by K A Carter
“This gateway,” Rhion started, reading off the data he had just been sent. “It’s on a cratered planet, uh Sarjana.” He looked down. “It’s not a person or being, it’s a planet.”
Nario sat down at his desk, “We have to find it,” he said.
“How?”
“We’re left to find that out on our own. I owe people in the Brink now and I’m not looking to tally up. We leave Rowland out of this.”
“Yeah, I think I can help you with that. I have some feelers out already. Apparently that ship she’s looking for went missing a couple months ago. The one Rowland asked about. Oddly enough no one has claimed head of the investigation.”
“I’ll worry about that later. How quickly can you get to Huamea.”
∆∆∆
Huamea. It was the nugget of rock on the outer most part of the Kuiper belt. Like sitting on a lily in the middle of the ocean. Nario had the Venture take him there. He hadn’t gotten around to telling the crew that he was most likely defecting for the greater good and figured having familiar faces aboard would help. His superiors wouldn’t take to kindly to his actions of concealing the information.
There hadn’t been any word from Rhion since their last talk. It would be awhile if he were to get to Huamea without triggering any flags amongst the ranks of the Federation. Nario gave him three days’ time standard. Anything more than that likely meant he had been found out. Two days had already passed. It was that point Nario had started feeling uneasy; so much to the point that he didn’t use any shore leave time with everyone else. He let the marines and crew hands take their plunder of what the rock had to offer. It wasn’t much, a few bars and cantinas, a couple red light districts dotted around the dome. No one would have too many questions with the outer rim strip clubs and gravity lakes. All of it would buy him time.
Halle sat at the helm nearly knocked out. She had picked up Korisnov’s habits. Nario tapped her on the shoulder. She awoke slowly almost in a serene manner, as though no sort of battle would disturb her inner peace.
“Hey Cap,” she referred to Nario as. “Need something?”
The young pilot shook herself of her cockpit couch and looked at Nario with an admiration he only realized was there now. Sometimes he could be oblivious at how the people around him were drawn to him like bees to a hive. Searching for a home. Not in the sense of shelter but belonging.
He looked back at her, sure that she would be on his side if he were thinking of doing something unorthodox.
“I have to ask you something,” he said calmly.
“Shoot,”
“Hypothetically if I were… defecting to the Lanx in order to skip red tape and possibly help save mankind, would you be with me?”
Halle took a moment and scoffed. “Uh, yeah I think so. Besides, I don’t work for the CPF. I work for you.”
Nario pondered what to say, it felt like a moment he should take advantage of. “I’m glad to hear that,” he approached the exit of the cockpit but turned around. “I wanted you to know. You’re like family to me. I’ve known you since you were a little girl tugging on Boris’ overalls.
Halle laughed and peeked over her seat. “I know, I’m with you. Just don’t go making me fly into any bee hives.” She smiled with a glow, showing the one front tooth that bent in just a little further than the other.
“Can’t make any promises.”
Rhion’s arrival on the hideaway rock was breaching closer to the allotted time. It was likely that he may not show at all which would spur more problems. That meant he was found out by the authorities. It could have happened in any number of ways.
Nario sat in the operations room of the Venutre. Caught in a tug between opening his message options. He toggled at the blinking encrypted beam that would reach Rhion anywhere that he was through the series of algorithms that corresponded to his specific hand terminal.
Rhion had been the voice of reason through the years. The fiery haired ex-soldier used to lecture on law of duty and the conduct that came with being enlisted. Moment in time Nario could remember where he would quote it nearly verbatim.
In his later years and close to their retirement, he grew more decentralized. Especially with the indirect cold war that had sustained itself between the corporate frontier and what many brink inhabitants referred to as the old world.
It was a complex set of systems that both functioned off of each other and competed against one another. Neither being able to successfully sustain itself alone. The Brink required the populous that so consistently ventured out for work and the raw set of ingenuity that flowed from the inner planets. Only after nearly two hundred years did most of the asteroid belt that separated the solar system become embedded with a network of sensory probes. Many of them floated in between the belt while some attached themselves to larger rocks. Anyone daring to cross without at least attempting to obtain fake OPP would be swept up, particularly if their ship wasn’t fast enough to make it to the Jovian system.
Considering the Federation never followed any decree of corporate legislature, Rhion’s attempt couldn’t have come under capture from latter side of the Brink. It could only mean that the Federation was monitoring everything. It was a suspicious thought but Nario wasn’t known for being careless about anything.
He could hear his voice now speaking to him not to send a slip-beam message to him directly. Following his own ideology.
He looked at the blinking toggle again and motioned out of his chair. A small white node hugged the edge of a wall adjacent to the metallic shutter covered operations window. As he pressed his thumb against it a gentle green light lit up.
“Halle,” he said, waiting for a response.
“Yes Captain?”
“Prep for warp, we leave in thirty.”
“Right away, destination?”
Nario glanced down at the data tablet that had been given to him by Rowland. He read off of it. A set of markers next to a destination plot. “Sorati system, Planet Sarjana.”
Before he could get out of the cabin, a noisy beep sprung out of the console. It was an audio relay. The display read its origin. In the heart of the inner planets. “Play it,” he said.
Halle nodded.
It was an unmistakably sour voice. Erusha. “This is Chancellor Erusha,” the message started. “By the order of the Department of Internal Investigations. Ambassador Nario Dios-Lobin and those that proceed to comply with his actions, have been found guilty of withholding vital top-secret information from the proper authority. This is a direct audio relay message. If there is a failure to return back to the custody of CPF authorities, this will be network broadcasted and a warrant for the detainment of the Venture and its crew will be issued.”
It kept repeating itself, all the while Halle looked up with widened eyes and a gaping mouth. “You weren’t kidding.”
Chapter 38: S’tiri
The mercs looked out of place among everything else. The most of them not taking kindly to the typical garbs that were apart of enlistment rituals. Long tarp-like pieces of cloth that hung off the body thickly. In practice, it was a custom for anyone that fought amongst the ranks to be sworn in under the Hute’Mua.
Although this was happening, S’tiri didn’t want to forget who he truly was to them now. A traitor to his own kind. In a way, it didn’t hurt as much. Watching Illa, Nilus, Pyx, Nuri, and Garrek approach the high step with him somehow made the pain of it subside. At some point on their journey it wasn’t so much a business transaction between hired mercs and an assassin. So S’tiri would like to think.
As S’tiri had come to learn. His crew of mercs had their own walks of life that had brought them not to be a part of their own dangerous communities. Pyx excluded, whom kept fleeting ties with her home world, could amass singular talks with Poriti, as she called them. War lords that lead factions across the Gaultian homeworld. S’tiri assumed it all speculative wordplay that wasn’t painful to listen to. After all, she was as much an ally as he had ever had.
Nilu
s on the other hand, a Hudari assassin, was an exiled criminal. Although he didn’t like to talk about his past much. S’tiri took it upon himself to read as much as he could about his new crew before letting them aboard. It was prior to his mental restraints dissipating. Still, all of the information had stuck. Vixia a dual inhabited planet with sentient plant biomes created a society intriguing to the traitor. Colossal plant life represented population centers that groups assembled cities by. A fragile harmony that Nilus allegedly was a disruptor of. Arboreal in biology, Nilus bared the skidded marks of the damage he had supposedly done to his home city. It was better not to pry about such things. Though if S’tiri would live through the coming events, he wanted to do so.
Garrek approached the high step kneeling as he neared the edge. S’tiri watched as the highest-ranking official performed Hute. Ierna, a former Sogul turned officer. Nearly a hundred and fifty years of stability only to have most of the A’tai standing council be wiped out or captured.
S’tiri didn’t know the details that would result in Ierna being the only high-ranking officer aside from Runen and the other Soguls. Maybe things were more worse than they had seemed.
The ceremony segued into an important combat information briefing. Naturally, problems had arisen as they would and S’tiri had no choice but to hold his tongue among them. He stood beside his fellow shipmates Nilus and Pyx, others behind him. Though the small army he had brought with them lingered on the edge of Myrian space as so to not seem as an intrusive. An irrelevant idea, S’tiri thought. But it was worth it to do that which would please A’tai and the hardly allies the Myrians had become.
The floor of the command cruiser held a divided room. Those who opposed the idea of going back to Mulaya to liberate what was so easily dismantled.
Sogul Runen argued her case on the floor. A room of metallic structures that only separated parties that varied by ideology. The opposing side, headed by, the morose Ierna.
Ierna slammed a fist on the console in front of her. The force making a crushing thump. “I sanction that we take any remaining force we have left and move forward with the incursion of Sarjana. As our ancestor has implicitly announced, Thalus and his cohorts intend to open the un’haisse and let banished evil into this part of the galaxy.”
Her words were all fact.
Sogul Runen strutted around the floor as though she had no doubt she was right. “Would it make sense to take the last of our forces and ask them to attempt an assault on what we know is a heavily guarded planet?”
When she put it that way, it made sense to S’tiri. Still, he preferred not facing his demons that wait for him on the surface of his homeworld. If he helped with the assault throwing what he had at making sure Thalus didn’t get an opportunity to make things even worse.
“Who’s to say he hasn’t already used the un’haisse?”
Ierna locked eyes with Runen but kept silent. The ancestor perched at a seat between them against the wall. “We should consult with our ancestor. His wisdom will surely judge the correct course of action.”
S’tiri’s point of view didn’t matter. He would’ve liked to step out from the crowd of crewmates and voice what he thought was best. He prepared himself to do so.
The ancestor looked across the room. “We cannot return home,”
“But our people – “ Ierna said.
The ancestor stood up slowly and made his way toward the center of the room. “No one knows better than I do. What is at stake isn’t only ours but the rest of the galaxy as well. The banished are capable of far more horrendous things than our history conveys. There is no other way to stop them but for me to access the un’haisse. I may halt the process.”
S’tiri felt himself brushing against the urge speaking out. It was bad enough that he, a traitor, was taking part in the discussion. One that juggled fate of the people. He had never been one to hold his opinion. Although the circumstances were never this dire, he didn’t think it would matter if he did so now.
“I believe we can do both,” S’tiri said, all of his contemporaries turning to look at him.
“Shut your mouth, traitor.” Z’oni said she stood closest to him on the floor.
“No, let him speak,” said the Ancestor.
Z’oni backed away giving the space for him to address everyone. S’tiri gazed around the room. “We can split what we have remaining. I can take my ships and any you can spare with the ancestor and go to Sarjana. The rest can take back Mulaya, there won’t be a significant force opposing.”
“Foolish,” Runen said. “You believe that you and your fleeting little gathering of mercenaries can arise any sort of opposition?”
“With help, yes. We contact other species’ who will no doubt know what’s at stake. Those who haven’t been bartered off with may join us or may have already done so.”
“The traitor makes a valid point,” said Ierna
Once again no one said another word without looking to the ancestor. Though the last of the council that had lived silently among Irinans, they were all that was left of their history. The only plan that could possibly stand a chance involved a sacrifice.
“We will divide what forces we have left. Traitor S’tiri, you believe that your force of fifteen ships and what we have left can make it through Draul armada cloud?”
“Possibly, I know there is a way. I have seen the veil it is vast but expansive.”
“Very well. That is our next plan of action.”
The ancestor retreated to his seat. Ponderous faces shared glances with each other on the floor. Runen calculative in her display of dismay. Ierna walked toward him, keeping an eye on Runen.
“As one of the last senior officials, I’ll head the ships to accompany you to the Sorati region,” Ierna said.
“You will be fine working with a traitor? As your constituents would call me.”
“I don’t care about anything you’ve done before now. Not unless you have the power to change it. Going head first into enemy territory should make up for at least some of it.”
∆∆∆
A clear view brought up in the main room, unveiled a thick nebula that painted over blank darkness like streaming pastel colors. Green fading into fluid orange variants appeared almost untouched. Though radiant in beauty, it hid a terrible reality on the other side.
The perfect enemy sheathed ahead. Not one that could be handled by brute force alone. Their numbers exceeding any known armada. The Draul had been a relatively nomadic species from the point of decay of their homeworld. Once it had fallen to its dying star, swept away in one big cataclysm that impacted the solar system. S’tiri had figured it a reason for their hellish nature.
“Commander,” Pyx said. “All of our ships are reporting in. Five Irinan corvettes are inbound to our position. The stealth technology has been integrated and is operational.”
S’tiri pressed the node in front of him. “Illa, bring up a ship-wide com and link the rest of the ships with it.”
“Doing it now,”
The node chirped with a confirmation.
“Com is on standby; all ships are linked.”
S’tiri took a moment to gather his thoughts. He wasn’t afraid of what lied ahead, though it would’ve been justified. All he knew was that this was in some way redeeming. It wasn’t just for his people or those that would fall soon after. This was for him. And though his crew and himself may perish in the fight that awaited on the other side of the veil, it was by them being there that gave him enough strength to face what would surely haunt his future.
“This is S’tiri of the Zeylon. I have no doubt that you all know what we are heading into. What lies ahead is not a docile enemy but one that could surely eradicate everything we know and love. Maybe it already has. With this I pledge my body and mind to facing this evil head on in hopes that by our example, many others will follow. I thank my crew and the Gualtians that aid us in this fight. I thank my people for standing beside me one more time. I will not fail either one of
you.”
The com responded with faint mixture of hisses from the other ships.
“Well said,” Pyx said. “That means they are with you.”
“Zeylon this is the Superior Captain A’lana K’etas aboard the Jek’Aktal,” said a deep feminine voice. “I will be commanding the Irinan ships. We are with you. Make our people proud.”
S’tiri felt at ease to hear it. He didn’t want to think that his actions would weigh too heavily to the point that there were no grounds to work with him on. Thankfully, his actions were the product of a danger that all of them faced regardless.
“Take her in,”
The screen displayed the Zeylon moving closer into the veil until it enveloped the bowel of the ship. This was what Illa was seeing in the cockpit.
“We’re encountering interference. The link between some of the other ships are cutting in and out.”
“Can you adjust and transmit back to the ships?”
Illa paused working on it. “It’s not working,” she said.
Pyx walked over to a panel near them and began typing away. “When we retrofitted the ship and added some upgrades, I took the liberty of installing a hyperwave distributor. If we turn it on our other ships will get an alert. Nothing I can do about the Irinan ships.”
“That’s a start.”
Pyx closed out on the panel.
Seconds later Illa spoke again and said “Com is back, I can’t get a hold of your people but some of ships have breached the veil and stopped at the edge.”
“Where are we?”
“Breaching in two minutes. Any faster and the stealth dampeners may be pointless. I’m detecting multiples in the nebula.”
The minutes passed. Slowly, the Zeylon unearthed from the nebula. The group of Irinan ships just ahead, and beyond them a staggeringly vast armada. Outer hulls of each ship a remarkable shined black. The number of ships nearly insurmountable.
“Counting approximately three thousand ships,” Illa said. “All ships are standing by.”
