Free Starship's Mage: Omnibus: (Starship's Mage Book 1) by Glynn Stewart

reviewing the calculations on the datapad again. There was no computer assistance for the final jump – he had to know the vectors and energy levels in his mind, and move the ship entirely with his magic.
     
    #
     
    The Blue Jay accelerated for twenty-four hours, building velocity, and then coasted for another day, drawing clear of the gravity well of the planet behind them. Damien calculated and re-calculated his first jump. Rice reviewed it once more, the morning of the third day.
    It finally came down to it late that afternoon. Damien checked the sensor readouts, and they were clear enough of gravity wells for the spell to function.
    “Captain, we’re ready to jump,” he said quietly into the bridge link, and Rice nodded.
    “Note for the log,” Rice ordered. “It is seventeen forty Olympus Mons Time, and I am authorizing the jump.”
    “Noted for the log,” Jenna replied, though Damien knew the computer would be recording after the phrase ‘note for the log.’
    Rice looked through the link directly at Damien, holding his gaze. “You may jump when ready, Ship’s Mage,” he said firmly.
    Damien nodded, and turned his attention from the link screen to the simulacrum floating at the heart of the Blue Jay . The tiniest of kicks launched him away from the acceleration platform, leaving him floating in zero-gravity, held in place only by his hands on the silver icon of the Blue Jay ’s essence.
    With a deep breath, he slipped the runes on his bare palms into the exact places carved for them on the simulacrum, and let his power become part of the rune matrix of the ship. The screens around him allowed him to see as the ship saw, and now he felt the ship.
    He reached out with his mind, confirming through the simulacrum what the sensors had already told him – that the space-time here was sufficiently unbent by gravity to allow for a jump.
    He touched the reservoir of power in his core, mustering energy up into his hands and through the connection into the ship. The rune matrix greedily sucked up his power, reflecting it around the ship in an ever-building net that was almost blinding to someone who saw the magic in the rune matrix.
    Without conscious thought, Damien knew the calculations were perfect, and he held them in the center of his mind.
    Then, he released his breath and his power and moved . He touched a blip in the probability of reality, and all of his energy fled his body in a single exhalation.
    The Blue Jay jumped.
     
    #
     
    “How are we looking?” Rice asked Jenna as soon as the indescribable sensation of being transported trillions of kilometers through space in an instant faded.
    “Checking position now,” she replied, running a series of programs on her console before looking back up at him. “We are bang on target, dead center in jump zone one of the Sherwood-Corinthian sequence.”
    Rice turned to the monitor showing him the simulacrum chamber, taking in the utterly drained expression on his new Ship’s Mage.
    “Well done Mr. Montgomery,” he told the youth. “Shall we schedule the next jump for oh-three hundred Olympus Mons time?”
    That would give the young man over nine hours to rest – nine hours it looked like the Mage desperately needed. He and Damien had scheduled to jump every eight hours, but after the new Ship’s Mage’s first jump, he figured they could spare the time.
    “I’ll be ready,” Damien promised; his voice soft with fatigue.
    “Get some sleep, Damien,” Rice ordered. “We’ll talk before the next jump.”
    With a nod, the young Mage turned off the video link, and Rice turned to Jenna.
    “Scopes clear?” he asked quietly.
    “All clear so far as our sensors can read,” she replied, equally quiet. “No one has come through here in a week at least.”
    Rice considered the screen showing the thermal signatures around them. The thermal scope was the most reliable method of detecting ships, seeing as how any vessel under power blazed like a tiny sun against