alexander's eyes narrowed.

He adjusted his path, following their trajectory rather than trying to trace energy that simply ceased to exist. They stopped again. Another spike. Moved on. Suspicious. By the third stop, Alexander had closed the distance. He rounded a corner and found them at an open doorway. Inside, Talia held a hand to the wall, concentrating, while Augustus moved his wand across the bulkhead, tracing invisible lines.

Where his wand passed, faint runes appeared on the metal surface, glowing briefly before fading to near-invisibility. Alexander leaned against the doorframe, watching. Augustus completed one pattern and moved to another section. Talia consulted her tablet, then nodded. Augustus began tracing again. As he finished, Alexander felt the power drain spike through his connection to the ship. Energy pulled from the reactor and just... vanished. Then it settled again, adding to the steady, low-level draw.

"What are you working on?" Alexander asked. Both turned. Augustus lowered his hand.

"Privacy wards to block scrying, divination, and other superpowered detection methods," Talia said.

"Same as the island." Alexander stepped into the room, studying the barely-visible runes on the walls. The pattern work was more refined than the island version. Augustus had been practicing.

"Auggy," Alexander said slowly.

"How are these powered?"

"Mana, I think. Part of the magic system I've been learning." Augustus shrugged.

"It just works." Alexander stared at him. Then at the runes. Then back at Augustus.

"You," he said, voice low, "are the reason for the power drain on the island." Augustus blinked.

"What?"

"There's no such thing as mana!" Alexander gestured at the walls.

"These runes are drawing directly from the ship's reactor. The same way they were pulling power from the island's generator. You've been stealing power this whole time and calling it magic!" Talia and Augustus exchanged glances.

"Is that a problem?" Talia asked. Alexander sighed.

"No," he admitted.

"Then—""It's fine." Alexander turned and walked out. Days. Days he'd spent on the island investigating that power drain. Running diagnostics. Building custom monitoring equipment. Checking every conduit. Cross-referencing consumption patterns. He'd even analyzed the generator's stability. Gone through every spectrum of physics trying to find an explanation for power that simply disappeared.

And the entire time, Augustus and Talia had been wandering around the estate, casually setting up magical runes that drained the generator without even knowing they were doing it. They'd told him about the anti-scrying wards, of course. Alexander had assumed their own powers were powering it. Bloody mana. Alexander headed back to his suite, shaking his head. Magic. It just reached into whatever power source was convenient and helped itself. Augustus didn't even realize he was doing it. The runes just... worked.

Automatically. He reached the entertainment room and dropped onto the sofa. At least the mystery was solved. And the reactor had plenty of capacity for whatever Augustus wanted to enchant. The drain was negligible in the grand scheme of things. Still annoying though. Alexander sat there for a moment, staring at the ceiling. Then a thought occurred to him. If the runes just needed power... He sat up slowly. His drones had power systems. Hell, he was a walking source of electricity.

If the two of them could enchant walls to create privacy wards, could they enchant machinery? Could runes be integrated into technology? Magical machines. Alexander leaned back against the sofa, mind already working through the implications. Enhanced shielding beyond what physical materials could provide. Improved sensor capabilities. Maybe even offensive applications that bypassed conventional physics. He'd need to run tests.

See if Talia's enchantments and Augustus's runes could be etched onto circuit boards or if they required specific materials. Determine power consumption rates. Figure out whether they interfered with electronic systems or if they could coexist. But the potential… Alexander glanced at the drone hovering nearby. Droney beeped at him, questioning.

"I think we're going to be getting some upgrades pretty soon. Magical upgrades." Droney beeped again, excited.