Trouble Magnet

Chapter 1

A most peculiar thing happened to the battleship as it departed the Repler system: initially daunting in size and form, it proceeded to undergo a kind of reverse metamorphosis, as if a butterfly were turning backward into an ungainly caterpillar. Intimidating weapons blisters collapsed in upon themselves like so many glistening, harmless bubbles. Lethal wave-form projectors shrank and slivered. Vast projecting appurtenances shimmied and vanished like the ominous illusions they were, until the menacing martial shape had imploded completely. In its place gleamed the far smaller fast-moving footprint of an ordinary cargo carrier approaching changeover. Clearly not a craft that was part of the impressive fleet component still orbiting the planet that was rapidly receding behind it, nor one that was likely to attract undue notice.

Visually revamped, externally overhauled, and mechanically face-lifted determinedly downscale, the Teacher slipped unchallenged into the physically unreasonable but mathematically coherent state known colloquially as space-plus, whereupon it swiftly left the Commonwealth border system known as Repler not only far behind, but far beyond it.

ýChangeover complete. Exterior appearance modified as per necessity. Proceeding on general Almaggee vector. Awaiting instructions.ý A pause, then, ýResume search?ý

Resume search. Flinx stared out the command port at the splay of distorted stars forward. Resume search for what? His ship was doubtless referring to the search his friends and mentors Bran Tse-Mallory and the Eint Truzenzuzex had sent him on. The one he had agreed to undertake provided only that they see to and look after his injured love Clarity Held back on New Riviera. A simple enough quest request.

All he was being asked to do was search and scour the vast reaches of the largely uninhabited section of the Sagittarius Arm of the galaxy opposite the Commonwealth, locate and establish contact with an unbelievably ancient planet-sized weapons platform of the long-extinctýexcept for one recently demised individualýwar-like species called the Tar-Aiym, and persuade it to aid in defending all civilization against an immense, undefined menace steadily accelerating in this direction from a region of space near Boýtes known as the Great Emptiness. And do this while avoiding the attentions of the increasingly persistent and curious Commonwealth authorities, the crazed suicidal adherents of the Order of Null who badly wanted him dead, certain elements of the AAnn Empire, and perhaps the isolated Qwarm assassin. All in hopes of saving the galaxy and, with luck, of in a few years making it to his thirtieth birthday. And maybe, just maybe, finding out who his father was.

He took a deep breath. From her position sprawled across the center of the command console, the minidrag Pip looked up at him, yawned, and stretched her brilliant pink-and-blue wings without unfurling them. He nodded, though not particularly at her.