Chapter 148: Courier

  Location; Magicon Empire; Magicon System; Terra; Imperia; FBC

  A bit more than an hour later, I find myself walking back toward building 18, having just finished a call with Mira. She told me that they are done and would like to hand in their paperwork to the professor. She asked me again to join them, so here I am.

  I enter the building and take the elevator back up toward the room where we stayed earlier. I catch the others while they leave said room and wave at them.

  “Hey Sara, perfect timing,” Benny calls out and the others return my wave. Next, we get back to the elevator and ascend a few more levels. Mira then leads the way and we pass countless doors along a long hallway. Then she stops and I glance at the badge next to the door. It reads Professor Cornelius Cornelius.

  I tilt my head and look at Mira. “Is his first name also his last name?”

  She nods. “Yeah, it was confusing at the start, but as long as you say Professor Cornelius, everything’s fine.”

  “Huh, alright…” Talk about cruel parents… Who does this to their child? At least he’s not named Dick Dick or something similar, I guess.

  Mira knocks at the door and a slightly scratchy male voice asks us to come in. I’m the last one and close the door behind me, then I take a look at Professor Cornelius. He looks young. Barely older than us students, but I know full well how deceiving this can be. He’s got dirty blonde hair and everything about him just screams surfer dude. It starts with the messy shoulder-length hairstyle with a bit of a beard and ends with his Hawaiian shirt. Are clothes like this even allowed for a professor?

  Anyway, he grins at Mira and the others before his gaze settles on me. “Ahh, if this isn’t my little troublemaker group. And you must be their taxi, I suppose?”

  I nod at him. “Actually, I’m the CEO of Speedy Sara Limited,” I visibly cringe while saying that and glare at Benny immediately after. He just whistles softly and looks everywhere but at me.

  I’m so getting back at him for choosing such a stupid name!

  The professor lets out a soft chuckle before he composes himself. “I see,” he looks back at Mira. “So you decided to continue pursuing your plan then?”

  “We did,” Mira replies and taps at her interface. “Here’s our paperwork… We’ve brought Sara with us in case there are any immediate issues you might have.”

  His eyes glaze over a bit and he taps the air before him. Then he starts reading. We just stand around awkwardly while he does so. At least he’s a fast reader as he focuses back at us some ten minutes later.

  “Did you book your wormhole slots in advance?”

  Peter shakes his head. “No, not yet. We plan to do it short-term while we’re on the way. With Sara, we might even be able to skip a few wormholes.”

  The professor nods. “Alright, but keep in mind that this can cause delays if some wormholes are busy. You’ve only got four days until the grains must arrive, starting as soon as I give you the go-ahead.”

  All three of them nod in response. “Yeah, we know. Is there anything else or are we good to start?” Mira asks.

  Professor Cornelius lifts one finger and looks back at the files on his interface. “I don’t see a contract where you’re booking this Speedy Sara Ltd.”

  Benny rolls out his tablet. “Yeah, I’ve got it right here… We waited with the signatures until you approved our other documents. But if they are good, we can finalize it right here.”

  Professor Cornelius nods once. “I only skimmed it, but so far everything seems to be in order. So I’m approving your approach and your time starts now!”

  Benny immediately gets to work and signs the contract. He then hands it to Peter and Mira and lastly to me. “Sara, if you’d please sign.”

  I skim it as well before signing. Everything reads as we discussed, so I place my signature at the bottom right and hand the tablet back to Benny.

  He gives it a once over, then sends it toward Professor Cornelius who acknowledges the receipt. After that, we leave the office.

  Once the door is closed behind us, Mira calls out to hurry. We only have four days after all.

  “Where is the pallet?” I ask her and she in turn looks at Peter.

  “It should be ready for pickup at FBC Station. But before that, we have to go to administration to get a docking permit.”

  FBC Station, huh? “That won’t be necessary. I’m already docked there.”

  Peter stares at me in response. “Uhh, then we just book a shuttle and go?”

  I wink at him. “That also won’t be necessary. Do you need anything or can we go right now?”

  Benny claps Peters back. “Don’t forget, she’s a Space Mage, bro!”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “Ahh, right… Then let’s pick up our luggage. Say, let’s meet before building 12 in half an hour?” Peter replies with a slight coloring of his face.

  Everyone else agrees and so I go back to my own room too. Not to pack, but to say goodbye to the others. I’ve got a full wardrobe aboard the Stargazer after all.

  Unfortunately, I only encounter Lucy and Alina in our room as Lydia is out somewhere with Olivia. So I hug them goodbye and ask them to tell Lydia that I’m out for the next five or six days. Then I put on one of my shipsuits below my clothes so that I don’t have to do so later and slowly walk over toward building 12. Benny and Peter are already standing outside, so we just have to wait for Mira.

  Ten minutes later, she exits the building, pulling a gigantic suitcase behind her. Upon seeing her, Benny starts laughing. “Hey Mira, we’re not on tour for a whole year… Just a week or maybe even less.”

  She just glares at him in reply and looks at me. “We’re ready.”

  I nod and beckon them to come closer. No reason to unnecessarily flex with my power… I cast a Teleportation spell and Clara gives me the coordinates for one of the still-empty workrooms aboard my ship. The two of us recently turned this specific room into our unofficial jump room. I probably have to make that official before we head for Earth… Not that anyone places some things inside.

  Anyway, my magic envelopes our small group, and with a mental trigger, we vanish. Then we arrive in the empty room and quickly exit it. I give them a short tour through the ship and assign a few cabins to them temporarily. The tour is accompanied by the usual oohing and ahhing of course.

  Once they’ve overcome their shock, we exit the starship and enter the space station to search for our pallet of grains. After loading the pallet into one of the cargo rooms on deck 00, we take the elevator to the bridge and I initiate the undocking from the station. After that, we’re finally off on my final taxi assignment.

  Location: Magicon Empire; Magicon Administration; VS Stargazer

  The wormhole out of the Magicon System is a short one as always and brings us to a hub of other wormholes, leading almost in every possible direction. Mira accesses the local net and downloads the waiting list for the wormhole we have to take. She brings it up on one of the holo projectors of the bridge and Peter groans upon seeing it. “Dammit, we should have listened to Professor Cornelius!”

  Let’s just say it’s a very long list. With a shrug, I ask Clara to get us out of the traffic. Once we’re clear, Starship Jump saves the day and I teleport us a good distance closer to our destination.

  Then we just cruise along while I take a short break to recover. I could have done another jump, but we do have enough time to not exhaust myself overly. Instead, we sit down in the living room and play some games. The three of them introduce me to their love for multiplayer racing games, and so we have the main holo-projector showing a four-way split screen right before us.

  Unfortunately, their experience shows and I always come in dead last. Still, it’s fun, so we continue playing for a few hours. When we’re done, I grab a quick bite in the kitchen and then return to the bridge to do another jump. This one brings us to the Chileno System which also marks the outer edge of the Magicon Administration.

  As soon as we arrive at the outer edge of the star system, I set course for the wormhole that leads over into the Axtendus Duchy. Clara keeps watch and I retire to my cabin to get a good night’s sleep. In the end, the direct jumping not only saved us the long wait at the wormhole hub right outside of the Magicon System, but it also cut off another wormhole travel from our journey.

  The next morning greets me with a nice breakfast made by Peter and Benny. The two boys tell me they’ve got up early to get us on the waiting list for the wormhole. That way we hopefully don’t have to wait too long before we can enter it.

  From what the Stargazer’s sensors show me there isn’t much of a line before the wormhole anyway, but better safe than sorry, I guess. Mira joins us about thirty minutes later and gets her own breakfast served by the boys.

  “How far are we out from the wormhole?” She asks between bites.

  “About twenty minutes of flying and then another thirty minutes of waiting until we have our travel slot,” Benny replies. “But maybe we can jump early, as traffic seems to be quite low today. One second, let me check.”

  He taps his interface and a notification on mine shows me that he connected to the starship’s communication array and established a call with someone. When the call connects, he mumbles a few sentences under his breath and nods along steadily. A minute later, the call ends and he looks back at us.

  “Okay, they expect one more incoming ship in about 25 minutes, but after that, we’re free to enter the wormhole.”

  I nod at him. “Perfect, I can slow us down a little bit, then we can enter directly without stopping and waiting.”

  Twenty-five minutes later, we’re all back on the bridge and the purple wormhole circle looms before us. A gigantic freighter just exited and slowly flies away. I prepare the Wormhole Navigation spell while the Stargazer flies closer and closer.

  As soon as we’re close enough, I trigger the spell and a perfectly shaped Space Bubble envelopes us. Then we enter the wormhole and I keep us steadily on course.

  Location: Magicon Empire; Axtendus Duchy; Zukan System; VS Stargazer

  After exiting the wormhole that led us into the Axtendus Duchy, it was all smooth sailing. In the following two days, we crossed two more star systems until we made our final jump into the Zukan System.

  Currently, we’re approaching a space station above planet Omali, which is our destination. Mira has already called ahead and secured us a docking spot, so Clara and I both slowly bring the Stargazer in. As soon as we’re docked, everything happens very quickly.

  A small team of scientists is already waiting at our airlock and I invite them in. They excitedly look at the pallet full of grains and can’t unload it fast enough. Benny practically has to hold one of them back to get him to sign one of the documents so that we have a confirmation of the delivery.

  After that, we decide to take it slow and go for a short trip to the space station. There’s quite a nice restaurant where we eat lunch before we go back to the Stargazer. Mira, Benny, and Peter are very happy that everything worked out as they intended. Now there’s only the question left if all this counted as an exploit and they get a reward.

  Location: Magicon Empire; Magicon System; Terra; Imperia; FBC

  I speed up our journey back to FBC considerably and rely heavily on the Starship Jump spell to travel in a straight line. I almost jump the full distance I’m capable of whenever I’m rested, and so we make it back in about a day and a half. As soon as we’re back in the Magicon System, Clara does her pseudo-AI stuff again and brings the Stargazer back to its parking spot while I take the four of us directly to the planet.

  We make an appointment with Professor Cornelius early the next morning and the three of them show him that we delivered our goods in time. He congratulates them on a job well done with a slight smile on his face.

  When we leave the building they all stop dead in their tracks and their eyes widen considerably. Benny lets out a loud cheer and they hug each other. Somehow, I’m included in the hug too.

  When I ask them what happened, Mira replies with a big smile on her face. “Our exploit worked! We just got our reward and it’s perfect. We can now start an internship at one of the most exclusive courier services within The Empire. That’s so cool!”

  “Wow, congratulations!”

  “Thanks, Sara, you’ve been the best help we could have asked for. If you ever need anything, just ask and we’ll be there!”

  Where’s my reward?