Graz fluttered to her shoulder as I offered my arm to her, which she took daintily, curtsying slightly when she did so. How did she make everything look so graceful and elegant?
Then I led her out into the office before we headed out to the waiting conveyance as I thought about the approaching ships.
Chapter 2 – Flight Control
As the sleek, silver Fae transport glided smoothly and effortlessly through the air toward the Spoke Terminal, I thought about the incoming vessels that were visually detected just six months ago. It had been the first time I had ever heard the proximity klaxons.
I had been off-world, in a Remnant called the Underhill, playing poker with a group of misfits I see as my friends. I had rushed to the Beta-Stack Brigade Headquarters in Irontown on the C-Ring. Every Stack had recalled their enforcers to send out patrols to ensure the populace remained calm while they got the damned alarms to stop going off.
Interstellar travel had a different concept of proximity. When some threats can bombard the Leviathan at fractional C speeds, the distance at which debris could be a threat to the worldship was a ten light minute envelope... giving our Ready Squadron time to get into position to blow any threat into galactic dust.
I learned that the Leviathan... Mother's systems had detected a sensor ghost around five hundred years after Exodus from the Earth when our worldship started her ten thousand year journey away from a dying Earth, which was going to be swallowed by an expanding sun.
It was postulated that it was just the condensed ion trail left by the firing of Leviathan's World-Drives for twenty-five hundred years to get us to speed. So even when the sensor ghost got stronger over the millennia, it was written off as a glitch.
That all changed when the deep space imaging systems first picked up the incoming vessels in the visible light spectrum as they crossed into the ten light minute envelope. The world has been holding its breath ever since, and the huge plume of radioactive particles we were being bombarded with from them coupled with the observational data, told us that they have been at a much greater velocity than us, and have likely been slowing to match our speed for decades.
We've sent countless unanswered hails daily to the ships, but with the huge radiation emissions from the vessels, our engineers say we likely wouldn't be able to receive replies. Our com-gear is the most powerful ever devised for space travel, and with seven hundred gigawatts, our signals have likely been getting through.
So we send out the daily hails, along with data burst packets with greetings from all the races on board, as well as messages from many citizens on board who want to wish the oncoming inhabitants of the ships welcome as well. It is an exciting time to live in, even if our leadership is constantly warning the people on the world that these may be ghost ships executing automated rendezvous programs since Earth didn't have the resources left to build any generational star-ships after the Worldship project used almost every available resource in the Earth system of Sol in the construction of the Leviathan.
But we were about to get an answer in less than an hour now. Was it wrong that I was a romantic, and was hoping there were still people living and thriving on the oncoming vessels?
I glanced over to see the glassy, faraway look in Rory's eyes as our vessel gracefully corkscrewed, inserting us smoothly into the traffic stream heading Down-Ring.
For the most part, I hated visiting the trunk, or the heart that encased the seven-mile diameter asteroid at the... well at the heart of the vessel. I've grown an aversion to micro-gravity after an incident six months ago where I was almost thrown off the outer skin of the Leviathan and into space.
I asked out of curiosity, “Have you ever been to the flight control center? It's actually pretty spectacular.”
She looked at me patiently. “I was there when Mother first powered up the instruments there for testing. It is actually inside the same blast sphere as Mother's central core.”
Blinking, I had to remind myself that as young as the object of my affection looked, she was born before the Worldship had been built five thousand years ago. She grew up playing in Open Air, where Ground was everywhere and the sky was more than a concept. She played in the bulkheads and corridors of the Leviathan as she was being built.
I muttered to her playfully, “Old lady.”
She took that as a compliment of course and Graz asked behind her hand like I couldn't hear her, “You sure this is the one you like? She's pretty dense for a Big.”
I basked in Rory's giggles as Graz and I traded barbs the rest of the flight to our destination. I narrowed an eye as the vessel glided to a halt in the vehicle staging area just outside the blast sphere. “Why do we still have gravity? We should have been free-floating just after passing the D-Ring before reaching the Trunk.”
Both of my companions cocked their eyebrows at me, Graz saying behind her hand again, “See? Dense.”
Right. Fae magic. Got it.
I sighed and motioned for them to follow as I prompted Rory when the door slid open where there was no seam earlier, Fae magic was incredible to me sometimes, “Do you have any experience in zero-G? It takes a little to get used to.”
I pushed off as I left the vehicle doorway and drifted to the nearby wall and grabbed a zero-G handrail. She looked at me as if my question was ridiculous, and I felt something change about her, like a momentary luminescence as she stepped out onto the floor as if she still had gravity, her silken robes draped down as if affected by that same gravity.
Fuck me sideways and space me naked. Of course, she could make her own gravity... that was what she had done moments before. Most Greater Fae had to form their spells with intricate motions or verbal incantations or drawing sigils in the air. The more complex the spell the longer the preparation. However, the Summer and Winter Queens, and the majority of their children could cast on a whim in an instant. It was rare to see Aurora actually taking the time to form her spells like she had done earlier with her... drink.
But she explained to me that pounding out a spell using just sheer force of will was like throwing a hammer at spun glass. Great for things that required a lot of power at the speed of thought, but not as useful for more delicate spell weaving. Like, I assume, getting just the right amount of sweetness into a beverage.
Graz, just as at home in the micro-gravity down here in the trunk as in the varied gravity of the various habitation rings in each of the four stacks that made up the world, just buzzed her wings once, and drifted gracefully to me, making micro-adjustments with minute buzzing of her wings until she grabbed my ear and slipped into my open visor, tucking herself between my collar and cheek so she could see out.
I muttered to both of them, “Show offs.” I glanced around, taking in the space. We were just a couple of hundred yards forward from the Alpha-Stack spoke terminal. There wasn't much traffic down here in the Trunk except the engineers that maintained the Leviathan's systems, the miners of the pressurized portion of the Heart, and the prisoners doing hard labor in the unpressurized sections.
But the area was abuzz with activity. People making their way along the various handrails, and at least three dozen vehicles parked here at the quarter-mile thick Mithreal alloy blast sphere that protected the flight control center, and Mother's data core. Her brain.
It was always almost frightening for me to be here, knowing that behind the most secure doors on the world inside this blast sphere, lay everything that made Mother who she was, as well as a chamber in her core that contained the most powerful Fae relics in existence.
Though every square inch of the outer hull, the Skin, was covered in photovoltaic paint that harvested every photon and even cosmic radiation from the stars at ninety-eight percent efficiency, and the fission reactors run with a dwindling fissionable fuel supply from the rare metals mined from the Heart. They supply only a fraction of the power it takes to run the Leviathan.
Most of the energy to run the core systems and the massive World-Drive
s comes from the Fae. Specifically the Fae artifacts of power, the source of all their magic away from the Earth. Power so vast it is difficult to comprehend. And only the Greater Fae Lords and Ladies, under the orders of Queen Mab herself, can extract the power safely in the Chamber of the Artifacts, the Ka'Ifinitum.
It was there, in the chamber within Mother's data core, the Ka'Ifinitum... I shivered at the thought that basically, the power of creation and source of magic was there, just a few meters away from the massive Flight Control Center.
“Are you alright, Knith?” The dulcet tones of my girl knocked me out of my thoughts.
“Huh? Oh, yeah. Just... it always makes me nervous you know, being this close to... to them.”
She nodded slowly in understanding and prompted in a normal tone that made me aware I had just whispered my response, “The Ka'Ifinitum? It is nothing to fear. I hope one day I can show you the beauty of it, and let you bask in its warmth if just for a moment.”
Smirking I added, “Well it's either that or the World-Drives on the other side of the sphere.”
For half the journey to our new home on the planet Eridani Prime, this was the aft section of the world. The engines, as I mentioned, had fired for two and a half millennia before shutting down once we reached fractional C cruising speed, drifting like a bullet in space toward our destination, with only the massive reaction thrusters and the giant maneuvering assist tugs to make micro-adjustments to our flight-path when unexpected gravitational eddies altered our path.
Once we reached the halfway point, five thousand years into our flight, the ship rotated end over end using the tugs and thrusters in the Turnover Event when I was a little kid. I remember the excitement of it all that it was my generation of Humans that got to witness the historic event. In another twenty-five hundred years, those World-Drives will fire again, slowing us down until we reach our destination.
The engineers say that the drives could vaporize a small moon if it strayed behind them.
Now, for all intents and purposes, we were in the fore of the ship. The Alpha and Beta-Stacks, which had been the most protected for half the journey, were now the leading stacks that were the most exposed to meteoroid impacts now.
There were four guards in Megolith-Suits at the doors now instead of the customary two. Those self contained battle suits made them the most dangerous Enforcers on the world. Half the automated weapons in them were high powered Magi-Tech. And they even had maneuvering thrusters for free flight in the micro-gravity and were even vacuum rated for use in space.
There was a time when I was young, fresh out of the academy when I wanted to be a Megolith driver. But except for the uprising in the Gamma D-Ring, two hundred years after Exodus, the Megolith-Suits and drivers have never been deployed beyond this spot. It would be the most boring job in the Brigade and I'm glad I never pursued it. Not that a Human enforcer like me would ever be offered the honor.
I may or may not have snorted when I saw someone had tagged the first of eight massive Mithreal alloy bulkhead doors, which were all a hundred feet thick, with programmable paint. An arrow along the length of the door flashed with the words 'this end up' scrolling. There is no way a tagger got past the guards so that left the two guards who normally guarded the doors as the likely culprits. Like I said, it was likely the most boring assignment. I sure hope the prestige is worth it to them.
I rotated up a couple of handrails to orient myself so I was facing relative to the arrow. Rory just strode up the slope with me like she was taking a stroll. When we reached the guards in their ten-foot-tall battle suits and a plasma coil barrel was leveled at my head, I could taste the power and hear the humming of barely restrained magic.
“Identification.”
I patted my badge and then held up my wrist console, Mother, anticipating me, already had my quantum encrypted Enforcer's ID displayed and pinging on their internal heads up displays. I thought to her, “Thank you.”
She chirped out in my head in a satisfied tone, “Of course, Knith.”
One nodded and then placed the cannon against my shoulder blade at my neck. “Identification.”
Oh yeah, almost forgot about her. “That's Graz, Sprite of the Beta-Stack. Independent consultant assigned to the FABLE offices under my authority.”
The weapon started to power up as the guard growled, “There is no Graz on the list. Remove yourself from the area, Sprite, or we will...”
I heard Mother harrumph in my head, and I could see light pinging in the Minotaur's eyes from the heads up display in his helmet. “Ah, here it is. Princess Aurora's pet.”
With a thought, I snapped my visor shut so the enraged Sprite couldn't commit suicide by attacking a Megolith-Suited guard. She was pounding on the visor as she shouted, “Pet? Pet? I'll show you pet you overgrown, cud-chewing, milking cow!”
I sighed in relief, knowing Mother had already muted the external speakers on my helmet so none of the psychotic Sprite's rant could be heard by the others.
Then I asked, “Mother? Really? Why not just a normal authorization? Oh, and kudos for breaking about twenty regulations there by the way.”
She responded with a chuckle, “But this was much more fun.”
It had stopped surprising me that the Leviathan's AI displayed genuine emotions to me, or that she seemed to model her warped sense of humor after my own. I just wish she'd stop being so afraid that the Fae would shut her down if they learned that she was self-aware. I loved her and just knew they would too once they got to know the real Mother.
She almost sighed out, “Love you too, Knith.”
“Get out of my head.”
“I would, but your surface thoughts are so loud.”
That was the only thing I didn't like very much about the new experimental armor and helmet I was the guinea pig for. It allowed Mother to read surface thoughts, and sometimes I wanted privacy in my own head.
I asked Graz, who was just now glaring at one of the inner camera ports, hands on her hips like she was trying to burn a hole in Mother with her eyes, “You calm?”
“Yeah, yeah... don't pop a resistor.” Then she added, “Go space yourself, Mother.”
And the sarcastic response had me groaning. “I have been spaced, genius, I'm a ship.”
“If you two don't stop snipping at each other, I'm going to turn us around and march right back up to the A-Ring.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
My visor snicked back up and Aurora just stepped past a cannon pointed her way, flicked her hand, and I heard the unmistakable sound of a plasma power down. That second guard, a Half-Elf, called out as his suit started after her as she strode up to the door. “Identification or we'll be forced to...”
He never finished his threat since once she reached the door, she laid her hand on the scanner on the wall and it lit up bright white, a pulse of magic causing traces of power to light the complex, lacy silver spellwork of the wards that coated the entire blast sphere in heavy magic. The magic induced light shot from rune to rune, racing off into the distance like circuit traces, and the massive door started to rise.
All four guards knew what that meant and all of them landed on what would be called the floor in our relative orientation and took a knee. Only Fae royalty could open the doors without authorization. She turned to look back at them. “Is this identification enough? I don't have a silly wrist console.”
One sputtered, not wanting to get on the wrong side of the Fae, “Of course, my lady. The President is expecting a Fae representative.”
Then one asked like she was afraid to offend and wind up on sewage detail for the rest of her career. “Your name, my lady? So we might call ahead so they can receive you appropriately.”
My girl looped an arm in mine in a proprietary manner and said without looking back, “The Winter Maiden.” As soon as Rory touched me, my feet thudded to the ground and I flexed when I found myself weighted down by gravity created from h
er sheer willpower. That saved me from magnetizing my boots.
They called after us, “Yes, my lady.”
Mother was routing their whispers their suit's microphones were picking up, likely from a private secure channel. “That was Princess Aurora, you idiots!” “How were we supposed to know?” “You are so fucked, J'Liam, you pointed your Magi-Cannon at her!”
I whispered to the smug imp beside me as we walked under the first blast door, “You're terrible, woman,” then I looked toward the next door another twenty yards away.
She almost tittered out, “Please tell my mother that. She thinks I'm too... nice.”
Ok, I smirked at that. It was true, my girl wasn't like any other Fae Lady I have met, whether Summer or Winter. She cared more about others than herself most of the time, though she was still Fae, so some of that was there too.
Once we reached the second door, the one behind us closed slowly, ending in a boom as the mass of armor sealed home. She placed her palm on the second panel and the next door started to rise. It sounds like overkill but it wasn't. This was the most important area of the ship, and it could survive plummeting into the molten core of a star.
I spun when someone directly behind us stated, “Well you are, dear.”
My eyes widened at the sight of Queen Mab herself standing there like she had been with us all along. Then I was struggling a moment later when she grabbed my head in a grip stronger than a vice as she kissed me, flooding me with her icy magic, reinforcing her mark on me as my upper lip crystallized fully into translucent blue ice. The cold of her power sizzling on the living flame of my lower lip.
She pushed me away as I gasped, then started to float toward the raising door. “Really, Knith, love. You don't seriously believe I'd let my mark fade do you?”
Rory grabbed me and I braced myself as gravity reasserted itself while I wiped my mouth on my arm.
Mab accused, “Why did you not extend the President's invitation to me, Enforcer?”
Worldship Files: Cityships Page 2
