by J Porteous
Arrathnar leaned in closer. 'Tell us, show us how to do it.'
The creature nodded slowly. 'Bring me something to show you.'
Arrathnar wheeled her chair across the room, reaching for a scribe screen before returning it to the creature. He snatched it from her hands with alarming speed and began scrawling as quickly as his energy would allow him.
Carl looked at Arrathnar. 'We can't let this happen,' he said. 'We need to stop them.'
A hacking laugh came from the creature. 'It is the same words we have heard before. It has not stopped the end from coming yet.'
Anger bubbled in Carl. 'What do you mean the same words? Do you think we can't finish this?'
'No one ever has before.'
'Then why are you telling us this? Why have you warned us?'
'Because it is not impossible to stop them, only improbable. There are endless probabilities across all of the multiverse, it stands to reason that at least universe can succeed. Maybe it will not be you, but someone, somewhere and somehow, will succeed.'
'But why wait till now?' Carl asked. 'Why haven't you come sooner?'
The creature made a low gurgling sound before responding. 'You think I was the only one to attempt to come through? The central stones offer different destinations every second. We send as many as we can to every destination in an attempt to warn someone, anyone. Most of them never make it through. Blind luck has brought me to you, nothing else.'
Arrathnar held a hand up to Carl to silence him. She gently placed a hand on the creature's shoulder. 'Thank you for this. We will do what we can to win your freedom, our freedom. To let you live as you choose.'
The creature stopped scribbling and looked at Arrathnar over the top of the scribe screen. 'Life?' the creature said. 'You think that living is any kind of freedom for us? No. We wish for true freedom. Freedom from these wretched abominations that we have become. We wish for death.' He studied the horrified look on Arrathnar's face. 'Our lives are artificially extended, to make sure they get the most from their...products.' He let out a small moan of pain as he took a deep breath. 'You must let our universe finally end. If there is life there must also be death. That is our freedom.'
Arrathnar frowned, unsure of what to say. She watched the man furiously writing on the screen, deep coughs wracking his weak frame, and blood starting to spill from his lips.
Carl sucked in a deep breath, the momentous task facing all of them hitting home. 'Who are they?' he said quietly. 'Who are they to decide how we live and die?'
The creature stopped running its finger over the screen and stretched a feeble arm out to place it on the counter top next to the bed. He turned back to Carl slowly, fits of coughs coming thick and fast. 'Who are they?' the creature repeated. He reached out and gripped Carl's arm with a surprisingly strong grip. 'They are gods.'
'Gods?' Carl said. 'You must be mistaken.' Carl watched the creature stare back at him silently. He gripped the creature's arm back. 'Answer me!' he yelled, shaking the creature.
'Carl,' Arrathnar said, pulling his hands away from the still creature. 'Carl, he's dead.'
Carl looked down at the glazed expression on the creature's face, hollow eyes staring back at him. Gods? He noticed the scribe screen on the counter top next to him. An arcane diagram filled the majority of the screen, with alignments of the Sender stones that they had already collected. Only one space remained. He examined it and saw something written where the last stone should be. 'Where are we going to find it?'
Arrathnar stood. 'I do not know. But I know of another lead we have to follow.' She grabbed the scribe screen from Carl. 'I'll contact Hawke now, perhaps we can catch them before they return.'
Chapter Eighteen
Hawke
'Where are we?' Hawke replied. 'Caspian system.' He could not help but feel the warmth of smugness creep through him. A grin spread over his face, and a genuine one at that. It felt good to be leading the action again, to be spearheading the fight. He had been on the back foot for so long that he had forgotten how it felt to be ahead of the curve. Not only that, but Daria was alive.
She was alive, and Elpis was real. The promises of the Kalindros felt hollow at the revelations. Carl's encounter with Rix, as dreadful as it was, only steeled that idea. It told him that the voices could lie, a simple truth that broke the perfect image he was presented with every time he dreamed. Your offer means nothing to me anymore, he thought forcefully. I will get Daria back. On my own terms. A shudder ran through him, chilling him to his core, but the voices did not answer him back this time. You don't control me anymore.
'Wait, what?' Arrathnar said, her voice heavily distorted through the intercom system. 'What are you doing there?'
'Following up something from our meeting with the proxy,' he said, skirting some of the finer details. 'How are things back on the Winter Dawn? Can you run a scan on the name Solitude?'
'It is a long story, too long to explain right now.' Arrathnar paused for second. 'I have ran searches on the name Solitude. Nelson has dragged up some details on the ship database, it is an ex-military one.'
Hawke felt his neck hair prickle at those words. 'Ex-military? What class are we looking at here?'
'A Sentinel,' she said. 'It is a-'
'It's an officer class transport, I know.'
'My apologies,' Arrathnar said. 'I sometimes find myself forgetting that you were once a military man.'
'Probably for the best,' Hawke muttered. 'We'll find it and report back.'
'The last Sender stone,' Arrathnar said. 'We need it, Hawke.'
Hawke's brow creased with questions. If Zura has gotten Daria involved with the Kalindros in any way... 'We'll get a lock on the location of the Solitude and go from there, Hawke out.' He reached up, switching the intercom off without waiting for the response.
'How are things aboard the Winter Dawn?' Justinia asked, from over his shoulder.
Hawke spun in his seat to face her. 'Long story, apparently. Whatever it was, this is our only lead. We need this to pay off.'
She nodded in agreement. Her calm face slipped. 'Hawke,' she said, a hesitant waver to her words. 'Are you okay? After seeing Daria, I mean.'
'You know what?' Hawke said, pushing himself up out of the pilot seat. 'I'm good. The best I've been for a long time.' He found the same grin from before spreading across his lips.
Justinia smiled back, a beaming and wicked smile. She slapped a firm hand on his shoulder. 'Let's get going then, shall we?'
Hawke nodded back. He turned back to the navigation console and punched in the details of the Solitude. 'An ex-military ship shouldn't be hard to find,' he said. 'Most of them head for the scrap heap once being decommissioned. You don't tend to see many flying about.' A luminous green flashed from one of the monitors to his side. He turned to study it. The flash sat on a location at the edge of the local star cluster. 'Got a location. The Solitude was last seen docking near the edge of the system, at Watcher outpost.' He punched a set of commands into the console again, enabling the auto-pilot. It was not as fast or as precise as a human pilot, but it was the best they had with Carl and Nelson back on the Winter Dawn.
'What do you think we are going to find?' Justinia asked. 'Watcher outpost is almost a dead station from what I understand.'
Hawke stroked his greying beard, his eyes lost in the glow of the monitors. 'I don't know,' he said, finally. Daria flashed in his mind, her face twisted in fear. He visibly winced. 'But something tells me we aren't going to like it.'
Justinia agreed. 'Seems to be the way we operate recently.' She coughed and drew a hand across her mouth. 'Well, we've come this far, we can't just sit down and die now.' She turned her back to him, attempting to stifle another harsh cough.
Another pained image of Daria dashed his mind. Try your hardest you bastards, he thought, I've made my mind up. Hawke shook his head, bringing himself back out of his thoughts. 'Let's just concentrate on getting there first.'
The War Goddess dropped out of war
p drive and into the vicinity of Watcher outpost. The outpost could not have been more dissimilar from Savannah Haven. The frontier outpost was almost deserted. The occasional trading or mercenary vessel entered, but most were leaving, from the few docking bays it had.
From a distance, its jagged, misshapen outline could easily be mistaken for debris rather than a inhabited station. Small flashes of light flared in the darkness around it, a plethora of maintenance crews tirelessly carrying out repairs to keep the compartments of the station from falling to pieces.
Hawke still remembered the excitement of the Exploration Conglomerate. Their expedition to the edge of the Caspian system was meant to expose and harvest what they had hoped would be masses of raw resource. That was back when he was still living on Callisto, back when he was still Captain of the Council Guard. The expedition had been a disaster, bearing little of the resources that was claimed to be there, leaving behind a skeleton crew and the derelict looking station that was now in front of them.
Justinia sidled up to Hawke, looking through the view-port. 'I've heard the stories about what a backwater Watcher outpost is,' she said. 'Looking back on them, they didn't really do it justice.' A small smirk marked her face. 'Savannah Haven really lived up to its name in comparison.'
Hawke managed a small smile but his thoughts remained fixated on the task ahead. He put his headset on and hailed Watcher outpost. 'Watcher outpost, this is Captain Hawke Sparov of the War Goddess. We are requesting permission to dock.'
The intercom fired a burst of static in response. 'Sorry, could you repeat that, Captain?'
Hawke rolled his eyes and looked back to Justinia, lowering the mic. 'Even their comms are shot to shit.' He brought the mic back to his mouth. 'I said, this is Captain Hawke Sparov of the War Goddess, requesting permission to dock.'
Hawke and Justinia sat in silence, waiting for the response. A couple of ships departed from the station and flew past them on their way to some other distant area of the galaxy. The War Goddess shook gently as they passed into warp space and disappeared.
'War Goddess, this is Watcher outpost. Proceed to bay two.'
'Finally,' Hawke muttered as he threw down his headset. He punched in some commands on the console and the ship lurched into life, making a slow and steady path for the docking bay. Another ship left as they grew closer. Hawke watched it with intent eyes. Nothing even remotely military so far. A loud sound startled him. Justinia stood beside him, having just thrown Hawke's armour on to the weapons console.
'Something isn't right,' she said, already kitted out in her own armour. 'Something tells me we might need this. Put it on.'
Hawke glanced back out of the view-port and noticed another ship leaving. 'You could be on to something,' he said. 'Most of their docking bays just emptied out. No one else appears to be landing apart from us.' He mulled over his options before realising that there was only one option if he wanted to make it out alive. If Daria was there, it was the only option to get her out alive as well. He reached over to the weapons console and pulled on his combat armour. He looked up at Justinia as he pulled on his boots. 'Hand cannons only and no helmets, we don't want to spook them too much.'
The drop bay door of the War Goddess screeched open, the sound of it echoing around the large and empty bay they had been directed to. Hawke walked down the ramp and into the spacious docking bay, Justinia following close behind. The dock was dark, most of the lights were either blown or flickering haphazardly. Rust and rot danced along the walls, the scars of welding work mingling with the blemishes.
Towards the entrance of the bay a figure moved towards them with quick, hurried steps. As the figure grew closer it turned out to be a man, dressed in a suit that would have looked smart, if not for what looked like oil stains liberally splattered all over it.
The man approached and extended a grubby hand. 'Captain Sparov? Willnell Kendall, owner of Watcher outpost.' He glanced down at himself, following Hawke's eyes. 'Ah, you'll have to forgive me, Captain, all of us must muck in and help where we can to keep the Watcher afloat.'
Hawke stood regarding the man for a moment. He cautiously extended his hand, only to find it snatched into a quick shake before he could say a word.
'So,' the small man said, as he proudly straightened his suit. 'What brings you out to the Caspian Rim then Captain?'
'Just looking for some information,' Hawke said.
'Long way to come just for some information, Captain.' The man watched him enthusiastically, wheezing excited breaths. 'Anything I can help with, Captain?'
'I think we'll be fine for the moment,' Justinia said. She cocked her head to the side and smiled insincerely. 'Thanks for the help.'
The man's smile dropped as his regarded her. 'Well,' he said, turning his beady eyes back to Hawke. 'Just swing by my office if you need me. If you need anything, in fact.' He turned and scurried away towards the door which he had appeared through.
'He didn't even question that we are geared up in combat armour,' Justinia said, her eyes chasing the small man out of the room.
'I know,' Hawke said. 'That's what worries me.'
They made their way through the decrepit corridors of Watcher outpost. Lighting was sporadic at best. Strip bulbs, that should have flooded the corridors with light, were either broken or due to be replaced, and the same festering rust and weld scars from the docking bay extended for the rest of their journey.
Hawke's eyes flitted from one dark spot to another, watching for unseen attackers waiting to pounce on them. Down here, in the deserted belly of the station, no one would know or care if they disappeared. The only other people to be seen were the maintenance staff. No tourists, no merchants, and, most worryingly, no guards. An eerie atmosphere of silence permeated the air.
They emerged into the trade hall, the deathly silence following them in. Shops led shut, their long dormant barriers locked shut over their entrances, rubbish and detritus piled itself high in the corners, and the sales and contract boards were oddly barren. The bustle of Savannah Haven would not be welcome here. The occasional maintenance staff member walked through the hall, inspecting a security grill or checking electronics.
'Something is definitely wrong,' Justinia mumbled under her breath.
Hawke nodded silently in agreement. 'We need to find the docking log. We can see when the Solitude was here and when it left.'
Justinia approached the station map attached to the wall behind them. The bulb behind the screen flickered into life, showing the maze of schematics which made up the internal mapping system. 'Who designed this place?' she said, more to herself than Hawke. She traced her fingers along the snaking corridors and maintenance routes, having to go back and retrace her steps when losing herself, or when finding a dead end. 'This map must be outdated,' she said. 'Even tracing the routes we've taken from the docking bay, it's not the same.'
'Need any help?'
Hawke turned to see the small man with the suit from the docking bay stood behind them, the same inane grin spread over his face. 'Your ship map is out of date,' Hawke grunted.
'My apologies,' Willnell said. 'We've had a lot of problems with the outpost. Some access corridors became unsafe, dangerous. We closed them and created different routes around.' The man let out a loud laugh. 'Hope you don't mind ghosts, as we've plenty of ghost tunnels in the walls here.'
Hawke ignored most of what the man had said. 'Look, Willdall-'
'Willnell'
'Willnell,' Hawke corrected. 'We need to see when a ship arrived and left Watcher outpost.'
The small man glanced over to Justinia then back at Hawke. 'I can help you with that.' The man brought out a small computer from inside his jacket pocket. He glanced up from the computer. 'Ship name please.'
'Solitude.'
The man held Hawke's glare for a moment then began punching the details into the computer. 'You're in luck,' he said. 'The Solitude is still docked.'
'It's still here?' Hawke said, taking a step towards the man
. 'We need to get there.'
The man stepped back and shifted uncomfortably. 'You need to get there? I'll need to contact them to ensure visitor access to their bay is permitted.'
Hawke moved his hand to the hand cannon holstered at his hip. 'You don't need to do that.'
Willnell's eyes lingered over the weapon. 'No, it doesn't look like I do.' He quickly placed the computer back inside his jacket pocket. 'I'll get one of my maintenance staff to guide you there. I will need to override the visitor access from my office.'
'What are we waiting for?' Justinia said to Hawke, as the man disappeared into the depths of the ship again.
Hawke placed a hand on her shoulder. 'You need to go back to the ship.'
'What?' Justinia blurted. 'No, no we can't do that. We can't split up. How do we even know we can trust this guy?'
'We can't,' Hawke said plainly. 'And that's why I need you back at the ship. No matter what happens, if that ship takes off, we've lost our last lead. That can't happen.' He took a deep breath. 'If Daria is here, that is my problem, not yours.'
'Hawke-'
'Justinia, don't.' Hawke took a deep breath, the weight of the situation growing on him. 'I'll keep in contact, I'll call you if I need back up.'
Justinia stared back at him, her eyes flickering as she fought to control her emotions. 'Fine,' she said, defeated. 'But if you even get a hint of trouble, you tell me, okay?' Her usual calm surface broke and she wiped an angry tear away from her cheek.
'I'll contact you as soon as something happens,' Hawke said. He placed his hands on both her shoulders, squaring her to him. 'We'll get this done, Justinia. Don't forget who we are.'
Justinia grinned at him for that. 'I know. Space Bastards.' She chewed her cheek and nodded. 'Save some fighting for me, will you?' She turned and disappeared into the depths of the station, leaving Hawke to stand alone in the great emptiness of the trade hall.
Hawke sucked in a deep breath in an attempt to steady his growing nerves. Am I really trusting this guy? His fingers wandered over his hand cannon, his eyes watching the door that Willnell had disappeared through. The empty trade hall only seemed to lengthen his wait, with nothing for him to turn his attention to, other than how long he had been waiting there. He casually kicked an old drink canister, the sound of it clattering echoing throughout the hall.
