by Jack Adams
“Get behind me,” Finder commanded as he fired towards the opposition. One, two, three, four, five, miss. The final two pirates unloaded their weapons in Finder and Jubilant's direction. The duo rushed towards the edge of the tower as thermal shots ricocheted around their feet.
“Finder where are we going?” Jubilant asked as she blindly followed Finder toward the Precipice.
“Ephemris, are you here?” Finder asked as he tapped his comm piece only to go too many seconds without an answer. “Ephemris are you here?” Again more silence as the two ran towards the towers edge.
“Finder what are we doing?” Jubilant pleaded as thermal shots fell rained in around them, honing too close towards them. Finder thought he had heard the sound of engines. Perhaps it was the sound of the firearm shots around them. Perhaps instead it was pirate atmosphere fighters coming in from behind. With only two yards in front of him, Finder began to calculate the odds of surviving a ten story drop without parachute aid. Zero. Then the chances evading enemy gunfire with little cover. Zero. Ephermis had to be here.
“Jump!” Finder screamed as he and Jubilant leapt from tower. For several moments Finder absorbed the amalgamation of thrilling sensations that flowed through him. The feeling of dread as he fell through the air, unsure if he'd hit the deck of the Ace of Spades or the concrete on the ground. Along with that came a sensation of release, almost freedom, at the prospect of the unknown nature of hi fall. Instinct told him to look down, but Finder refused. After all of the years of being involved in death defying work, he'd finally come to accept that he enjoyed the rush of such a perilous occupation. In moments like this he felt like he was truly alive. The speed of the wind picked up, until finally Finder's feet hit solid surface.
–
Inside the center of the Makix Main Willow lay strapped to a table and connected to a host of medical tubules. After the Zinark had seized his lab along with all of his notes but had found themselves without the scepter fragment they had been promised or even a gray marketeers ship to claim as a conciliatory prize they were extremely perturbed. Of, course the fat that Finder had reportedly dusted a few of their crewman didn't do much to ease their disappointment and irritation with Willow either.
For the past three hours the Zinark had been conducting an experiment. Its focus: the type of chemicals which would be necessary to provoke a painful but non-lethal response in Willow's nervous system. Secondarily, they were attempting to device a means to make him speak with full honesty. After about an hour of trial and error they had finally procured the right series of chemical cocktails to elicit painful but truthful answers to only a handful of questions, carefully reworded with mild permutations.
“Where did you send them?” a human dressed in tight black clothes with shiny slicked down, black hair asked. He stood over Willow with an apparently benevolent smile while rubbing his thumb over a series of buttons on a long silver rod. “Come on, Willow. Tell us, where did the two humans go?”
“I've already...explained to you. They have gone, with the Echoshard and one of the seven scepters left behind by the Apocryph. I understanding...nothing else...Tywan.”
“And yet I do not believe you,” Tywan answered as he casually pressed the second button on the rod he carried. Upon pressing it a series of unnerving body shutters and indecipherable utterances issued from Willow's speech synthesizers. After a full minute Willow had recovered just enough to attempt to speak.
“Told you...they could be anywhere,” he said in the desperate confused hope that he may be able to escape another bout of chemically-induced torture.
“Anywhere?” Tywan inquired. “And what places could we eliminate from 'anywhere'?” Tywan brought his instrument close to one of Willow's eyes as his thumb slowly snaked downward towards the sixth and final button.
“Explained to you...I do not know,” Willow pleaded. “You would need...Echoshard to locate them...and the fragment.” Tywan circled around the table with the same sinister smile. However, his eyes betrayed clear evidence of the gears turning through his mind.
“And how might I find this Echoshard?” Tywan asked only this time giving his captor a full two minutes to recover.
“I have...never studied it...myself. But...from what I saw from the first scepter fragment...the Echoshard must both...receive and transmit a highband frequency.”
“Yes, yes, now we are making progress.” Tywan announced delightfully. “now please, please specifics. What band should our ships look for to locate this...Echoshard?”
–
Finder slowly rubbed the sites where he had pumped his legs with tissue regeneration serum. The two story fall from the Iarc tower had unfortunately demonstrated the decline in physical resilience which had come with age. What highlighted that observation even more, was Jubilant's response. After having taken only half an hour to psychologically recover from the stress she had endured, she bounced back to being her perky self. Evidently, Willows activation of the first fragment in combination with the locative properties of the Echoshard had revealed the second in Sepulcher Point.
Both Finder and Ephemris were surprised by Jubilant's announcement, though could not fully articulate as to why. They both had assumed that fragments would be located exclusively in the Nestle worlds, but upon reflection it had made sense that the seven scepters would be scattered throughout the Refuge. It also meant that perhaps Finder's job would be easier with fewer worlds to have to trespass on.
Upon Jubilant's announcement, with best speed, Finder plugged in a destination for the Ace to travel directly to Sepulcher. In the hours that he spent waiting and recovering, Finder looked out of the bridge window and starred intently at Nestle in the far distance. Allow though their was no discernible difference in its appearance, Ephermis' data readings, and his ground observations made him suspect that the planet had a sickly paling to it. Perhaps if Nubilous was dying from intense radiation exposure were all the rest of the planets surrounding worlds as well? When the Ace had entered the verge zone of Sepulcher the first thing Finder saw was the hulking remain of ancient, evidently Apocryph starcraft. Despite its size it appeared to only be the fraction of the original vessel. Perhaps whatever the cause of death around Nestle was also the same thing which resulted in the death of the Apocryph as well.
After another two hours of maneuvering around meteor and starcraft debris and fine tuning the Echoshards readouts, they had finally found the location of the second fragment. It was, unsurprisingly, inside the core of an Apocryph starcraft. Although unsure for certain, Jubilant had surmised it to be a warcraft of some sort. While Finder had originally wanted to join Jubilant, the pains in his legs convinced him to stay inside and instead provide what he called 'external observational assist for her EVA'. Jubilant, indifferent to Finder's attempt to save face readily donned a spacesuit and entered the Apocryph vessel with haste.
“I've got it,” Jubilant said between deep, excited breathes. “And thanks for the 'external observational assistance'.”
Finder almost smiled at the cute quip, “no problem. No, follow the support line and get back quickly. This has gone to well for us so far. I don't like tempting fate.”
“Of course,” Jubilant responded. “By the stars, it's bigger than the first, one but even brighter. I think it's already activated, too.”
“Ms. Jubilant, please comply,” Ephemris added. “We really do not have time for your absent-mindedness.”
“Okay, okay,” Jubilant said as she manuevered her way back to the Ace. “Say, Finder where did you get such a pushy AI? Ever consider something that didn't talk back or interrupt so much?”
“I act the way I do to ensure the Captains safety,” Ephemris said defensively.
“Alright ladies, cool it. Let's get this over with and leave this grave yard. Jubilant your returns a little slow. Do you want to have Ephemris reel you in?”
“I'm fine, it's just a bit harder with the artifact. I- wait what's this?” Jubilant began to trail off.
“What's going on, Jubilant. Please talk to me?” Finder asked.
“The artifact, it's getting even brighter,” Jubilant reported. “I'm not sure why, but it's so pretty.”
“Ephemris, give me internal ship visual on the first scepter sent directly to the cockpit,” Finder ordered to find a display of the first artifact glowing with intensity. Then the Ace's klaxon blared an alert siren.
“Captain, there are at least sixteen vessel nearing us and all lack transponders.”
“At least?”
“The debris's making it difficult to determine the exact number.”
“Probable identity?” Finder asked to find the blurred image of a menacing vessel bearing the same glyph over Willow's lab. “The Zinark, they've found us.”
“The pirates, they here?” Jubilant asked with a sense of panic.
“You're friend must have told them where we headed.”
“Impossible, I never told him the location of the second fragment.”
“Well, it doesn't matter now. Ephemris bring her in now. Jubilant tuck your arms in and buckle up,” Finder instructed as his hands flew over the Ace's controls and plotted a course out of the Point. “Ephemris time until contact with the Zinark and time until Jubilant's on board?”
“Sixty-seven and thirty-two seconds, respectively.”
“Well, that'll cut it close.” Finder quipped as he looked over the constantly shifting data reports on the incoming Zinark craft.
“She's on board,” Ephemris reported.
“With the scepter and secure,” Jubilant added to which Finder immediately pulled the Ace into a full turn and blast past the Points debris with harrowing near-misses. The Ace of Spades tore through the Point with breakneck speed and as it emerged from the debris field being trailed by the pirate battalion it appeared to look like a lone sparrow being hounded by a pack of owls. Then as if blasted by sunlight the nocturnal raptors retreated back into the maze of asteroids and space detritus.
“We're free! Look,” Jubilant exclaimed from behind Finder as she fumbled her body out her suit.
“No,” Finder gasped as his eyes lifted from the long range scans to the visuals coming into view. “We've just been chased into the jaws of death.” And before the Ace all around was a grand fleet of advancing Faux ships leaving Finder with neither refuge to hide nor space to run.
Ch. 6 – False Infirmity
“It isn't quite like what I thought it would look like,” Finder commented aloud as he stared at the blank walls around him. While a sickly feeling had built up in stomach, he still managed to exhibit his typical sardonic attitude. “Perhaps incarceration is just as tedious no matter who does it.”
Like most people, Finder had a few preconceptions about things he had never seen, but considered he had enough data to make accurate guesses about. The Faux, for example, were a race legendary for their manner in which they conducted themselves. Like humans and unlike most species in the Refuge they were bipeds and this particular trait was often look down on. However, the Faux were considered to by all to be elegant, and not at all gangling or awkward as humans were often perceived. Rather than display a single skin color their skin was so pale as to be almost translucent with a multicolored layer of corpuscles and other innards, which appeared to many humans from a distance to be mesmerizing, but up close to be sickly. In the few rare instances a human would report meeting one they would consider the Faux to resemble a sort of man-shaped mirage, almost like a moving pale rainbow. However, upon meeting them nearly every reporter stated that the Faux were more akin to quick-witted corpses which both looked and spoke like heralds of death.
Granted they were not openly vile or harsh, but clever and condescending. They could afford to possess these characteristics due to their superior technology coupled with their control over the other races. So when human beings entered into the Refuge they found themselves fortunate to survive at the fringes of civilized space, even if they were denied the opportunity to settle the Nestle worlds. Of course, while the Ophidian and Stanchion were welcoming to the new refuges, the Faux had final say.
Humanity never was given an official reason for not being able to settle the Nestle Worlds, although the consensus was that the mighty Faux were threatened by human beings. The source of this concern had been highly debated within human circles with hypothesis' including a simple base prejudice against humans, a lack of space around the Nestle worlds, or even a hatred for having to share space with another “elevated” species. Elevated in the sense that humans, like the Faux, are bipeds. But perhaps the most intriguing concept for the deep disdain that the great Faux had for humans has instead to do with an affinity humanity seemed to have with Apocryph artifacts. After all, in the rare instances that human beings had ever come into to close proximity with technology leftover by the now long bygone race, it seemed to react to their presence.
To a degree this wasn't at all surprising in that archaeologists all over the Refuge had thought that the Aprocryph were bipeds as well, and may have even resembled humans or the Faux. However, after several centuries the Faux had never been able to intuitively elicit the same reactions out of Apocryph technology as humans could. For this reason, Finder personally thought, that the supremacy of the Faux was an enormous weight which precariously teetered on the edge of an enormous precipice, ready to fall with just the right, carefully applied leverage.
However, until anyone managed to discover this leverage the might of the Faux would continue to remain perched atop, forever at the peak of ascendancy. Most humans hated the Faux for being so ensconced in a position of power but Finder wasn't. In fact he held a strange admiration for them. After all, their cities were the most renown, their battle fleets were the most formidable, and their technology the most sophisticated. So sophisticated that few humans were actually privy to seeing it. Unfortunately for Finder, the price for seeing it all was being confined inside a rather boring jail cell.
After desperately fleeing the pursuing pirates, Finder and his compatriots found themselves in the clutches of a fleet of Faux. The Ace of Spades was immediately impounded and its passengers were arrested. Rather than be locked in physical constraints, Finder and Jubilant were constrained by fantastic energy locks which both paralyzed and suspended their body in the air. The Faux told them very little, other than that they were being taken to Polestar Station on the charge of harboring Apocryph artifacts without authorization. Jubilant, of course, protested, arguing that she found them and for that reason had a right to them. Finder shook his head and stayed quiet while the Faux remained silent. Jubilant demanded that they be released and turned over to human authorities for processing. Finder shook his head and stayed quiet while the Faux remained silent. Rather than become desperate and plead with her captors, Jubilant became angry and demanded that the Faux left her go, give them a reason for their arrest, then some kind of basic response. Finder shook his head and stayed quiet while the Faux remained silent.
Upon their arrival in Polestar Finder and Jubilant were taken to the stations detention center. Rather than be another technological marvel Finder found him and his companion thrown into two separate, small cubicles adjacent to each other. While the entrance was wrapped in a force field, the rest of the room was composed of nothing more than a composite set of completely flat set of three walls, a roof, and floor. Nothing else, in the way of creature comforts such as a lavatory was included leading Finder to the conclusion that these cells were temporary holding cells for either trail, a proper detention center, or execution. No matter what they weren't going to be trapped here for long. This didn't stop Jubilant from displaying her agitation. Initially, Jubilant continued to fidget about, asking Finder for his escape plan over the course of an hour. Within half a minute of their arrival, Finder had already concluded that a breakout would be impossible. He had thought to tell Jubilant this, in an attempt to relax her, but had strangely come to appreciate the sound of her voice.
“What were you expecting?”
Jubilant responded with an air of exhaustion.
“Something a bit more advanced, sophisticated...just better.” Finder said casually as he closed his eyes and let his head rest against the cell wall. “Something stimulating. Something that doesn't make me so agitated.”
“You're agitated?” Jubilant queried with exclamation. “You seemed so collected and relaxed. Here I am babbling on and screaming. You seem to be completely serene.”
“Some people display anxiety in different ways,” Finder said slowly. “Along with their fears and insecurities.”
“Fears? Finder, you seem fearless. What do you- no, no I shouldn't ask.”
“It's alright,” Finder said with a smile. “You clearly do not want to be stopped from moving forward, to completing your research. I'm just afraid of standing still at the bottom. Ever since the Nadir Incident I've been striving not so much to get ahead but to regain what I once had. You keep trying to get ahead, while my only desire is to reclaim the past. Instead I'll likely be subject to staying in here, suffering from physical or psychological rot.”
“So you want to become a defender again, a Vigilant. To be honest you seem like someone who would be glad to relieved of that role.”
“And why do you think that?”
“Because you seem to be so socially withdrawn. I've always thought of Vigilante's as being rather gregarious, valiant and out-going.” Clearly, you are brave, but you seem not to care much about other people.”
