Valterion: The Space/Arch? Mage

Chapter 87: Sara Green

Location: Magicon Empire; Magicon System; Benson Moon; Valterion Estate

The remainder of the dinner passes pretty much without further issues. I talk a bit with Amelia and Chris, and we get to know each other better. A pretty normal dinner if you ignore everything that happened before the food arrived.

The end of dinner comes with another topic, that has been in the back of my head for a while but never became that relevant so far.

“So, I’ve heard that you’ll visit Ferdinand Benson College soon,” Grandma Amelia speaks up.

I swallow my final bite. “Yeah, my parents and I decided to keep me from all the Noble shenanigans for now.”

She smiles. “Good, but don’t become too detached… I don’t want to repeat what happened earlier today.”

A shudder runs down my spine. I will not become a hippie! “Oh, not at all. I just want to familiarize myself a bit more with all the magical stuff and the nation here. I think that’s enough for now… No need for further hurdles in the form of young Nobles.”

That has the whole table chuckling and Chris starts to speak. “True enough, RMA is full of them, but believe me, it’s more fun than you think.”

“Maybe, but I think, I’m good for now.” I turn back to Amelia. “So why did you bring up college so suddenly?”

“Well, you obviously need a new identity, and conveniently enough, I do have one for you. It’s only a month till the semester starts, so you better start familiarizing yourself with it.”

I look at Mom. “Didn’t you…”

She shakes her head and stage whispers. “Grandma Amelia is The Empire’s spy mistress. You won’t get a better fake identity and if she offers… Take it!” She winks at me.

Spy mistress, huh? So that’s how she managed to keep track of my hippie grandparents.

“Okay, so what do you have in mind?”

Grandma Amelia waves her hand, and a holoprojector comes alive and projects a young woman above the table together with a biography to her right.

She has black hair with pink highlights at the tips, blue eyes, and her face is pretty similar to my own, just without the freckles and with a little bit darker complexion. She looks pretty good if it wasn’t for the pink highlights. I look at the biography and take a sharp breath. That’s comprehensive! A detailed family tree, that encompasses five past generations, a whole history of school and small jobs, connections with companies big enough to make the attendance at FBC believable, and much more.

I look at the name. Sara Green. I like it. Way less suspicious than Valtron. Still, that’s a lot to take in. Basically, more information than I know about my real life… “Is that really necessary? It seems a bit over the top?”

“Oh, absolutely! You’re going to need it. While there aren’t many Nobles at FBC, it’s still the premier college for company scions, and their families leave no stone unturned if you manage to catch their interest. And with your looks and magical potential, that’s pretty much guaranteed. So, you’ll have a lot to study in the coming month. Your identity has to be waterproof, and you must answer questions about it without delay. Your AI can help you, but if your parents haven’t taken care of it yet, you’ll probably need a better one as well.”

Clara takes that moment to chime in with a smug voice. “Oh, I think she’s good.”

Grandpa John almost spills his drink. “Clara? You’re back in the saddle?”

“I sure am!”

“Fantastic,” Amelia replies, “that takes care of one problem.”

Now I wonder if there is even more to Clara than I already know… They all seem familiar with each other. A question for later, I guess.

“Okay, thanks, Grandma Amelia.”

“You’re welcome, and don’t forget to visit us from time to time. We’ll only be one jump away.”

“Sure thing, I already promised Grandpa. One more question, though. How do I, you know, look like her?” I indicate the hologram of Sara Green.

Amelia looks at Mom with a raised eyebrow. “Disguises are your specialty.”

She chuckles. “True enough… We’ve already built everything you need into the Stargazer, Sara. I’ll show you later. It’s a disguise chamber, that lets you magically alter your appearance.”

Cool, and does that mean I can keep my starship? “Nice, thank you, Mom!”

We all talk a bit more, and then the Bensons and Chris say their goodbyes and leave.

Location: Magicon Empire; Valterion Duchy; Valterion System; Nua; Alburgh; Valterion Mansion

The following month passes quickly, maybe too quickly, but I still manage. I’m now able to almost perfectly answer any question anyone asks about Sara Green, and I learned a long-range Communication spell to talk with my parents while I’m at college. Unfortunately, it’s not the Video Call one, so I can only voice chat with them.

Lydia and Lucy also got their new identities from Grandma Amelia and are now named Lydia Walton and Lucinda Arkandi. We spent a lot of time together and trained our knowledge of those new identities. Luckily, Amelia made it so that we all knew each other from before. For example, Sara Green went to school with Lucy, and I know Lydia from business dealings between our parents.

Yeah, that’s another fact I missed earlier. Those fake identities include whole Companies that are behind them. I don’t know if they were just created for us, or if Amelia already had them ready to use. Probably the latter. Just crazy.

Anyway, it’s now time for us to get going, so we all go out to the city to enjoy a last breakfast together. My parents join us as well of course, and so we all sit at the top of another tower and enjoy a completely over-the-top breakfast, courtesy to my parents.

After that, we make a quick stop at Doctor Philipps’ and say goodbye to Ronja, then we teleport up to the Stargazer, or the GIS Stargazer, as she is now designated: Green Industries Ship.

Arriving there, Mom takes me to the disguise chamber on deck 04 and I step in to initiate the transformation, just like we trained in the past month. I tried to change my highlights to purple, but everyone insisted, that they have to stay pink – a bummer, but what can I do? I initiate the process, and magic surrounds me. I don’t feel anything else, but five minutes later, everything stops, and I look into the mirror that is included in the chamber. I look exactly like the hologram from Amelia.

Sara Green is ready for college!

I step out of the chamber and Mom and Dad are waiting for me. I hug them both, and we say our goodbyes. We all shed a few tears, but they also tell me that they’ll be on Benson Moon in a month, and I better visit them there. Of course, I say that I’ll be there, and then they teleport away.

Now it’s just Lucy, Lydia, and me. Time to set sail! A quick teleport brings me to the bridge, where the others are already waiting for me. “Are you ready, Sara?” Lucy asks.

“Absolutely! Clara, do your thing and take us out, please.” The Stargazer is currently docking at a normal space station inside the Valterion System. As I’m now Sara Green and don’t have my Valterion privileges anymore, we have to travel without breaking the rules. This means cruising out to the wormhole and leaving from there. Only then we can use the Starship Jump spell.

Luckily, we’ve got Clara, and she expertly navigates us out toward the wormhole. It takes a while, and I already miss the short time I spent as Sara Valterion so far. Luckily, college isn’t forever, and I’m not required to travel around too much once I’m there. We spend our time watching a movie and playing a few board games until Clara calls me to the bridge for the trip through the wormhole. It goes smoothly, and on the other side, we do a bit of a break to recover my power. Then it’s finally time to speed things up! Clara gives me the coordinates, and I focus on the Starship Jump spell. I trigger it, and we jump a good distance closer to our destination.

Then the exhaustion hits and I retire to my cabin. I don’t even have the energy to ask how far I just jumped. I sleep like a baby. We take things slow from there on to not overwork my magic, and the process repeats itself for the next three days until we finally arrive close to a familiar wormhole. It’s the one leading into the Magicon System. After flying through it, things get busy again and we get assigned a much more indirect route to the planet than with the ducal benefits I had last time. Clara follows it perfectly, and we arrive at our destination almost a day later: A mid-sized space station above Terra, that offers long-time leases of its docking arms. It doesn’t come cheap, but it’s expected for someone of Sara Green’s status. Is it weird that I sometimes think of myself in the third person?

Anyway, we spend the night on the ship again before we take one of the station’s shuttles to get us down to the planet below.

Location: Magicon Empire; Magicon System; Terra; Imperia

The shuttle takes us down to the planet first thing in the morning. We didn’t even have time to eat breakfast, as the 0500 flight was the only one that still had three open spaces. So, we arrive on planet Terra hungry and half asleep. Nothing a big cup of coffee and a hearty breakfast can’t change! Luckily, I can ask Clara who immediately leads us to a small coffee shop in a back alley.

“This was your grandfather’s favorite here on the planet.” She replies when I ask why we didn’t go to one of the countless shops on the big street leading away from the spaceport.

We are quick to trust her judgment and enter the small shop. The smell of freshly brewed coffee enters my nose, and I let out a long sigh. Just what I need right now. The young man with glasses and the name tag Nicholas behind the counter grins at us when we step into the shop. “Good morning, ladies, I see some new faces have found their way to our shop. What can I get for you?”

“Morning,” I reply, “I’ll take a large coffee and one second…” I look at the holographic menu behind him. “And the Imperial breakfast.”

“Good choice! And for you?”

Lydia takes a chai latte and the same breakfast, which consists of pretty much one of everything, and Lucy takes another coffee and a French breakfast with croissants and a lot of jam.

We sit down at one of the wooden tables and wait for our food to arrive. When I look around, I notice that we’re the only customers, probably because of the back alley location of the shop.

Nicholas arrives shortly after with our things and asks if he could join us and I happily agree. Maybe he can answer a few of my questions.

We start to eat, and after a short while, I turn to him. “So, Nicholas, how’s life here in the city?”

He raises an eyebrow. “Oh, you are new, new! And please call me Nick.”

Lucy nods. “Yeah, we arrived just this morning, and Sara’s AI led us right here. Apparently, you have a special place. Oh, and I’m Lucy, this is Sara and Lydia.”

“Thanks, Lucy, my Grandma will like that, she’s the owner. As for the city? I could tell you about it all day… So, could you tell me what you’re here for so I can tell you the relevant stuff,” he flashes a big smile, and his brown eyes sparkle. He’s quite pretty with his dark-blonde hair and striking jawline, I have to say.

Lucy notices as well, as she blushes quite a bit. “Well, we’re here for college… It’s our first year, so we’re pretty much clueless.”

“Perfect, well not perfect for you, but for me. I’m about to start college as well, so you’ve come to the right man!”

“You are?” Lydia asks. “Which one?”

His smile gets even wider. “I’ll be going to FBC! The first one in my family, I got a full scholarship from the Benson Foundation because of my theory about hyperspace.”

I grin back at him. “That’s amazing! We’re going to FBC as well. Oh, and you have to tell me about your theory. I’m quite interested in hyperspace as well.”

“Wow, great! So I’ll be seeing you girls in the future.” His eyes flash to Lucy, who blushes even more. “My hyperspace stuff has to wait for a bit though… It’s a lot, and I don’t know if I’m allowed to share. Now for the important things. As we’re all going to FBC, I know exactly what to tell you…”

Turns out Nick is a bit of a party guy, as he mostly tells us about the best locations to go out in the evening. Some of them sound pretty cool, and I’m sure that I’ll check them out in the future. We also learn a bit more about the city itself.

Imperia is the capital city of Terra, and after Benson Moon pretty much also the capital of The Empire. It’s big! As in really big, even bigger than Shanghai was on Earth. 150 million inhabitants, most of them work for Magicon in different functions, and the city is divided into different parts or districts as well.

Just like in Alburgh, there are those giant towers, that pierce the clouds and offer a lot of space for people to live in or for companies to have their offices. Circling the towers is the remainder of the city, like the district with the spaceport where we are now. Other districts are for example all things administration, shopping, or most important for us, the university district. It’s on the other side of the city, unfortunately, so we have to travel for quite a bit until we reach it.

Nick said that especially the university district is like a city inside the city, as it contains everything, we students might need from dorms to sleep in, grocery stores, and restaurants, to the actual universities themselves. According to him, most students never leave the university district until they graduate. One thing, I’m not planning to do, as I promised to visit my family on Benson Moon. I don’t tell him that, of course, as Sara Green has absolutely no business up there.

In the end, we all exchange contacts and promise to meet again once we’ve settled in our dorms. Then we leave the coffee shop and start our trip through the city.