Work Text
A Novel
by Walter Brubeck
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prologue.
ᛈᚱᛟᛚᛟᚷᚢᛖ᛬
Chapter I, Tenet 1, of the Tosodan, Her Holy Word (First Kingdom Version)
Hwæt! White in ink-black of deep space,
Forthcome Phifendyr, flush of fervence,
Planet of All-Mother’s birth, but also of her slumber.
All-Mother’s life-blood flows still, spiritfire from the roots of the Life-Tree.
As All-Mother hath two eyes, then Phifendyr bear two moons.
Cægscield: caked, cooked in cast-beams of our sun.
Orange in its radiant warmth, welling in spirit-fire.
Lo, the second of moons, mulling adjacent Cægscield:
Enaþfylen, eager and exceedingly-bright, emanating light,
From its blue space-frigid surface, sun echoes.
Upon Phifendyr, the great cedars cloak her face.
Her Life-Tree stands, solid and blessing of clouds.
Cloud-cover stretches pole to pole.
Safeguarding All-Mother, all eternity it embraces.
All-Mother, she who sleeps under chains,
Slumbering silently, subdued under spell.
Broken will those death-chains be,
Only by Her little-ones, liberation from Her children.
Thus, our world formeth.
Chapter I, Tenet 1, of the Tosodan, Her Holy Word (New Revised Standard Version)
Lo! White in the inky darkness of deep space,
Grows Phifendyr, prosperous with life.
Planet of the Allmother’s birth, planet also of her slumber.
The Allmother’s life blood still flows, spiritfire that is siphoned through the Life-Tree.
As the Allmother had two eyes, so does Phifendyr have two moons.
Clemente: sunbaked and hot under our sun.
Its radiant orange warmth is full of spiritfire.
But there beside Clemente’s moons:
Erzenheim, bright with the light it shines.
From its cold and blue surface, it reflects the sun.
On Phifendyr, great cedars cover the homeworld.
The Life Tree stands, blessing homeworld with clouds,
Clouds that cover homeworld completely.
The clouds safeguard the Allmother’s form forever.
The Allmother, who sleeps in Her chains,
Silently slumbering under a spell.
But broken will those chains be,
Broken by the fight of her offspring, by their battle.
Thus, the reason for our existence.
Chapter 12, Tenet 26, of the Tosodan, Her Holy Word (First Kingdom Version)
Blessed be Her name, numerous Her children.
Free All-Mother from chains, chosen are we.
Break the bondage bounding bosom from buck,
Defend her slumbering form, from darkness,
Fire cleansed with spirit-fire.
Blessed be All-Mother for her grace, great in power.
As she sleeps, so we shall build.
Bound in chains is she, so we are free.
In her sacrifice of spirit-life, so we grow.
Through All-Mother, we live.
Chapter 12, Tenet 26, of the Tosodan, Her Holy Word (New Revised Standard Version)
Blessed be Her name, Her offspring numbering many.
Chosen are we to free the Allmother from chains,
To break the separation of her lifeforce to her children,
We must defend Her sleeping form from any invaders.
We shall meet their fire with spiritfire.
Blessed be the Allmother, for She is great not only in power, but grace.
Through her slumber, we build.
Through her chains, we are free.
Through her sacrifice, we grow.
Through Mother, we live.
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Episode 1:
freyjaville.
ᚠᚱᛖᚤᛃᚨᚡᛁᛚᛚᛖ᛬
Our two moons hung low in the sky, mismatched eyes of light and dark. They gazed down on me, indifferent.It was a treblenight, one of the last of three whole months when our little patch of space doesn’t get a single drop of sunlight due to our oblong orbit. It happens twice a year, but it always feels like it happens more. And it was chilly, like it always was. A stick of bacca kept me company, kept me warm. A crackle of heat filled my lungs with my next drag, echoing softly on my tongue when I exhaled. A cloud of baby blue wisped from my pursed lips, a cloud that crackled against the swirling night, temporary stars. When the blue faded, I could see it again: that damned splotch of black, crisscrossed with gridlines of city streets and interlacing interstates.Clemente, the “Golden Moon”. A sunbaked territory, overpopulated, dry, suburbs linked by sprawling savanas and arched irrigation canals, home to the Tribe’s biggest celebrities. Most of the Tribe’s population also lived there, regardless of its status as the Tribe’s smallest territory. It was a place of glamor and glitz, and it was that sort of place that stole her from me. Cayenne. Just the thought of her wistful smile made me suck a longer drag, and I spat it out at the thought of the baron she ran off with. I aimed it more intently at that damned moon before I let my head fall downwards. There was a breeze tonight, and tips of my hair brushed against my brow. Cayenne, Cayenne, Cayenne. Princess Cayenne, heir of the Snoqualmie Dynasty, next in line for the throne of the Roquai Tribe territories. The current ruler, Queen Paprika (or, as most of us call her: 'Queen Prika'), was the latest of a long, long, long line of descendants, a sacred bloodline with roots on their family tree deeper than the roots of the Life Tree itself. Big shoes to fill. She had to live up to Queen Prika’s lauded achievements in handling the delicate situation with the growing tensions between us and our neighbors of the Bolean Confederacy a star system over, her surgical precision in the handling of our plateauing economy, and (of course) her tactical insight in our centuries-long war with Andrea, the only other cluster of planets orbiting our sun. And those very few examples from Queen Prika’s long laundry list of lifetime achievements serve to highlight a very simple fact: Being the Queen of a halidom is fucking hard. Too hard for a girl like Cayenne. She wouldn’t have run off with that Clementinian baron if the opposite were true. I was hopelessly in love with her, and even I knew that. Another drag, a satisfying crackle, another sigh. I let the breeze brush through my hair again, just like Cayenne’s fingers when she let my head rest on her lap. I blinked and I was there, feeling her thighs shudder with her giggles, her grey eyes twinkling. She looked down at me, fondly, her fingers absentmindedly brushing through my hair as the sunlight refracting through the shade of our favorite pine tree did the same with hers. I remember every word of that conversation, it was the summer of- A particularly-hard gust of wind grabbed the collar of my topcoat and made it slap my cheek. Reality unclouded my eyes and I wasn’t looking up at Cayenne anymore-I was looking down, watching as the Life Tree spilled and spilled vast amounts of misty clouds into the patchy sea of white that spread across the entirety of the planet. Down here, where I belonged. Despite myself, I couldn’t help but strain my neck to look up again. What was she doing right now? It was around noon. She must be at some chic restaurant, commenting on the complex palates of a singular raw piece of Titanian shrimp. All while her baron would look at her as I did, making her laugh as I did, subtly brushing against her shoe underneath the table, as I did.These thoughts always ran through my head whenever I looked up at Clemente. And these days, I found myself looking up more than I’d prefer. I coughed. And soon more coughs turned into hacks. A long drag too long, and in the middle of my fit I figured it best if I just threw the rest of the joint over the railing. With tears in my eyes as I heaved, I watched the blue lit end of the bacca stick turn over and over and over until it faded into the sea of mist. I caught my breath, took a few steps backwards, and fell onto the small ornate bench of the castle balcony. When would I stop looking up? Up not just to Clemente, but to Cayenne? Because that’s where she always belonged, always where she should belong: above me. It was just that back then, when I was her thane, when I foolishly fell heads over heels in love with her, she wasn’t literally above me, thousands of miles out of reach. It gave me a sense of security, the illusion that her reciprocated flirtations and attention meant that she would compromise that pecking order. That she was on the same level as me. That she belonged here, instead of wherever she wanted. So I wasn’t mad at her that day, when I helped her board her shuttle while the boyfriend she just met during a gala two weeks prior watched on from the plush, leather-lined interior. I wasn’t mad at that baron either. Cayenne was never mine to begin with. Her world, literally or otherwise, was always a world I’d have to crane my neck up to see. Just see. Besides, as much as I loved her, I wouldn’t leave this planet for anywhere else. I looked straight ahead, at the sea of mist and the occasional peaks of mountains and overreaching pine-covered hills. The swirls of nebulae, the twinkling of distant systems, and the shifting tides of seadust cast a subtle, multicolored sheen onto the cloud canopy, and the way the soft-tinted white churned and carelessly whisked those colors into a gentle ambrosia made me smile. I was born here, the hub of the Roquai Tribe territories, the home of the Life Tree, and birthplace of our sacred Mother. The planet Phifendyr. Or, as all of us homeworld locals call it, “The Phife”. I’ve gone off-planet, sure. Hell, I’ve visited other systems. Who hasn’t? But something about the Phife always brings me back. It has almost everything I could ever want or need. It’s my roots, my future, my home. I just pray to Mother that Cayenne could one day see that. Maybe it can be like old times again. Maybe then the Phife could truly have everything I could ever want or need. I shook my head at that, chastising myself. I of all people should know the dangers of getting your hopes up.Before habit could pull out another joint, my right pocket beeped. I sighed. It beeped again and I knew it would keep beeping if I didn’t get back inside the castle right away. I stood, and mid-beep, I pulled out my pager.
YO, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU
beep!
I SWEAR IF UR DAYDREAMING ABOUT MY SISTER AGAIN
beep!
COME ASAP
beep!
HEY
beep! beep!
HEY
beep! beep! beep!
HEY
beep! beep! beep! beep!
HE-
I put it back in my pocket. I knew where I needed to go. The balcony was on the left flank of the throne room. I cut across it, nodding to the guards that stood sentry on either side of the empty golden chair between them. Tapestries laden with traditional interlace adorned every wall, shelves upon shelves of sacred pottery housing the ashes of Queens glowed with holy light. This room was the heart of the Roquai Tribe. It has been for as long as anyone could remember. The room always invoked awe, a sentiment that was somewhat dampened due to the elaborate television broadcasting setup and numerous electric heaters situated around the room. We didn’t have many visitors. I crossed into the hallway, nodding at more guards, more sentinels. A few more turns and I was there. Two tall, tall oak doors that stretched several dozen feet into the ceiling stood before me, two imposing sentinels standing aside each of them, donning sacred tribal armor. Two pairs of beady green eyes, shrouded in the shadow of wooden beaks, glared at me. “Hey, fellas.” More glares. I slipped off the glove of my right hand, showing them the birthmark; a faint knot of interlace. It didn’t glow like it was supposed to, but it garnered the appropriate response all the same. With that, the sentinels reached over, one door each, respectively, and granted me entrance. This was one of the royal bedchambers. Not Queen Prika’s, no. Those doors were made of wood from the Life Tree itself, and had at least two dozen or so guards lining the hallway that led to it.No, these quarters belonged to the girl who impatiently stood before me, arms crossed, hands on her pager with a small pout on her lips. Princess Nutmeg. A name that is just as embarrassing as it sounds. And such, she insisted everyone call her- “What is it, Meg,” I said, every word a sigh. The doors shut with a resounding boom behind me, and I was left alone with her in the darkness of her room. “I was on break.” “You reek of bacca.” “Is it any of your business what I do in my free time?” “It’s my business when you do that shit on palace grounds,” Meg continued, eyes defiant and thoroughly annoyed. “Especially after you very obviously and insistently ignore all my pages! You own that thing for a reason.” “Yeah, whatever. What do you want.” It was Meg’s turn to sigh. The frilly and very girly nightgown didn’t suit her. “Come on, let’s watch a movie.” So that’s why it was dark; Meg always favored her room lit as bright as it could be, annoyingly so. She hated treblenights. She didn’t wait for my answer before turning on her heel and briskly walked over to her desk. Several blocky plastic monitors hummed, all connected with a jumbled mess of wires to her computer rig. Top of the line, apparently. It hummed even more annoyingly that the harsh glare of those monitors, like a Bi-prop gearing up for liftoff.Above the slipshod array of monitors, her room’s projection screen was already lowered, ready to play whatever memory disc she so desired; several shelves-full of memory disc after memory disc of Meg’s movies and shows occupied the entire wall opposite her bed, most of them having two copies (one unopened to be kept in “mint” condition, others for personal rewatches). I watched as she clacked away on her keyboard, leaning over her office chair as she excitedly replied to some chatroom or some forum. “Can’t you just watch it by yourself?” I said, already making my way to the edge of her bed. I threw my topcoat aside to the pile of her own clothes. Ballgowns, corsets, bodices and the like mixed with her favored sweatshirts, short shorts, and novelty tees. I sat down, already knowing the answer.“That’s no fun.”I resigned to my fate. She started turning off her monitors, one click after another, letting the blank white of the whirring projector be the only focal point of light in the entire room. “Fine. What are we watching?” “Nova Outlaw . There’s a new trilogy coming up and I wanna rewatch it to prep for it.”“That shitty old cartoon with giant robots? Shouldn’t you be watching soaps or whatever you kids do nowadays?”“Get off it, Taft, you’re only like two years older than me.”"Five.""Same shit."There was a decisive click, and the last monitor went black.Satisfied with the darkness, Meg strode over to the projector console situated on the opposite end of the room. By the time she came to join me on the edge of her bed that was our usual perch, I already had an assortment of her stuffed animals and pillows propped up behind me. A bit of fumbling around in the dark also bore the fruit of a bowl of popcorn, and several smaller bowls of Meg’s favorite candy. Apparently I didn’t fumble around hard enough, because she reached behind a blue bear and pulled out a few more bowls, one particularly-large one filled to the brim with peach rings. My favorite candy. Without another word, we sat and watched Nova Outlaw. Schlock, as I expected it to be. Something I’d probably appreciate more if I were a decade younger. Meg, as usual, constantly praised the film, denoting character beats and directorial choices that would “revolutionize the industry”, point out certain frames worked on by animators whose names I didn’t bother remembering. Fortunately, the runtime was quick. The popcorn bowl was almost diminished, and I wanted to leave. I said so, but Meg just shushed me, and pulled out another bowl of popcorn from under the bed. I was gonna raise protest again, to which she pulled out a bag of peach rings and threw it onto my lap. We ended up watching the entire trilogy without stopping; the memory disc was a limited edition bundle. “Good, right?” “Sure.” “Nice, now you can take me to the premiere next week.” Meg said, hopping off the bed and making her way to the projector. The bag she handed me after the first movie was almost empty. “Before that though, I have to show you the prequel trilogy…” “Alright,” I said, firmly. “We’re leaving.” “Dude, come on-“ “Nope, no, I’ve had enough of the Sarsparilla Crew or whatever-“ “The Starmadillo Squad .” I sighed. “Yeah. Or whatever . Let’s go out.” I already had my topcoat on. I felt the pack of bacca joints in the breast pocket, and I was itching to get out into the night air. Meg groaned, but she was already shimmying off her nightgown. I turned towards the door for her privacy. I heard her ruffling through her clothespile that would have her mother fuming if she wasn’t so busy with the defense against the recent Andrean excursions near the Roquai strait.“Where?” “How’s Freyjaville sound?”I could almost hear the grin on Meg’s face then. “Okay.” Then, I heard it falter. “...and we’re not going in your shitty station wagon, are we?” “It’s called a Dodson, and yes, we’re going in it.”“Dude-“ “We’re going in the Dodson. I’ll wait for you outside.”I felt the crumpled ball of her nightie hit me square in the head, but I kept walking, and my mind wandered to Cayenne as soon as the doors shut behind me.Meg took her sweet, sweet time. Probably revenge for taking her in the station wagon she so loathed. The sentinels weren’t very good company, and despite my frequent visits to her chambers over the years, they still didn’t trust me.Couldn’t really blame them; it was their job after all, just as much as babysitting was mine.Meg finally strode through the doors, clothed in a hoodie and jeans. She looked just like any normal girl, and even without a disguise, everyone outside these palace walls would see her as such. We made our way through the palace corridors. It didn’t take too long before the silence of our strides was broken by her talking more about Nova Outlaw. It became pink noise by the third corner, and Cayenne fogged over my mind. We used to walk through here too, run through them when she was feeling silly. The apparitions I absentmindedly stared after were broken every few seconds by an overexcited hand gesture, or an insistent poke. By the time we were almost at the garage, I was listening to her, despite how lost I was at the deep lore she kept throwing at me.She and her sister shared the same trait of babbling. Meg about her movies, shows, and war, Cayenne about brands, celebrity gossip, and socialite drama. Neither batch of talk truly captivated me.But even with Meg, it was hard not to admire their passion. For things that I saw as benign.I caught the retreating foot of a butler when we passed through the threshhold into the Snoqualmie family garage. The help, other than the guards and sentinels, were supposed to make themselves scarce. Tradition, as was most of the things that held this joint together, despite being outdated and amusingly benign; I remember Cayenne intentionally trying to cram the help into the worst of places for fun, the winner probably being three maids shoving themselves into a broom closet when she unexpectedly strode into the hallway they were sanitizing. We walked for a while longer. The Snoqualmie family garage is everything you’d expect of royalty; rotating platforms, flattering lighting, spotless shine and polish, cars from the earliest roadsters to the most modern of exotics. It spanned the entire length of the palace underneath, two floors below the ground level, right under the kitchen and indoor hot springs.It took is a few minutes, but finally, after dozens upon dozens of pristine sets of wheels, we arrived upon my favorite: my ‘703 Dodson. Due to my position as Meg’s personal ward, they allowed me to park it here, right next to cars that were all at least quadruple the value of mine.It was a standard station wagon with all the bells and whistles; wood panelling, four headlights, manual three-speed gearbox, five doors, three cupholders. It was my dad’s, been riding in it since I was a kid. It needed some new upholstery (cotton peaked out of several places in the seats), maybe new shocks, probably a new rearview mirror, but other than that, it was the most dependable thing in my life.And because of that, I took care of her as best I could. Part of that care was making sure she had the mileage she deserved, which, in hindsight, was probably just justification for my constant urge to cruise with that familiar hum under me, the smell of musky carpeting and my dad’s favorite pine air freshener in my nose.It was familiar, and it was a constant. I clung to it as hard as I could, and it made me smile more than five packs of bacca ever could. This was, of course, all to Meg’s dismay, who’d much rather ride in one of her many, many supercars and roadsters than she would bump around in this old thing. But, as with many of my habits, I had justification for that too. One that I repeated once we buckled in and waited for the garage doors to open. She had that small pout on her face, the one she did without even trying. A face she pretty much always made whenever she was subjugated to sitting shotgun in the Dodson. “Low profile, Meg.” “Yeah, yeah, just drive, man.” Foot planted in the clutch, I turned the key, and the Dodson purred to life. I was about to roll us out before I remembered. “Wait. Prayer.”Meg sighed. She knew I’d make her do it. We both closed our eyes, and I clutched the golden chain around my neck. Meg clutched the chain around her wrist. A few muttered words of the Mother granting us a safe journey, a brief gratitude for our blessings, then, a ‘Through Mother, we live.’ From both our lips. A kiss on our respective chains concluded the prayer, and I let a moment pass by before I eased on the gas, and rolled us out of the garage into the treblenight.Soon we were out of the palace gates, rolling down into the town after passing through the five checkpoints on the singular, solitary road to Meg’s home.We passed several of the behemoth lichen-covered antiair turrets installed around the palace, following the road until we had to close the windows due to passing through the cloud cover. It was thick, thicker than any fog. Even with highbeams, the only thing we could see was white. Eventually we slipped under, the bright warmth of the night sky gone, and the black splotch of Clemente no longer to be seen.Instead, the only thing that pierced through the cloud cover was the light of our biggest moon, and the Tribe’s third territory: Erzenheim. A mining moon, that-due to its sparse and white landscape-allowed the distant sun to bless the Phife with light no matter how thick the cloud cover got, no matter how far away from the sun our orbit would take us. We rolled on through the provincial town of Lichtenfel that was only a mile from the palace. It was quiet. Tourist season wasn’t for a few months, so the famed “town of the Life Tree” was quiet. It wasn’t a particularly big town, and it was never truly bustling. It was just a remnant of the past, streets still cobblestone, statues of forgotten heroes and dignitaries standing sigil hundreds of feet above ground level. It only took about two minutes for us to drive through it.After taking a left on a fork in the road that led to other cities built into the side of the Life Tree, we made our way down the 97, the Rim of the World Highway. It winded down and down and down, etched into the wood of the Life Tree, serpentine in its curves. To be more specific, the road winded down a particularly large root, running down its slope until we hit the main interstate.Its incline was so gradual and comfortable that you couldn’t even feel the decrease (or increase) in altitude until your ears popped.The lower we got, the more trees began to appear. The first one sprouted about halfway, the very edge of the timberline that dared to root itself into the Life Tree. Twenty or so minutes later, after a silence of us just listening to one of Meg’s mixtapes (we kept a case full of them in the glove compartment), we reached ground level.The smell of the air freshener was dwarfed the instant I opened the sunroof, dwarfed by that smell that never passed the cloud cover. I knew Meg loved it too, that sharp tang of cedars, pines, spruces, firs, hemlocks, and larches. Small offspring of the Life Tree, the native and indigenous plantlife that outnumbered every single human soul that resided in the Roquais Territories. The billions of trees that earned the Phife our nickname as “The Evergreen Planet”.I looked over at her, and saw the smile on her face. She turned to me and we shared it. Unlike the mostly-deserted 97, the main autobahn was full of life. Cars, trucks, and semis constantly zoomed past in the opposite lanes, some zooming past in the lane next to us.“You hungry?” I said, raising my voice a but above the wind, whoosh of passing traffic, and the syncopathic beats from the grainy speakers.“Sure.”“Wanna hit up Duckworth’s or should we just eat on the ferry?” “I’m fine with the ferry.” Lights of the autobahn passed by above us in a slow rhythm. Orange against the overcast monochrome. Green signs directing traffic towards exists and intersecting highways passed by too, an occasional overpass echoing the clunky hum of the Dodson.The air got chillier after I eventually took an exit. The offramp slipped down a hill, and kept winding down, deeper into forest. We hit several stoplights along the way. Meg leaned with arms crossed against her window, admiring the trees. We may have lived in the biggest one on all the Phife, but it wasn’t the same with being surrounded by them.Driveways leading to humble homes drifted by, stoplight after stoplight, streetlights offering guidance along with powerlines that dipped and rose in long black lines. We passed a few convenience stores, shopping plazas, and fast food joints along the way, but those eventually tapered out. The chill that followed us since we took the exit got chillier, until the air that pricked my skin matched the air outside of the palace above the cloud cover; it’s good thing we were dressed appropriately. The source of the cold eventually revealed itself over the next crest of pavement. The Sacred Sound, the largest body of water on all the Phife, stretched out before us. Orange of lights along the coastline glittered onto the shimmering of the cold sea like stars around Clemente. The Sound was what quenched the Life Tree’s thirst; it gave the water necessary for it to grow, but more importantly, it provided the moisture for the Life Tree to shift the Phife’s four seasons.It was the Sound that provided the cloud cover, the endless sea of overcast white that remained until the short summers. Naturally, it takes a massive amount of water for the Life Tree to pump out clouds in incessant roiling sheets, which is why the Sound covered a fifth of the entire planet. Still, from where we were, it didn’t look like much. It was no ocean. Islands and peninsulas and inlets and mountains made sure the Sound didn’t have much room to spread, making the entire thing look like a giant, blotchy river than a sea.The suburbs were replaced with more traditional buildings here along with some more posh ones. Old log cabins stood alongside gated villas and a choice few mansions, five star restaurants overlooking the Sound leisurely clung to the downwards hill leading to the beach, art galleries occupied retrofitted mead halls, hip microbreweries proudly hung neon over the refurbished wood of ancient longhouses.It was much more bustling here than it was up in Lichtenfel. It was no Clementinian valley of stars, but it was high class all the same.It was where Cayenne frequented. Where we frequented. I still remember her favorite restaurant: some chique Florentian fusion joint. She always got a kick from how they served caviar in basket cups.We rolled to a stop. A long snake of red brakelights trickled down the hill, the queue for the ferry. Luckily for us, we could catch the lights of the ferry drifting through the inky black, and it didn’t take longer than 15 minutes before the red snake slithered, slowly but surely, onto that light-studded cake that waited for us on the dock. Fare was cheap. About six pounds, and soon enough the Dodson was comfortably nestled inside bumper to bumper. Once the traffic guard gave us the thumbs up, Meg and I got out of the car. I locked the door. Meg didn’t need to be told to do the same with hers. We made our way up the central stairwell up from the car deck to the passenger deck. Here, we waited for the ferry to disembark. There was row upon row of plastic chairs, many facing forward, some rows facing inward, some facing outward. We chose two that faced outward. A few televisions were mounted on the walls, all of them broadcasting the same news channel-the same usual shit about the Andrean threat in the Roquai Strait.There was a distinct smell in the air, a mixture of musk and chemicals. Like a hospital hallway mixed with the floor of a bus. It was a familiar scent though, one that harkened back to weekend trips to Skagit Island with my dad. Therefore, it was a good one, despite Cayenne’s utter distaste of it the few times I tried taking her on the ferry (she always insisted we take her shuttle, and that’s eventually how we always traveled across the Sound).But moreso than the times I shared with my dad, the familiarity of the ferry and its quirks was due to the innumerable amount of times Meg, the Dodson, and I would ride on it. Despite Meg’s incredible ability to binge foreign cartoons for hours upon hours on end, she’d never turn down a trip out. Even when she protested, I knew it would only take a few more prods and she’d eventually give in. She always did. Especially if it meant we’d be going to Freyjaville.“You brought your annual pass, right?” I said, right after the jolt and loud resonant horn abovedeck signalled the ferry’s embarkment. Meg fished around in her jeans. It took a few moments and I heard the rustling of wrappers, some keys, credit cards…but eventually she pulled it out, satsified grin on her face. The plastic pass was scratched and faded to the point of near-illegibility; the anthropomorphic mascots on its face were almost completely peeled off. “Alright, good. I shoulda asked you in the car. We wouldn’t want a repeat of last week.” Meg rolled her eyes as she pocketed the pass. We sat there and argued about whose fault last week really was before Meg shook it off with a smile and a “whatever” and stood up. “Chowder?” “Sure.”The passenger deck “food court” was nestled in the corner next to the restrooms. It consisted of a cashier’s podium (complete with a bored, acne-ridden high schooler), about three or four little tables and plastic chairs, and a self-serve buffet-style smorgasbord. Most of the food was dished up since lunch, and refilled slowly throughout the day, meaning it was dry, old, and just all around inedible.The only thing worth getting was the clam chowder. It sat at the end of the smorgasbord, hot and occasionally stirred to make sure it didn’t develop a film on top.As per our usual routine, both of us slopped up a scoop of hot chowder into a cup, paid the five pounds (plus a few shillings' tax) to the cashier kid, and made our way to upstairs to the outdoor viewing deck.The crisp and salty air blasted us the moment we stepped abovedeck. The ferry was at full speed. We shielded our cups of chowder (I always hated the fact that the joint didn’t have any goddamn lids, but what can you do?), and shuffled our way to our favorite spot: the stern. There were benches bolted around the entire circumference of the ferry for the viewing pleasure of passengers. Most of them were empty this time of the night. Meg and I let out a sigh once we sat our asses down. Our hands uncovered our paper cups, and I took out two cellophane-covered plastic spoons from my breast pocket.“You forgot these again.” Meg handed me a couple plastic-wrapped crackers.“Thanks.” The shore receded from our view ever-slowly, the bright lights of the beach town swallowed by inky treblenight. By the time the chowder and crackers were in our stomachs, the most prominent lights were the ones on the ferry itself, shining down into the frothy white of the wake churning below the stern.With our backs sitting against the ferry’s topdeck control room, we were shielded against the biting wind of the Sound. I got up from the bench with both our empty chowder cups, empty cracker wrappers nestled inside. There was a trash can right beside the bench. I looked into the darkness. The shoreline was a long black line now, studded with lights that shimmered onto the Sound. Quiet as the scenery was, the ferry was loud. There was a constant churn of hundreds of pounds of water, the engine slaving away, the hum of electricity. But it was still tranquil all the same. I leaned against the railing overlooking the wide, white wake the ferry left behind. Meg joined me, hood covering her ears. A stick of bacca was already in between my fingers, and my free hand began fumbling for my lighter.I could sense her distaste when the flicker of a brief orange flame gave way to the sizzle of a blue one. But I took a drag all the same. Meg stayed silent, looking out, lost in thoughts of her own.I was tempted to follow the outline of the Life Tree, follow its towering blackness that penetrated into the sky, that pointed an almighty finger towards Clemente. Meg stopped me before the silence gave way to my thoughts being overcome with her sister.“Never gets old, does it?” “The chowder? It’s alright, but I still think it lacks pepper.”“Nah. The chowder’s fine. I meant this.” Meg pointed towards the wake of the ship, the shore, the treblenight with her chin. “All of it.” She turned to me then, with a smile, with her eyes shimmering with ferry light like the shore lights on the Sound. I wanted to keep looking, but I felt something immediately tighten in my throat, and I only saw Cayenne. I looked out, away, pursing my lips tighter around the paper of my bacca. My lungs swelled with prickling heat before I blew it all out through my nose. “I couldn’t agree more.” I said. Mumbled. I didn’t dare look at her, not when she looked at me like that. And I still didn’t, even when she slipped away and sat back down on the bench behind me, warm smile unreciprocated. I felt her eyes on my neck. Meg slipped in through the turnstile first. I followed suit, scanning the barcode of my annual pass. It was about twenty or so minutes after we drove off the ferry. It wasn’t too far away; most of that time was dedicated to parking spot hunting. With a beep, the turnstile loosened, and the attendant beamed me a wide smile. She wore a ridiculous pointy red hat, banded in an interlace graphic.It was meant to make the employees of the park look like jovial colonists from an age long gone, but it just made them all look like gnomes. Freyjaville was a theme park. Rather, it was the theme park. Created by multibillion-pound entertainment mogul Wally Freyja, Freyjaville set the standard for theme parks across the entire galaxy. At the time, there was at least twenty five or so Freyjavilles across dozens of systems. All the parks featured a metric shitton of licensed properties, from Freyja Studios and beyond, and was always being updated while keeping its familiar, whimsical atmosphere. I’ve visited a few, seen how big and grand those other Freyavilles are, but for my money, nothing could be the original Freyjaville, the galaxy’s first theme park of its kind. Everyone on the Phife has visited it at least once. And if you live close to it, you’re bound to own an annual pass, just like Meg and I did. We made our way through the front plaza at a leisurely pace. A crowd was gathered in one corner, and I could hear small guttural bellows and occasional flumes of fire accompanied by a yelps, “oohs”, and applause; it was the wyvern demonstration, featuring Freyjaville’s resident wyvern toddler, Odinson. Elsewhere in the circular plaza were people getting their pictures taken by park staff that stood ready with cameras on tripods, others shopping for gifts in stalls selling a plethora of licensed merch. Meg and I made our way straight through the plaza towards the giant castle in the center that served as the park’s centerpiece, as well as its main entrance. By all standards, it was pretty much a replica of the Snoqualmie family palace, just much more exaggerated, colorful, and cartoonish. Still, it was a sight to see, its plaster walls doused in multicolored spotlights, spires plated in gold flake, windows lit from the inside. Just like the usual places Meg and I frequented, the sight of Freyja’s Castle never got old. The instant we passed through the drawbridge and mouth of the castle, we were doused in light. Every single inch of Freyjaville (meticulously-thought out to be separated into six different “Kingdoms” representing six main themes) was created with the sole intent to dazzle its guests. Especially at night. No matter which Kingdom you’d walk into, lights blinked and flashed and snaked and popped. The current one we strolled through was the Kingdom of Stars, the first Kingdom to encounter right out of Freyja Castle’s mouth. Every attraction, every stall, and every ride was covered in the warm orange of incandescent bulbs, not a single one dim or dead. It was a relic from decades’ past when the park and attractions of this it first opened. It filled me with a homey, quaint feeling as warm as the hue of the bulbs themselves. Carnival music followed us as we walked through. Characters from famous Freyja Studios properties danced about, posing for pictures, signing autograph books. I let Meg lead the way. “We’re going on Quest for Peace .” She said, voice barely audible above the pipe organ that blasted inside the vertical carousel we were walking around. “Come on, again?” It was her favorite ride. “Yeah, again. You finally watched Nova Outlaw , man. Now you can actually get the story. It is canon too, y’know.” We exited the Kingdom of Stars, and walked through a circle of pavement with a fountain in the middle. Its water shone with colored light from submerged bulbs, rising and falling, yellow one second, orange the next, a cacophony of a rainbow the last. This was the Hub. Like the center of a spoked wheel, it branched out into all six Kingdoms, paths leading into arched entrances. We strode over to the Battle Kingdom. A Kingdom of neon and replicas of turrets and bi-props and Behemoths mixed in with a plethora of fictional vehicles and weapons of war. Of course, this was Meg’s favorite. A world’s difference from Cayenne’s, a Kingdom that lay directly across from it in the Hub. A Kingdom Meg knew to avoid when she was here with me. “Oh, Mother!” Meg said in a surprised yelp. We were a few strides away from the queue for Quest for Peace , the entrance marked with a large, moving replica of the Starmadillo Squad’s famous mecha. Meg pointed at the red neon number on the stand next to it. “Look at the queue time!” It was 15 minutes. I knew what it meant, and I followed her wordlessly into the queue, thinking of how much I wanted to just slip away into the designated smoking area for some bacca. We rode Quest for Peace four times. Meg prattled and prattled on now that I had watched the films the ride was based on, saying how much more I’d appreciate the craftsmanship of it if I had just watched the prequel trilogy too. Meg’s voice turned into pink noise again, and I stared straight ahead as she continued. Cayenne did the same the last time we were here together. Ramble and gush about things I didn’t care about at all. The only difference was that when Cayenne rambled, I hung on to her every word. As we walked on, Meg’s head turned into Cayenne’s. The neon and futuristic angular aesthetics of the Battle Kingdom fell away, replaced with silk and gold and crystal. We were in the Kingdom of Splendor, walking through some display of cloaks and gowns from the turn of the last century. “Lady Cinnamon , Taft!” Cayenne said, designer sunglasses almost falling off her silk scarf-wrapped head. “I don’t know how Freyja could get these shawls of hers, but just...just look at it!” I grinned, toothily. I didn’t appreciate the significance of the clothing as much as she did, of course, but her exuberance was contagious. “Yeah.” Cayenne laughed, and leaned over the guardrail. I kept an eye about to see if any security was coming to stop her. She went to the next exhibit, and the next, dragging me along with her. She was like sunshine, gold of the extravagant chandeliers in the exhibit dripping through the curves of her bound obsidian hair like syrup. Her hand in mine was warm velvet. “And this ...Sir Reuental’s dinner jacket. I never thought I’d actually get to see it with my own eyes, but…” she sighed with a dazed look in her eyes, and I stared. She looked up at me, and stared back. “It’s just great isn’t it, Taft?” I never knew it was possible to encapsulate such pure elation into such a simple word. “It is.” We walked through the rest of the exhibits, and then we walked out of the exit, only to do it all again. Eventually we resigned to just walk around the Kingdom of Splendor, cones of soft serve in our hands. She had strawberry swirl. I had chocolate. It was obvious that the park spent an extra amount of budget here. Chandeliers of crystal suspended in midair, decorative pires of polished garnet, every surface seemingly caked in gold flake. I didn’t see why Cayenne would derive so much enjoyment from this place, especially since she lived in such extravagance as the princess of the Roquais Tribe.But of course, why would I question anything that gave her such a sparkle in her eye? She always finished her food after me; she liked savoring it longer. We sat on a bench on a lookout situated a few hundred feet above the park. It was a hill with an extravagant ballroom perched at its peak, an attraction where you can waltz with holographic depictions of history’s most famous figures. Amidst all of the newer additions, coupled with the long hike up several flights of stairs, it was one of the most vacant areas of Freyjaville. Here, Cayenne was free to let loose her hair, rid herself of the sunglasses. She softly kept at it with her ice cream, dainty licks interspersed between several long seconds of gazing down at the Kingdom of Splendor. Her head was light against my shoulder, the grip of her fingers around my elbow just as so. I felt compelled to steady my breathing, worried that the rise and fall of my lungs would be too intrusive to my shoulder’s role as her pillow. “I can’t wait to get out of here with you.” Her ice cream had long been finished by now. We sat there, hearing the gentle lilts of swing meandering from the ballroom. “I can’t either.” I said. Half-lied. The Phife was my home, but I figured anywhere in any system would be just as good if it was with her. “It really is a struggle for us to just... be , isn’t it? I didn’t ask to be who I am, I didn’t ask for the Andreans...I just want to get away from it all.” “You didn’t ask for your lowly knight to fall in love with you either.” She wrapped both her arms around mine then, pressing her chest against me with her cheek. I felt her heartbeat: languid staccato. “There’s very few things that I don’t ask for that I want-” I felt her lift her head off me, prompting me to look down at her head, tilted up to gaze at me with eyes that knocked me dead. The residual light of splendor softly framed her like a halo, her lips looking like the ripest of fruit. “-for things that I love .” We kissed. Languid staccato. Lips shifting, locking, my hands on her cheek, her neck, her hands on my chest, my jaw. She breathed hotly when my lips softly wisped butterflies onto the skin of her throat. Things cooled off and she was leaning into me again, just looking out at the park, at the distant Sound. “It doesn’t matter when,” I said. Promised. Half-lied. “You’ll get off this place, and we’ll go wherever we want.” “Mmm. A knight and his princess, off to see the stars. Damned cheesy, isn’t it?” “Yes. Perfect for a prim and straight-laced gal like you, right?” She tittered. “Don’t be such a louse, Taft.” We spent another minute watching the distant glittering line of an inter-territory express line softly chugging away through the stratosphere, free of shackles. “But...I wouldn’t mind staying here if you did.” “You don’t mean that.” The grip tightened, the heartbeat a little more staccato than languid. “I’m serious. You don’t know how many times I’ve come here since I was a kid. But it’s like someplace entirely new when I’m with you. I can just...breathe, stay next to you, and smile just knowing you’re breathing too.” “...you’re right.” “Hm?” I buried my nose in her hair. “You really are damned cheesy.” She tittered again, coupled with playful light punches against my arm. The night stretched on, and we just kept staring off into the park, the Sound, the sky, together, mumbling platitudes and flirts and dirty little nothings. Her finger charted out the stops we’d make from planet to planet. I was entranced, as if her hand was the touch of the Mother herself. Then we’d just lose ourselves in the vast expanse of the sky itself. It was summertime, so the cloud cover was mostly gone. Swirls of nebulae, the dancing spots of our rings, the distant promise of planets. I could almost taste our future looking up at the sky like that. My cheeks fucking hurt by smiling so much thinking about it, by just having her pressed up against me. Someday. Someday I’d be up there, on some shuttle, some galactic expressway. The night contrasted so warmly with the Sound.Someday. “Taft…” She’d whisper. And I knew it meant that I’d just say her name, and we’d keep staring, staring, staring. “Hey, Taft …” Concern laced with sadness. I realized the view wasn’t unhindered anymore; there was plexiglass separating me from it all, and there wasn’t any warmth around my arm. My eyes weren’t twinkling with the prospect of a future. No, they were just tears. I felt a cold churro being gripped in my right hand. Almost frantic, I looked for Cayenne next to me- Meg looked at me, that concern in her eyes, that sadness in her gaze. I wanted to say something, but my lips just fell open and nothing but a sigh came out. I looked back out the plexiglass at where I was staring. We were hundreds upon hundreds of feet above Freyjaville. I suddenly remembered that Meg and I had wandered onto the observation tower, churros from a nearby stand in hand. My eyes focused in on what I had been staring at while Meg chattered away. The hill above the Kingdom of Splendor. It was shuttered away indefinitely; the ballroom was taking too much to maintain, and it was being torn down for some other new attraction. It was obvious Meg knew where I was staring, and I couldn’t stop a tear or two to splatter down onto my neck. “I-I I um, shit-“ I managed. I looked at my lap, ashamed. I realized she was gripping onto my hand, and that my knee was shaking. My pulse was full auto. My breathing not languid; full staccato. Meg didn’t need to tell me to breathe; the tightening of her hand around mine was all the indication I needed. I desperately wanted to reach for my bacca, but the observation tower had a no-smoking policy. Eventually, with lots of gritting teeth and shutting eyes tight, I calmed. I looked at Meg again, and she gave me a smile, the concern still very much in her eyes, but relief plastered all over her face. “We’re down here on the Phife, space cowboy.” I didn’t bother saying thanks, but I smiled back. She gave me the eyes she gave me on the ferry. I looked out again. The tower had rotated us away from view of the hill. I looked back at Meg, and instead of looking away again, I stared back as best I could. It felt nice. I squeezed her hand. “Yeah.” A few minutes later, and I was a few bites into my churro. Meg’s hands were to herself, but she had a content smile on her face as the fireworks show began. My eyes didn’t wander upwards or anywhere near the Kingdom of Splendor for the rest of the ride. I stole a glance at her in the midst of the show. She was smiling wide to herself, eyes brighter than anything outside. Cayenne didn’t show up in that moment, and I only saw Meg. The fireworks show finished and there was only a few more minutes until the ride we were on would lower back to the ground. “Hey, Meg.” “Yeah?” “Let’s watch the prequel trilogy tomorrow.” I wasn’t looking at her, but I heard her lips crack into a grin. “Sick.” A pause. Then, “Can we take a roadster the next time we come?” My turn to pause. My palm messed around with the crumpled paper of my finished churro. “Sure.” Meg tittered, soft, but genuine. “Sick.” The cloud cover stretched out above and beyond the horizon, opaque against the night sky, but the lights of the Sound and Freyjaville were more than enough.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Episode 2:
chaining day.
ᚲᚺᚨᛁᚾᛁᚾᚷ ᛞᚨᚤ᛬
"-for us to strive, for all of us, as not only fellow countrymen nor just followers of the Allmother's truth, but as a family. As a community of believers to support one another, to spread Her selflessness in the face of ego. In the face of undoncy."It was nearing the end of the sermon. A shorter one than usual on account of it being Chaining Day, the second holiday of the three month Sealing Season. Each holiday commemorates different phases of the Allmother's final days, and today we were to reflect upon the chains of bondage that keep her under her deep slumber.It was also more packed than usual, every pew in the circular byrigen was completely filled, hundreds of attentive believers with hundreds of pairs of eyes, all falling upon the center altar.I was there alone, Meg probably still curled up in bed. She rarely could wake up before noon. I myself haven't attended in many a moon. Not intentionally, but I still didn't feel particularly good about it either.The priest continued, the boom of his voice authoritative, yet warm."That is what we as a church, as a community, as a family must proceed to do. We all know it's a responsibility for us to show Her light in the darkness of star systems who haven't even heard Her name. But before we even think of sharing Her truth to men and women of other stars, of those in the vast darkness, it's the love spread between us that should come first. It's these displays of our collective character that can speak louder than any word ever could."A dramatic pause. I heard a man a few rows behind me cough.My attention was waning, my chain fiddled with between my thumb and forefinger. I looked down, away from the altar."Congregation, my brothers and sisters, as we go on from this place to spend with our family on this Chaining Day, to reflect on how our actions shine against our own chains of undoncy, we must reflect more on how we must continue to break these chains, one link at a time."The usual subject of my meandering slipped at the forefront of my thoughts. I wondered how Cayenne was doing. Probably at service right now with her boyfriend, attending the Clementian capital's biggest byrigen."Through love we shine our faith, through love, we help each other through the undoncy, through our trials, through the darkness that can fog our hearts to where we need to be. Through only love, can we hope to break those blackest of ancient chains that shackles Allmother in her slumber."She would go to every holiday service. Some would pick their favorites, the less somber ones, but not Cayenne. Every single service, she'd drag me along, using me as her human tissue whenever the tears started."Remember that ageless truth, from the third tenet of chapter five in Her word," the priest continued, giving a moment for the congregation before reciting the tenet from the holy Tosodan that pretty much everyone knows.Momentarily the call brought me back to the service. I cleared my throat. The words were already on my tongue, and I readied to mumble it as I heard a man next to me burst into tears.It wasn't uncommon for the waterworks to flow in these things. Everyone's done it at least once. After all, that's what the Sealing was all about; days of mourning, reflecting over the Allmother's sacrifice.He kept crying. Hiccups stumbling into bigger ones. Others close to me could have been moved too but this guy was the only one I could hear. He kept fighting it back, his effort transparent. I wondered if he was thinking of a past Chaining Day, of who he used to share it with.I dared to open up an eye to take a peek at him. He was alone, like me. He kept wiping tears that streaked down the weathered lines of his face, lower lip quivering as a child's.I forced my eyelids shut, turning my body completely forward, away from the man, my attention towards the center of the byrigen. I felt as if I saw something I probably shouldn't have. Then, following the priest's lead, the familiar tenet rose to my lips without me really thinking about it."'Our love brings forth Her truth through darkness, spreading as spirals of summer spiritfire. For in our love is faith, and he who is faithful shines brightest.'"The priest gave another pause, catching some miscellaneous voices of the slower congregational reciters of scripture. The man next to me was almost completely failing to hold back the wet sounds of his sniffling, the suppressed choking of small sobs. I could hear a couple behind me embracing, sniffling quietly all the same.I remembered the dampness of my sleeve sticking to my skin, Cayenne's unceremonious wiping of her nose against my shirt.I shook the thoughts, the smell, the touch of her away. Or tried, at least, but it was hard in a setting that was so familiar. I've gone to so many that they all seemed to blur.It was the same sort of general sermon every year. Something for the more general congregation who couldn't attend weekly service to come to, an excuse for everyone to gather and pay annual visits to cliroes. It was basic doctrine, wide strokes of our faith, touching upon favorite tenets to get heads nodding, to move hearts towards offering trays.It's why, against my better judgment (Allmother forgive me), that my mind wandered. The guilt sprinkled in a bit. Here everyone was thinking of the Allmother, remembering her death, and here I reminisced the clutch of Cayenne's fingers into my arms. Guilt crept in to add to the pot. There my mind went again, and I felt it's churn getting faster.I sighed, trying to stay in the moment. It wasn't until I felt something wet roll onto my hand that I realized I was crying. I brought my hand up to my cheek.Crying a lot.Then, like the whisper of a giant, the conjoined voice of the congregation swept through the domed worship hall."Through Mother, we live."Its echo faded in gentle laps. But I only heard one voice whisper it next to me.I looked, but of course, she wasn't there.The tears couldn't stop falling. I looked down, trying my best to wipe them all, but they kept falling. My chest rose and fell, and suddenly I felt a dam crack in my mind.All those services I attended with her, her familiar grip on my sleeve, when she'd lean against me during the longer sermons, her voice ringing out during a favorite hymn, her eyes, her eyes, her eyes.I clutched the chain around my neck with a dead man's grip, tighter than anyone else around me.It didn't matter how large the worship hall was. At that moment it was starting to feel like a broom closet. A casket.In the next moment that grip seized me deep in my chest and the room span. Everything span, a darkness swirling, breathing cold right against my face, hissing over my shoulder, tendrils plucking at my chest, making my lungs smaller, making my lungs smaller…I found myself praying as the churn of my thoughts reached a fever pitch. I called out as I started to sink. I couldn't have one of these episodes here, not in front of anyone, not when I was alone. Allmother, please......I shut my eyes tight before I freefell completely. Breathing. Visualizing. Remembering. Anchoring myself before I could succumb to the deafening roar of my thoughts. Ferry. Fish and chips. The smell of the Dodson during a long ride. Chowder. Lights on the warm cobblestone of Lichtenfel after a summer rain. I breathed."H-Hey, you alright?" a croak directly to my left. The blubbering guy.Slowly I opened my eyes. I was standing over the pew in front of me now, hands gripping its wood like handlebars. The skin stretched over my fists was sheet-white. A cold sweat, every inch of my skin. I was almost panting.I took a small moment, instinctively feeling my pulse. Why now, in the middle of service? If only Meg was-I felt a hand on the back, taking me out of my thoughts if only for a moment. It was the crying. I look up to him, and it was like a mirror.Both of us wore the same tears, the same weariness behind wet eyes. I didn't need to know his story to know that right now, we were on the same page. He kept his hand on my back as I looked at him, and in that moment I felt Allmother, right there. Between us, in us.Both of us smiled.I took another longer breath to compose myself, wipe away stray tears. I felt the pressure in my chest laxen, and in its place a warmth. I didn't feel as alone anymore.There was a pause as we waited for the priest's cue. He was poised right in the center of the altar, arms outstretched, long ornate vestments hanging from them like tapestries. He opened his eyes last, catching a breath after the sermon he just delivered.He looked into us, starting a slow walk after a lowering of his arms. Complete silence as his footsteps, reverent, measured, and slow, set a rhythm. Nary a sound aside from the stray cough.Eye contact, his eyes meeting with any of us in the congregation as we stood, eyes trying to meet all of ours. As intense as his gaze was, there wasn't any confrontation about it. No judgment. Just acknowledgement, a silent and passive reassurance to us all that we weren't alone.He kept walking, the steady foundation of his echoing footsteps firm enough for the melodic roar of pipe organs to finally start building. The priest kept walking, kept looking into all of us. We kept silent, standing as he reached the halfway point of his circumference.Sunlight streaming through the open oculus in the center of the domed roof slightly caught against the gigantic sculpture depicting the Allmother's final resting place, and my gaze followed.The ornate marble of its fine contours gleamed with an unmatched shine. Even from my spot in the pews, its artisanship stole my attention; its finely etched folds in the almost paper-thin Final Mantle draped over every inch of Allmother's curled and resting body, the thick Chains of Undoncy wrapped tight around it, the dracontine features of the Allmother's forgotten form.From the elegant rows of her dorsal scales, to the curved long glint of her talons, to the peaceful expression on her noble snout, to the heartbreaking droop of dead wings that used to soar high above where the Life Tree was now, the effigy was as beautiful as it was large. Every byrigen had one that lay in the center of the circular hall of worship, all of them across the system modeled after this one. The original earmung.You'd be hard-pressed to not stumble upon an earmung walking through any town or city, sacred statues scattered around that remind of us what needed to be lost for us to live. To love.It's always been striking for me how poignant an image the earmung is. How soberingly somber yet ethereal. Its stark simplicity never fails to share Her truth. No words needed, no oral litany.In front of an earmung, a simple kiss of our chain, one look at the Allmother's slumbering form, and it's enough for us to remember.For me, at least.It's just hard to remember sometimes when the goddess who we are to confide in is also in a deep and enchained slumber. It confused me how that faith can come so easily to everyone else, like it was effortless.But in that same thought I felt that warmth in my chest. The presence of the man beside me. Of everyone in the room beside me. Of Allmother, right there in the worship hall. Maybe the problem was a lack of faith in myself.Then, for but a moment, I saw faint threads, gold and pure, weaving throughout the whole congregation, layering and intersecting and overlapping, all of us connected. A knot of golden interlace.I blinked again, wiping my eyes. Just as fast as I saw the threads, they just as quickly disappeared.Just a trick of the light.The priest neared the end of his slow tread around the earmung's circumference. My chest felt filled with the delicate roar of the pipe organ's swell. Still in rhythm of the priest's feet, the melodies weaved, effortless.One last step, and the priest stopped where he began, turning heel. The pipe organ didn't waver in its bellow as the hymn only ramped up into a crescendo. The priest stood facing the congregation completely, letting each holy note of the closing hymn strike beat by beat.We all waited, we all listened, and some of us took the opportunity, festooned with the ending bars of the hymn, to silently pray. I said "thank you" under my breath; it was all I needed for Her to hear. She understood.One major chord unfurled into the air until the singing of pipes ceased completely. The final chord hung there, lingering as the priest allowed it to ebb away into consecrated silence.Then, he outstretched his arms again, turning all around to make sure his words carried to every pew."Through Mother, we live." he said, echoing our collective voice."Through her slumber, we build. Through her chains, we are free. Through her sacrifice, we grow."One last pause, then a jovial smile."A blessed Chaining Day, brothers and sisters."Not a second later and the mood blossomed. A din of chatter permeated every corner of the circular worship hall. The organ began to hum a light hymn as the congregation was left to its own devices. I took a moment to collect myself, breathing normally for the first time in what seemed like hours. Looking around, I saw the embraces, the engaged conversations, the smiles. I remembered what I saw, or rather, what I thought I saw earlier; all of us intertwined in a knot of interlace.I quickly shook the thought from my head. This was why I subconsciously avoided services by myself; I get too caught up in the moments of self-reflection, too caught up in my head.I needed a smoke.One more deep breath and I grabbed my topcoat from my pew. Fortunately for me the man who had comforted me earlier was busy talking to someone a pew behind, so I slipped out from my seat with ease before I began my strides upstairs to the exit. The treblenight had officially ended the night before, the sky pink in an unending sunrise as I leaned against the fence on the outer edge of the byrigen's courtyard. I watched as the Sacred Sound shimmered in placid swaths of gold, a fourth stick of bacca hanging from my lips. My eyes wandered to the right of the horizon where the Life Tree stood across the sound. Right below me sprawled the Phife's capital city of Wilselem, its hilly streets quiet on account of Chaining Day.I could hear the subdued pockets of chatter and activity from the part of the congregation who stayed after the service. The quiet prayers, jovial conversations of people with their cliroes, children playing with the docile wyverns that lived amongst the tall courtyard cedars.The courtyard itself took up most of the hill that the byrigen was built on. It fanned out around the byrigen's circular architecture, local plantlife towering high above the worship hall's relatively-humble height. This was where the after-service mingling took place, a designated natural sanctuary for us to appreciate Mother's gift of creation.I took another drag before hearing the sound of footsteps come up behind me. One long, final drag before I took what was left and put it out in the lidded metal ashtray keychain I kept in my breast pocket. I already knew who it was.Before I turned to face him, I slipped the pocketed glove over my right hand, concealing the birthmark. He knew who I was too, of course, but habits were habits."Brother Taft." he said, extending a hand. His right one. I let out a small sigh as I tried my best to smile, taking it with the hand I just covered up,and gave it a curt shake."Brother Ayer.""Mind if I join you?"He looked and acted as amiable as ever, his thumbs probably twiddling under the grey cover of his vestments."Sure," I said, shrugging towards the fence. "Mind if I smoke?"Brother Ayer looked over his shoulder, as if by instinct. A concern washed over his face when he turned to look at me with a sigh and small shake of his head. He conceded by walking over the fence beside me."Not at all. As long as I don't have to partake."I chuckled, a stick of bacca already against my tongue. One flick from my lighter and the familiar warmth swelled in my lungs.I leaned against the fence again with an exhale of smoke.We shared a brief silence.I felt his eyes brisk against the side of my face before he broke the silence, almost tentatively."So how have things...been, Taft? Haven't seen you in a service for a while.""Shitty." my mouth said before I could even think. But then again, he was my cliroe. A sort of personal pastor assigned to you since your baptism. You were supposed to be as honest as you could to them. Glorified shrinks. I shifted the stick of bacca between my teeth. Trying to formulate myself better, be actually honest. "Just lousy. I don't know, man...lousy."And that was all I came up with.Another silence. I heard Brother Ayer take a breath and I watched the exhale curl into the brisk afternoon air. I knew he was thinking, his mind churning with something to respond with, finding the correct answer, finding the right thing to say. I almost chuckled at the effort. Then,"Well Taft, Allmother...She likes to work in mysterious ways-"And off he went, Brother Ayer, the good little cliroe. No more than ten words and I was already tuned out as Brother Ayer started to go on, plodding with prepackaged platitudes, tenets and verses at the ready to try and soothe me. I lit the next stick of bacca.I knew he had the best of intentions, of course, so I tried my best to seem like I was listening, feeding him nods and agreeable "mm"s for encouragement. My eyes wandered again to the Life Tree. Cloud cover was thin today, wimpy wafers of white. I could see the smallest glint of Lichtenfel up there, the regal blip of the palace resting above it. Meg should be awake by now.When Brother Ayer finally finished, he looked at me with a smile that said,"Do you feel better now?"I put out my last stick in the ashtray from my pocket.Then, I looked at Brother Ayer, and gave him a small smile that pretty plainly said,"No, but nice try, bud."I could see the lines of his smile droop a bit, and I instantly felt bad.I extended a hand out to him, my ungloved one this time."Thank you, Brother Ayer," I said, smiling just a bit more genuinely this time. "It means a lot, seriously."I could see his spirit lift a bit as he took my hand. With both of his hands."Can we share a quick prayer before you leave?" he said, concern in his eyes.I bit back a sigh. He tried so hard to bring me back closer to the fold, to Allmother. Yet out here, after the service, after parting ways with that complete stranger inside the byrigen, there was no swell inside me, no golden tricks of light. The only swell in my chest was from the bacca.But again, Brother Ayer's efforts weren't for lack of trying.And out of pity than anything else,"Of course."He closed his hands tighter around mine, and with that, bowed his head to pray. I closed my eyes, and try as I might, all his words just kept droning on, and I felt further from Mother than I did during the drive over. As Brother Ayer continued praying for my salvation, my mind was already on dinner. A familiar thud of closing doors resounded behind me as I took off my topcoat. I sighed. Meg was still asleep.I didn't even bother to shake my head as I threw my topcoat onto her coatrack. Every single drape was drawn, any and every single light in her room turned on along with her personal computer station and its dozen or so monitors. It all hummed loudly as her computer mouse dangled from the precipice of her desk like a hanged man. Her office chair sat right next to the head of her bed and it was clear she just rolled over and collapsed onto her sheets at some Motherforsaken hour after a long night of gaming or whatever she was doing.Meg slept on like Mother Herself, buried under an impossible number of duvets, blankets, and comforters, piled on top of her in a cozy mountain.Her muffled snores filtered through the layered fortress all the same.I made my way over to her, maneuvering through the various likes of Meg's stuff on the floor."For Mother's sake, Meg," I said, swooping down to pick up a stray plushie that looked like a radioactive chinchilla. I threw it at her head. Or at least, where I thought her head was. "Wake up."She snored on like the log she was. I picked up a hoodie this time, bundling it up nice and tight before chucking it. More snores. I tsked."I swear you've slept through the whole damned treblenight."I continued making my way over, throwing whatever I could. Another plushie. A pair of black jeans. More than a few novelty tees. Then, when I was at the foot of her bed, one of her sneakers.It made a thunk when it made contact, and I instantly knew it was her head. I winced. The snores stopped. There was a rustle of sheets as Meg stirred. Then, the snores continued.I let out a breath. Incredible. Meg really probably could sleep through a war. There was only one more option at this point, and with begrudging hands I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.I set upon her sheets. Starting from the top, I started ripping them off one by one, tossing them on the far end of the bed. There was an instant reaction: the snores finally snorted to a stop, and the stirring only grew more violent. It wasn't until the fifth torn away layer did I realize Meg was going into her default defensive method: kicking.And by the sixth layer, she was already starting to whine."Get up and act like a grown-up member of society, will you.""...mmthuk otthh…" she said, her muffled voice a raspy croak. I could feel her hands clenched tightly to the sheets below me, but I kept going.No amount of kicking fazed me at this point. Sad as it is to say, the ordeal of bringing Meg to the world of the living was almost routine at this point, especially on holy days.Another minute or so of struggle (Meg's grip on the final few layers was always the toughest part, and her incessant squirm-kick combo was admittedly a formidable defense) I finally ripped off the final sheet, adding it to the wrinkled mountain of what was once her safe little nest.Triumphant, I crossed my arms above her, catching my breath."Sorry, I couldn't hear you under all that shit."Vulnerable to the cold of her room she instantly curled up into a fetal position, tucking her knees against her chin. She was in her nightgown as usual, its thin straps drooping over her shoulders, her bobcut a frizzy mess against her pillow.Meg groaned. She turned towards me and (well, tried to, considering the fact that one of her eyes was still sealed shut, and the other looking at me was barely a quarter of a squint) glared."Fuck off." she said in that pathetic croak.A lock of black hair stumbled in front of her eye, and something in the way Meg succumbed to it without even bothering to wipe it away made me snort.Her rolling chair was right by my leg and I took the liberty to take a seat. I was still catching my breath from the whole Meg-unwrapping."You really need to get up, though.""No. It's too early.""Meg, it's almost three in the afternoon.""Mmngh...my head hurts.""Are you hungover?"There was a pause."No.""I swear if I see empty bottles under your bed-""Taft, I'm a motherfucking princess; I can do whatever I want!""So you are hungover.""No." Meg buried her face deeper into her knees. "Just leave me alone."After dealing with her bullshit for all this time, she didn't deserve another shake of the head or another despondent sigh. But she got them, none the same. I leaned back into the chair, letting myself decompress."When was the last time you've even been to a service?" I said, leaning back far enough to see the ceiling. "I thought you'd at least put in more of an effort for Chaining Day.""Wow. Coming from you?"I shrugged."Hey, at least I went today."A grumble. There might have been some words but her lips were still buried against her knees.I was losing her again. I could already hear the telltale rise and fall of her breaths. Not too long and she'd just be asleep again. I already had the next phase planned out, so I sat up, and kept prattling on."Well either way you missed a great potluck."I looked over at her, casually. I earned her attention.Meg scoffed, an eye peeking through the black wiry nest of her hair."They never have potlucks on Chaining Day, I'm not stupid.""I don't know what to tell you, then, because it was one hell of a potluck. They even had salmon musubi.""Yeah, yeah," she said before breaking off into a yawn. I could tell her mind was already beginning to simmer. Neither of her eyes were closed. "Whatever."I kept going, watching as she started to incrementally squirm."Clementian crab legs, heaps of honeysuckled wings, an entire segment of tender Gargantua oxtail, gumbo so thick it ran off my spoon like molasses, reams of Titanian whale-road kelp, don't even get me started on desser-""Alright, alright, for Mother's sake I'm up!"With that, Meg exploded. In a flurry of her nightgown she jolted upright, before all at once she lay back down and started to roll and roll and roll back and forth on her bed, groaning like a wounded bugbear all the while as bones cracked into place.Then, there was a squeak of bedsprings as she did her inevitable mountainpeak stretch of getting up onto her feet on top of her bed and reaching for the ceiling with a robust yawn, finishing off the mighty display by putting her hands on her hips and letting out one last elongated groan that sounded like death itself.She'd done this for as long as I can remember, some sort of conqueror's morning ritual. After a minute of that, she finally, finally, finally jumped onto the floor.And that, ladies and gentlemen, is getting Meg out of the bed.I settled into my chair even further, slumping into its cushions deep now.Because of course, this was only the beginning; what came next was Meg getting ready."Potluck or not, it's your fault anyway for not waking me up." she said as she began to sift through the various piles of her garments on the floor, looking for something."Dude I was literally rocking you back and forth this morning and yelling for you to get up."She gave a dismissive wave."It was probably too early. Least you could have done was page me.""I did. Five times.""Only five?!"I rolled my eyes into the back of my skull and then back again. Meg found what she was looking for in a mound that consisted solely of pastel skirts. With a flourish, she raised it high and clicked a button-it was the remote for her sound system. Not a moment later and the room was filled with music. As expected, it was a little too loud for my taste, but there was no arguing with Meg about how she liked it, so I just rolled myself away from the gargantuan speakers situated on either side of her bed, rolling myself right in front of one of her windows.The perpetual sunrise was still going, but the cloud cover was thickening. I could hear the ruffle of Meg's nightgown as she slipped out of it, and I kept my back towards her. I knew she had a habit of forgetting what she was doing and just wandering around in various states of undress. Best look away until she said she was finished.It wasn't long until I was vibing out, just losing myself to the music. Loud or not, at least Meg had good taste.I watched as stringy wisps of cirri clumped and stretched to form columns of cumuli, the white of their foundations doused in the sun's soft pink. Meg was still wandering around behind me, her bare feet a light patter against the hardwood floor. I was more than tempted to bust out a stick of bacca, but eventually the wail of sax, the groove of walking basslines, and the icy hiss of the kick-snares was enough to kick down the urge.About forty five minutes passed.And no, Meg wasn't done yet.She had just gotten out of the shower. I could hear her behind me, probably still wrapped up in her towel. Intermittently I heard the sift of her teeth being brushed, the alternating peaks of bristle against molar.But as she sat there with a toothbrush hanging between her lips, what I mostly heard was the sound of her thumbs and her fingers, tapping away at her Gamerboy."Put that shit away and just finish, already."A pissed-off gurgle. I sighed and settled in further. She would take at least another hour.Click click, tap, tap. Tick tock.Tick tock.I changed the tape in her cassette deck three times by now, this last one a familiar bundle of bops that I used to play a lot. I started to relax a bit more, becoming a chilled-out but very conscious vegetable on Meg's criminally-comfortable cushioned office chair. "My mind began to wander."...is what I initially would have put right about now, right about here. But even this early on in the story, I feel as if I've used that term a bit too often."Wander".It's a shame because that's honestly what my mind would do, what it still does, most of the time. Maybe I should try another word. "Reflect", perhaps.Nah."Reflect" doesn't even come close to "Wander" as a word to describe how my mind finds itself lost within its own casing.How my mind just, saunters along like a lemming, back down familiar paths and avenues and forgotten backtrails.The song that was playing now was one of those forgotten backtrails. My eyes were glazed over by now as the accumulating pillars of cloud cover started to stretch out like a celestial forest of pink. I followed the backtrail deep, deep into that forest, encouraged by the familiar croon of a singer, the sinuous chords of the keys compounding in double time, syncopation of kick snares like arrhythmia.I was in Cayenne's room, seated on the side of her bed as the end of a treblenight yawned into a pink that engulfed the sky. I watched as plumes of cumuli formed into a celestial forest, the forehead of the sun beckoning for more columns of white trees.Cayenne was humming one of our favorite songs. I could almost hear the keys, the kick snares as her voice tittered. She was changing behind a folding screen. This was gonna take a while; the folding screen was already on the verge of collapse from all the dresses Cayenne tossed over it, and I knew she'd try on at least a dozen more before she'd be ready for us to head out.About forty five minutes had passed since I'd sat down here, waiting for Cayenne to finally declare she was ready to go out. It'll probably be at least another forty five more.Light caught on something next to me. A snowglobe. I reached over and pick it up, palming it, rubbing my thumb over its familiar contours.It wasn't anything special, especially when compared to all the other trinkets littered about inside glass cases and shelves that flanked every corner of Cayenne's massive bedchambers; countless porcelain figurines, the finest of tea sets, ornate jewelry boxes laden with gems, hell, musical snowglobe sets with bases of platinum and rose gold, all of them neatly displayed in neat little rows in their neat shelves just like Cayenne liked them.But yet, out of all of her fortune's worth of trinkets, it was this crummy old novelty licensed snowglobe, some cheap souvenir from a Freyjaville gift shop was the trinket that Cayenne placed right on her nightstand, right next to her head when she sleeps.It was my first gift to her. The first real time I expressed the fact that I saw her as more than just a responsibility, a job. And in that exchange it was the first time she expressed that I was more to her than just a knight.Without even thinking I was already turning the winding key on the bottom. Hints of its melody started leaking out with every clockwise twist. It caught the attention of Cayenne; she'd stopped humming. Tighter and tighter, I turned it, until I finally wound it as far as it could go. With that, I gave the globe an obligatory shake, and set it back down on her dresser.The notes came out in their slow melancholic drip, an ancient lullaby that just sounded more sad than anything, especially through the cold filter of a music box. I pressed my cheek against the dresser, peering deep into the snowglobe, watching as the white flakes swirled and swirled around the castle, brushing against the scales of the big red dragon that kept the castle warm in its peaceful and slumbering embrace.I heard Cayenne begin to hum along, and I closed my eyes, letting the melody embrace me.I didn't even hear her footfalls. Or at least, I don't remember them.But slowly and surely Cayenne drew closer to me. Her hum bobbed closer and closer like a warm specter, its homely silksong quickly overtaking the saccharine trill of the music box. In due time I felt the weight of the bed shift as she sat beside me, felt the warm shadows of her palms press against my back. Slowly she smoothed up, up, up, her fingers curving over the crest of my shoulder. I felt her hum, felt the melody, its heat against the back of my neck, like spiritfire sparking hot against my skin.A hard spank on my ass ripped me out from the woods, and I was back in Meg's room."Alright, I'm done." she said behind me, suddenly in a rush. "Let's go!"I was still holding the snowglobe. I blinked.I didn't know that Cayenne had left it behind.Meg was at my shoulder again, all dressed up in a puffy oversized parka, a flannel thrown over a novelty tee, ripped jeans stretching down to yet another pair of her sneakers that looked at least two sizes too big."Taft, I said I'm done, let's just-"Her eyes went wide the instant she saw what I had in my hand. Her face looked like it paled at least a few shades. She immediately snatched it, beholding it before looking up at me with yet another face I'd never seen from her, something akin to...embarrassment?Not a moment longer and she tore her gaze away, quickly replacing the snowglobe on the dresser next to her bed."Hey, where did y-""It's always been there." Meg said a little too fast, answering before I even had the chance to ask. She was already brushing past me towards the door, and I didn't get a chance to look at her face again until she turned around and gave me a smile, as if nothing had just happened. "Anyway, let's go. I'm starving."I looked back at the snowglobe one last time. My mouth fell open with more questions already on my tongue but I bit them back. I'd just ask her later."Alright, alright." I said, striding over to put on my topcoat. "But it's gonna be hell trying to find a restaurant at this hour on a damned Chaining Day. We might as well just hit up Ronaldo's.""Ugh, please not fast food again. It's Chaining Day, Taft! You know for a fact we can't very well just eat cheap food on a holiday!"After slipping my arms into my coat, I gave an exaggerated shrug."Hey, it's not my fault we had to leave this late in the day. I did page you five times…"Meg didn't answer immediately, and I felt her eyes appraise me. Not a second later and a smile broke out onto the worry of her face. She punched me on the shoulder, making me break character way faster than I should have."You asshole, you already have reservations."I smiled as an answer."And I bet it's still a while away because I like eating at night better, you considerate fucking bastard." she punched me again, a little too hard. I staggered back a bit and frowned, but Meg wasn't having it. She immediately crashed into my side, grabbing my arm and hugging it, rubbing her face against my shoulder like a cat. "Oh Tafty-poo, what would I do without you! My hero, my literal knight in shining armor, oh~"She was too much."Alright, alright, Meg chill out." I said, trying to shrug her off as she hummed contentedly against my arm. Of course, it just made her embrace tighter. "Gotta get you off my arm before your sentinels burn a hole through my head with their green laser eyes because I laid my hands on you.""They don't have laser eyes, Taft."The doors of her room started to open on their own the moment we stepped close and a sudden panic instantly made me jolt. I already saw the beaks of the sentinels peeking from the corners of the doorframe."Okay seriously Meg, let go of my arm.""Shit, right."She peeled off only a moment before the doors opened. "Another of your house red, please!" Meg said, only a moment after downing her fourth glass. She handed the empty glass to the waiter."Of course, ma'am."He shuffled away to the bar as I inwardly thanked Mother that all of this was charged to the family tab.As expected, Wiglaf's was packed. Chaining Day meant everyone was off, everyone's families and significant others finding it as an excuse to eat out at a nicer place than usual. There was a din in the dining room, conversation and laughter carried along by the four-piece onstage in the corner. Meg and I sat against one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, watching ferries cross the Sound as distant shore-light flickered and stretched across indigo ridges of waves.We'd been eating dinner for about an hour at this point. Appreciating the food and the view in bouts of silence, interspersed with conversation that oscillated between chill and heated. Halfway through dinner Meg had asked for the house red, curious to see if "it's shit like every other house red". I guess it wasn't."You're getting a little carried away, don't you think?" I said, raising a brow as Meg watched me finish my filet mignon.Meg gave me a coy smile, placing her face in her hands.As always, her elbows were on the table."Don't you worry your pretty little head about it, I'm not drunk.""Yet," I said before returning my attention to the last few bites of food on my plate.Meg rolled her eyes."Anyway…" her eyes wandered off towards the window looking out at the Sound. She squinted. "...shit, what was I saying? Totally blanked.""Cliroes.""Oh, right. But yeah, the church is just full of bullshit." The waiter returned right as she said it, and Meg followed the statement up with a "Thank you so much!" before taking a long draught of wine.I winced, and instinct prompted a quick look around to see if anyone overheard"You probably shouldn't say that kind of stuff out loud."Meg fluttered her eyelashes as she kept drinking. One more large gulp and a satisfied smack of her lips later, she put on her smuggest grin."Don't tell me you forgot who I am again."Insufferable!I kicked back the urge to roll my eyes for probably the tenth time that evening."More of a reason for you not to draw attention to yourself. You're lucky your sister still gets the spotlight she does and you can just waltz around like nobody's business."Meg just took another sip from her wine."Come on, Taft," she licked her lips as she swirled the red in her glass. "Nobody heard me anyway. So, to reiterate my point, the church is full of bullshit."I kept eating. Meg had finished within minutes of the plate being set down in front of her, leaving her almost-empty glass of wine as the only thing between me and her tipsy ramblings. So she went on."Think about it, man. All of that talk of love and spreading the Allmother's love or whatever, but not once has the church taken an official stance on the War."I set down my silverware."And why should they?""Because shouldn't the church, the supposed intermediary between us and the Allmother's 'grace'," Meg took a moment to accentuate this with air quotes. I crossed my arms. "speak out at least a teensy bit about a conflict that's taken billions of lives?""We're protecting ourselves. Every day we don't fight is another day the Andreans can gain more footholds in clash-space. If we don't push back the Andreans all the way back to Drewdia, then we'll always live with the risk of their entire fleet barreling down the Strait and endangering all of us. Clemente, Erzenheim, the Phife, all of us."She'd struck a nerve. That smug grin on Meg's lips told me she knew, and she'd keep pressing it."That's a fine excuse and all, but what about Erzenheim?""What about it?""I bet we're showing everyone on Erzenheim the Allmother's love, right? All of those prisoners of war, convicts, defectors who couldn't get past border patrol. All their kids. I bet they feel real warm up there toiling away every day to supply the war effort.""The church has institutions there, Meg. You should know, you've visited them." The morsels of steak on my plate were the last things on my mind at this point, and Meg finished off her wine to give me a chance to talk. Or, in my mind, to set the record straight. Her grin only made it all worse. "The church feeds Erzenheim, clothes them, tea-""Brainwashes them? Feed them a spiritual sedative to prevent uprising? They're slaves, Taft. Plain and simple. And all of us down here just feel better about it by labeling them as 'Andreans' or 'criminals'.""They're all given a choice." I said. For a moment I remembered mandatory service. My first time taking a biprop into clash-space. It hadn't taken long before my squadron came across a scouting party. We had taken the first shots, and I remembered squeezing down on the control stick's trigger, feeling the violent rumble of the autocannons spinning around my cockpit, watching as the tracer rounds flew bright red through the ink-black of space like blood-streaks. I remember watching them sink into the side of an Andrean escort gunship, watched as it blossomed into flames. I remembered taking my first lives. "Either they come to Erzenheim, or they die.""Nobody's going to choose to die with a gun pointed at their head, Taft."I took a deep breath.I appraised Meg across from me. Aside from the fact that I knew Meg was trying to get under my skin initially, I also knew she was being genuine. The smugness was gone, and she let the silence hang for a moment longer. As much as she enjoyed arguing, she would rarely start something if she didn't believe in what she was saying."So what are you saying?"She shrugged, as if all of her borderline-blasphemous takes were something as casual as preferring apples over pears."I just don't believe that going to any church service or talking to cliroes can get me that much closer to the Allmother. They're still people too, Taft. People with power, with agendas, with money, with the constant demand of being favorable to the royal family, to the barons, to the High Table."They skirt around issues that directly contradict with Scripture that the church supposedly holds in such high regard as objective truth. And don't even get me started on the mistranslations and misinterpretations of sacred text; there's a whole lot of bullshit we get away with 'cuz some bishop retranslating the Tosodan was pressured by some king or bishop to change a few key words here and there."Meg took a breath, reaching out for another sip of wine before realizing the glass was empty. She paused to peer into it, as if finding her answers in the pebble-sized puddle of red on the bottom."Not using any of this as an excuse for not going to services and whatever, of course. I just think most of what happens with the church, all of those sweet, feel-good sermons from those priests...they're just all phony. They give the people something nice to feel once every week or once every few months, make everyone feel self-righteous when there are millions of people literally right above our heads suffering."If I want a connection to Allmother I'll find it myself. She'll find me."She looked up at me again. Her turn to take a deep breath. Then, she gave me a smile, cheek leaning into her hand. Her shoulders rolled in a conclusive shrug."But what do I know? I'm just some second-rate princess."My own posture softened, and I gave her the obligatory shake of my head. We both took a moment. I sat back into my chair, gazing at my plate. Looking up at Meg again and she was still lazily looking at me, knowing I needed a moment to just process. I held her look for a few more seconds before I returned the smile."The only thing you're second-rate about is keeping your mouth shut."I felt my attention drawn back to my plate, a silence following for the next couple of minutes. Meg's attention returned to the outside. I knew she'd like this spot.We wouldn't leave for another half hour. After our waiter took care of all the plates on our table, Meg and I decided to have their featured dessert of huckleberry genoise cake stuffed with almond chantilly cream (technically, Meg decided to have two). And to neither me nor our waiter's surprise, Meg ordered another glass of house red.Never one to underperform, Meg also ordered a straight shot of rye and a frost-cup of mead to top everything off.We tipped, and we left, and I watched with a quiet amusement as Meg tried her best to walk straight. Her lips curled into a permanent smirk as flush pinked her cheeks. She turned towards me as we waited for the valet outside, blinking in slow blinks. Despite the brisk bite of the night air, she looked just fine without her parka."So you're driving us home, right?" I said.I got another blink and a snort. Meg lowered her head towards the ground in a soft grunt before falling forward a bit, leaning against me with her forehead smushed against my arm."No.""You sure? It's a great night for a drive up the 97.""Nope."I let her off the hook. A pause, and I felt that tug to tilt my head towards where Clemente would be. I wondered what Cayenne was-"Hey Taft?""Yeah?""Sorry if I killed the vibe back there. Didn't mean to get so heated on a Chaining Day dinner. I know you must've booked that table in advance at least two months ago." Meg took a deep breath, and I felt it echo into my arm. "I really appreciate you doing that for me.""Don't be sappy, I just liked the view."Meg giggled. Her arm came around and hit my back in slow motion."Mr. Tough Guy Taft, over here. So big and tough and not at all a hopeless romantic always having staring contests with the sky.""Yeah." I brought my head down, took a breath. "Neck starts to hurt after a while.""Bet you start fantasizing about her choking you too, huh? I know you were into that kinda stuff.""Alright, shut the fuck up."She giggled again.Once the valet finally came around with the Dodson I let Meg get in first, just in case. She got in fine; apparently she wasn't that drunk.The drive back was quiet. Meg had popped in one of her mixtapes, but kept the volume low. She didn't start any conversation.I kept looking over at her as we drove, her body leant up against the door, her head against the window's glass. This wasn't how she usually acted when she was drunk. As evident back at Wiglaf's, Meg was a lot louder and sociable once she got liquor in her. She'd usually be blasting her "drunk bangers" mixtape (yes, she made one of those) and belting out in song (usually screaming the lyrics and then yelling along gibberish resembling verses she rarely ever knew in their entirety).Something must have been on her mind.We drove on. I decided to take a more scenic route; no need to rush home on the autobahn tonight. The tape in the deck eventually rolled to a quiet stop. Neither of us bothered to change it. Looking over at Meg, I could tell she was close to being asleep. That telltale rise and fall of her shoulders was all I needed to see.We drove on. Passing the Sound completely, weaving into the dark embrace of forest and suburb. Aside from the occasional car, most likely going to or coming back from a restaurant (the only things really open on holidays), the roads were desolate. It felt like it was only Meg, me, and the Dodson, all of the Phife to ourselves. Meg suddenly stirred, and moved much quicker than I'd expected from someone who I thought was so close to being knocked out. Not a moment later and she had suddenly relocated against me, pulling her parka over herself as a makeshift blanket. She mumbled something, and her eyes looked like they were glued shut. The smirk was still there.She would stir a few more times, trying to get the optimal angle to lean on me. I noticed her hair smelled a little different than usual, and I wondered if she switched shampoos. Then I wondered how I even noticed. I felt her breaths through the warm cheek against my arm. I wondered what she was thinking about, because it was apparent she wasn't asleep.Then, she started humming, each hum spreading throughout my body in a gentle thrum. Each note came out slow, but I knew exactly what Meg was humming by the third note: the song from the snowglobe.We drove on. I let her hum the song on repeat until we got back home. I glanced up and all I could see was cloud cover.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Episode 3:
tzinquaw.
ᛏᛉᛁᚾᛩᚢᚨᚹ.
Silence hung in the air for a minute or so after the final words of Queen Prika's speech. There was nothing but the sound of the cameras whirring, the hum of the teleprompter, the soft buzz of electricity running through rubber cords weaving over and under each other across the throne room floor.Queen Prika kept smiling her genial smile as she remained seated on her throne, evergreen Roquai standards unfurled and flanking her on both sides. A tall woman next to her kept standing rimrod straight, as if at attention, the line of her lips close to a scowl.There was a singular click from what I assumed to be the lead cameras before the filming crew all let go of a collective breath. In the blink of an eye the throne room burst into a bustle of activity, the wardrobe folks immediately rushing to the throne to help Queen Prika out of her elaborate ceremonial garb, lighting crew packing up all of their equipment, makeup people tending to Queen Prika's face.I stood against the wall on the far side of the throne room, watching all the activity as everyone hurried to clean everything up and get Queen Prika back to her regular duties.Meg was standing next to me, unusually quiet. I smirked at the look on her face; she had it on all day. She was starstruck.The object of her affections was the tall woman who stood next to Meg's mother, helping her along during the address concerning the ferocity of the Andrean excursions in the Roquai Strait; apparently they now occupied every planet and moon near the mouth of the Strait, pressuring our fleet deeper into the main passage between our territories and the Andreans. It was the first real territorial gain either side of this glorified tug-of-war has made in the past few years, and the public was getting skittish.Meg and I both watched as the woman dropped to a knee in front of Queen Prika, extending her arm out, hand in a fist, a golden signet ring primed in the center of her knuckle. In response, Queen Prika bent down on a knee as well, took the fist in two hands, and in a regal bow of her head, gave the ring a kiss.It was standard ritual between the Queen and one from her Fellowship; she was the Ring-giver, and only the greatest of Ring-givers are humble enough to kiss the rings of their Fellowship without a scrap of suspicion.Anyone chosen by the Queen was accepted into the fold of the High Fellowship, regardless of status or rank, and not all of them are publicized- despite having an almost equivalent amount of legislative and executive power as the Queen, none of the High Table were in the High Fellowship. The Fellowship was and always has been a mystery:To this day nobody ever really was certain about how many people the Queen allowed into the High Fellowship, or what they discussed during their impromptu meetings, or even how much influence they had in the Tribe, but two things were for certain:1. Every member of the High Fellowship was given an individualized ring from the Queen, their signet faces' size correlating to trustworthiness.2. Grand Admiral Ilya Lebedev, the woman currently bowing to the Queen, had the biggest ring of them all.A moment passed before Queen Prika got to her feet and sat back down onto the throne. The wardrobe and makeup people instantly flocked around her again. With that, Grand Admiral Ilya got to her feet. She made her way off the steps to the throne, readjusting the cap on her head. I could hear Meg gulp."Holy shit, sh-she's coming."It was her first time seeing Grand Admiral Ilya in the flesh this close. I know Meg had seen her at the annual parade and one other time at a ceremonial flagship launching the previous year, and I also know that Meg is a huge fan of the Grand Admiral and her exploits.When Meg wasn't buried in her comics or transfixed with her super robot cartoons, she was poring over the Roquai Tribe's rife military history. Just like with everything else, she'd enthusiastically share this obsession of hers with me. Her favorite battles, favorite maneuvers, and favorite tactics, favorite admirals, favorite generals, and favorite commanders.At the top of that list was the woman who approached us. A woman who, despite now being the highest rank in our navy, was my ex-squadron leader.And also, a friend.Of course, ever since Meg became my charge, she's constantly begged and attempted to coerce me to somehow grant her an audience with her idol. as with most of her obsessions, it did get a bit obnoxious, especially when she'd constantly barrage me with random questions about her (Has she always kept her hair in a ponytail? What did she sound like through the comlink giving orders? Does she like pineapple on her pizza?). Throughout it all, I always reassured Meg that someday, the war would bring her down here to the Phife again; and after a couple years of being on the front, here she was.Grand Admiral Lebedev cut quite the imposing figure as she strode toward us. Her eyes, a brisk hazel, were wide, alert, and piercing even behind the glint of her large and round wireframe glasses. Her hair, red as life-blood, was bound in a ponytail that I've never seen undone. The cape of her naval uniform billowed behind her, gold interlace running along the perimeter of its fabric, framing the scarlet of the inner cloth and the dark evergreen of its outer contours. She was tall, long legs sprouting down into shiny black boots that clacked with each of her strides, her equally-long arms clasped behind her back in a regal and impersonal posture. The rest of her uniform was muted, a dark evergreen to match her cape, its color palette occasionally interrupted only by the rank insignia pinned above her heart, and the various golden buttons and clasps that held the whole uniform together.But despite her authoritative aura, every person she passed veered away. Not out of respect or fear, but something else; gazes cast towards the ground, fleeting glances with postures turned away, as if there was something inherently wrong with looking at her.Despite the ribbons on her chest, the large ring the Queen herself had just kissed, it was apparent what most everyone in the room couldn't look past: the red hair, the distinctive features, her foreign name. Her Andrean heritage. She kept walking.Finally, there was one last clack of her boot's heel, and she stood before us, eyes silently appraising me from head to toe, before doing the same to Meg. I had the instinctual urge to stand at attention.I gave her a smile. Despite being the same height as me, it always felt like I was craning up to look at her. I could only imagine how Meg felt, seeing how she was almost two heads shorter."Afternoon, Ilya," I said, stretching out a hand. My gloved one. "Long time no see."I could feel Meg's flabbergasted face boring a hole into my neck; I never told her that Ilya and I were on a first-name basis.Ilya turned her gaze towards me again. I felt that familiar chill run down my back, felt those eyes penetrate through every sinew of my being. Again, she appraised me, eyes flicking down to my hand. Then, with a tilt of her chin downwards, Ilya peered over the rim of her glasses. Something resembling a smile twisted on the line of her lips, and something resembling familial warmth sparked for but a moment in the frigid glare of her eyes."Taft." she took my hand and gripped it very firmly before immediately letting go. The cordial pseudo-smile faded. "It's been a while.""It really has. Clash-space treating you good?"Ilya snorted."It would treat me better if I could move the fleet how I wanted to.""The High Table still being as tough as ever, eh?"Ilya half-nodded, half-shook her head. Her eyes were glazed over and distant for a few breaths. Then, she turned her attention to Meg again. I could see her jolt upright in the corner of my eye, hear the subtle nervous gulp."So this is her? The little princess?"Meg opened her mouth to say something but nothing came out. Her own eyes quivered in a hilarious mixture of awe, excitement, and primal fear. I spoke for her."Princess Nutmeg, the one and only."Ilya didn't say anything for another moment, her hands still clasped around her back. I knew Meg wouldn't dare have the courage to offer a handshake, so their eyes remained locked, words dammed up."You two an item?" Ilya said, not a single hint of irony in her voice. Meg let out an offended croak as Ilya's attention coolly drifted back to me. "Like your last charge?"I looked back at her as if she'd turned into a wyvern before casting a look at Meg, her own face mirroring my own disgust. I burst out laughing first before Meg hesitantly joined in. Ilya kept staring at me, stone-faced. She waited until our laughter petered out before speaking again."No, then. " she said, and I caught a teasing glint in her eye. "I'm glad you've at least gained some semblance of restraint."I knew it was her form of a joke, and I smiled. Meg stayed silent.I looked over at her, and she looked back at me, sheepish."Well don't be rude, Meg, introduce yourself."She went four shades paler. Her eyes quivered back to Ilya, who was looking at her again. I could almost see Meg's goosebumps from where I stood."H-Hi." she said. Then gulped.Ilya kept looking at her, not a single change of emotion in her face. She gave a curt bow of her head."Your majesty."Meg turned a beet red, quick to shake her hands in a panic."N-N-No need for the f-formalities, Grand Admiral. It's okay to, um. It's fine to call me by my name."I had to hold myself back from the laugh swelling in my chest. Stone-faced as she was, I knew for damned sure that Ilya was having a field day with this. She didn't say anything as Meg kept stumbling over herself, until that inevitable awkward silence hung thick between them with Ilya's icy glare."...and your name was?"I brought my hand up to my face as I covered up my hiccup of laughter with a loud cough. Poor Meg. Ilya was really milking this for all it was worth."O-Of course, right I'm uh, I'm Princess Me- I mean, P-Princess Nutmeg Muskatnuss Snoqualmie." Meg managed, each word bookended with a nervous fidget or a forced clearing of her throat. "It really is an honor to m-meet you, Grand Admiral Lebedev, ma'am."To top it all off, Meg collapsed her knees in a sorry attempt at a curtsy.Tears literally formed in my eyes, and I'm pretty sure at this point my face was as red as Meg's.There was another moment, another appraisal from Ilya, then, even to my surprise, Ilya gave Meg a very rare, very genuine smile."It's nice to meet you, Nutmeg. Taft tells me you're a...fan?" Ilya said with a tone of trepidation; her brow raised and her head turned just slightly, as if the word "fan" was something she'd never heard before.I didn't even need to look at Meg to know that she was probably sweating buckets. And in my state of constipated laughter, I couldn't really afford to look at her either unless I wanted to look like a complete loon in the throne room."Y-Yeah I guess you could say that."Ilya turned to me now, and just like that the smile was gone. She had that stern furrow of her brow I used to get back during my service days, when she was about to dish out some sort of reprimand...or worse, punishment. The laughs that had built up in the back of my throat immediately disappeared, and I cleared my throat a bit to compose myself. Satisfied with the fact that I wasn't on the verge of hysterics anymore, Ilya's face reverted back to its neutral, stony default."How would you like to hop onto the Tzinquaw for the day? Squadron misses you, and I'm sure your Nutmeg here would love a tour."I could hear Meg gasp, almost hear those eyes of hers widen.I grinned."I thought you'd never ask.""Good. Now," Ilya said, turning one last time to Meg. She gave another reverent bow of her head, earning the same flustered response as she did earlier. "If you'll excuse me, your majesty, I must take care of some matters back aboard the Tzinquaw." she straightened before giving me one last look. "Report to the front of the palace in three hours. I'll arrange to have you picked up for the shuttle.""Yes, ma'am." I said, out of instinct more than anything. She totally expected it, and I earned a smile.With that, she brushed past us, the clack of her boots echoing out of the throne room as her personal guards flanked her the moment she reached the exit. A swish of her cape, and Ilya was gone.The throne room was still bustling, still in full clean-up mode. Queen Prika had already gone to her personal chambers, probably slipping into something more comfortable than the ceremonial dress she'd been forced to sit in for the past couple hours.Meg was still uncharacteristically wordless. Her mouth was a little agape, a thin veneer of a glaze over her eyes. She was still looking at the exit.Finally, she looked up at me, face still looking more than a little starstruck."I think I'm in love." she said, voice barely above a whisper."Yeah, well. She's also way out of your league."Meg turned towards the main exit again. The doors had long shut by now. She sighed. A wistful smile spread on her lips."Yeah." Queen Prika's chambers were huge. Its size very nearly rivaled the throne room, matched only by its opulence; ornate woodwork and tapestries curled and sprawled proudly across every wall and shelf, a slowly rotating and glowing glass model of the Phife flanked by its two moons hung from the center of the room's ceiling like a quasi-chandelier.I was right under it, letting myself get lost in the shimmer of its ancient and intricate glasswork. Queen Prika herself was situated in the study area of her Chambers, poring over a small mountain of paperwork, scrolls, charts, star-maps, and everything in between.Meanwhile, Meg was draped over her mother's shoulders like a spider monkey, prattling on directly into Queen Prika's ear without a care in the world.Queen Prika's eyes ceaselessly kept reading despite the incessant distraction of Meg's long diatribes, and even amongst her signing and signet ring-stamping, she found time not only to laugh at her daughter's ridiculousness, but also respond with earnest answers.It was like this every time Queen Prika came home from dealing with internal affairs (or, as Meg and I like to call them, "bureaucratic circlejerking") with the High Table on Clemente, and no matter how many times I've witnessed it, it's always impressive.Queen Prika made it all seem so effortless. Even I find myself struggling to keep up with Meg's exuberant, mile-a-minute bullshit on the daily without the heaps of paperwork and daily responsibilities to be expected from a full-fledged Queen of the Roquai Territories.But then again, that's probably why the Snoqualmies have held onto the throne for this long; they were almost inhumanly consistent and headstrong.Two traits that were passed down to Meg tenfold, and it didn't take long before her prattling became playfully confrontational. I took a seat on the Queen's bed, settling into it as I fiddled around with my lighter.It was always more than a little entertaining to hear Meg and her mother bicker, especially since Queen Prika was seemingly incapable of losing her cool nor her seemingly-endless supply of warm and proper congeniality. It drove Meg up the wall, and she'd always end up conceding in a defeated pout.I suddenly coughed, the smoke I just had a few minutes ago rearing its head again."Still smoking bacca sticks on palace grounds, Taft?" Queen Prika said. I gave her a bashful grin. Meg rolled her eyes."I've been telling him to quit, but you know how he is.""Hey, it's legal now in this county…" I said. A flimsy defense, I knew, but it was better than lying.Queen Prika shook her head."A controlled substance is a controlled substance, Taft. And yes, I am aware of the knights and personnel who partake." she paused, and her tone became more chiding. Still gentle, playful, but with a hint of motherly scolding. "But be mindful that you're no lowly knight, oh, Thane of Phife. Secret as your identity may be, you are to set a precedent to those around you, even if your role in the public eye is still years away."I looked down at my feet."Sorry, your majesty."Peering up again momentarily, she gave me a playful smile.The subject dropped in the next moment as Meg steam-rolled on with her current rant."Anyway, I just don't see how it makes sense, is all. It's the current year and it's like we've never learned our lesson. All the High Table does is bicker and slow shit dow-""Language, Meg. We can't have you developing a habit that'll slip out when you're making an address somewhere down the line.""Yeah, yeah, fine, slow stuff down. Just look at what's happening to the Strait! All of those territories we'd liberated and occupied since Operation Dark Horse, all of them gone because of red tape holding back the fleet."I mean come on, you've seen Grand Admiral Lebedev's proposed maneuvers. Just a few months ago and we could have easily cut their supply lines a few quadrants east of Yekaterstok, pushed up from the westward flank through that hole and corner them on Fliktograd; nowhere to run except wild-space. Easy killbox!"Queen Prika shook her head as she pressed her signet ring onto a very large envelope, sealing it in hot red wax before reaching over to slice open a parchment."Meg, you and I know it isn't that simple." she said, eyes still restlessly taking in words on parchment over the thin golden rim of her glasses. "You haven't taken into consideration the populations of those planets, the millions of people who make a living in clash-space near the Strait. The High Table and I unanimously agreed to make a strategic retreat for the sake of those lives. The new Andrean Tsar is aggressive, reckless. I can only imagine how much needless life-blood would be shed if we let Lebedev loose to tear into his newly-formed fleet in a full-fledged battle."She shook her head, and Meg peeled herself off of her mother. She was getting agitated. I wished I had some popcorn."See, this is exactly what I'm talking about! Why give up a landmark victory just for the sake of some Andrean farmers out there? It's not like the people in those territories particularly like us either."More ruffling of parchment, scratches of yet another signature. A moment passed without a word. Then, the scratches stopped. Another silent moment before there was the sound of a quill pen being sheathed. Queen Prika looked up from her work, taking the wireframe glasses off from her nose to let it dangle around her neck off its chain.She looked up at Meg, eyes warm as ever, silently conceding Meg her full attention."Lives are lives, Meg. It matters not the Grand Admiral's tactical acumen, the numerous evacuation plans she drafted up to avoid minimal casualties, nor the various secondary propositions from other admirals I've been sifting through for the past hour. Any risk at all to innocent lives that we can avoid is risk too much."Meg crossed her arms."And I'm sure the barons up there on Clemente have zero ulterior motives. Tripping over each other whenever the first sign of conflict happens, taking hours, sometimes even days to get over their egos and bickering before finally greenlighting any action from our fleet.""I didn't say that. You know as well as I do that I would handle things differently. But it's not my place.""Mom, you're literally the fucking queen!"For the first time that day, Queen Prika's face soured, her brow furrowing, stern."Meg, what did I say abou-""You've gotta seriously step up, mom. If you let the High Table keep pushing you around like this, it won't be long until you're just a figurehead. Then what good will that crown of yours do you?"Silence. Meg's eyes immediately widened a bit from their defiance, a bit of realization that just maybe, she'd crossed a line. Queen Prika appraised her daughter, her lips a set line as the tension in the air hung thick.I gulped, waiting for someone to break it. I started coughing again, that familiar hindrance of something welling up from my lungs into my throat leading into more wet coughs, deep breaths without me being able to stop.Nobody said anything until I recovered with a clearing of my throat. My face felt hot. Queen Prika was still looking up at her daughter with a face impossible to read.Then, she smiled."You don't have to worry about that, my sweet Nutmeg. I know that you want to see change, and I know in your heart that you want the best for the Tribe. But as flawed as things are now, there will always be time for change, for improvement. Just have some faith in your old mother, will you?" she said, and I saw Meg's tense shoulders soften a bit. "Someday, this burden of this very same crown may weigh down on your head. I just hope you'll grow a bit more by then."Queen Prika rarely called Meg by her full name, and when she did, it was always only when she was being affectionate. I've never seen her actually snap at Meg, despite us always expecting it due to Meg's careless mouth. Queen Prika turned back to her desk and slipped on her glasses."Now then," she continued, her hands resuming the dry scratches of parchment and pen. "onto more important matters." she gave a knowing sideglance to Meg in the midst of writing something. "Tell me about this new boy you've been talking to."In the span of a moment Meg's tension dissipated. The most bashful smile spread on her face, faster than she could catch herself."Huh? What new boy?"For Mother's sake, Meg, you're too easy to read."Oh, just the one you've apparently been obsessing over for the past couple months. I hope he isn't another from our security staff…""Hey, Langley was a good guy!"I couldn't help but snort. Meg whipped her head towards me a millisecond after."And you shut up, Taft!"I gave her a wide smile. Queen Prika chuckled."A-Anyway, don't worry he's nobody from our staff this time.""That's good. You know how that sort of thing can get...complicated." Queen Prika gave me a sympathetic glance over the rim of her glasses. I looked down at my feet."He's a student, a third year over at the Wu.""Ooh, a Wiselem scholar. How exciting. Foreign exchange student perhaps?""No," Meg said. She took to leaning against her mother's desk, turning her back to me, but I could clearly picture what her face looked like now; that all-too-familiar wistful longing in her eyes, the sad smile. "He's from the Phife, born and raised. Studying computer science. He's hoping to decentralize the cyber-net, you know. He's already showed me the outline for his senior thesis about it.""How ambitious!""He is. But you totally wouldn't be able to tell if you met him…""It's true," I said. "The guy is quieter than Ilya, and that's saying something. Reminds me of a robot.""Taft, what did I say to you earlier?" Meg said, still facing the other way."No, no, go on, Taft." Queen Prika said, eyes now focused on a newly-unfurled scroll. "Is he a good man?"Meg groaned, but I gladly obliged."I'd say he's a decent fella. Only seen him hit the gin-mill with Meg once, and when he left he was still sober. Drove her back home."He doesn't seem to like loud places. Really knows his boundaries. Soft spoken, from the one time I met him, but his eyes are like knives."I shrugged."Like I said earlier, he's quiet, withdrawn. Says only what needs to be said but it always looks like he's thinking about something. I'd say he's Meg's polar opposite." I shook my head. "You should see them walking down the street together; I swear he doesn't have anything in his wardrobe that isn't black or grey. He's so tall and lanky, I'd swear he was a wraith, some spectre of the underworld floating through our streets.""Okay well look who's talking," Meg said, finally turning towards me. She hated when other people spoke for her, especially when it came to her love life. "Mr. 'I Like Dressing Like a Midlife Crisis'. If it weren't for those Swooshes I gave you, I'd think you were a dad, stalker."She glared pointedly at me, at the sneakers she I wore everyday."I'm just doing my job as a thane to his charge, no need to shoot the messenger. Just count yourself lucky that I don't trail you whenever you and your other boyfriends would go int-""Alright, you two." Queen Prika said, breaking me out of it. I realized my eyes were already locked with Meg's, and that challenging grin on her lips was mirrored on mine. Queen Prika shook her head. "It's a shame you two aren't just dating each other."The statement instantly broke the eye-lock, and I scoffed. Meg did something akin to a raspberry. I looked down at my feet again.And just like that the mounting argument, was nipped.Queen Prika gave another soft chuckle."Kidding, children."She kept working through her paperwork. I kept looking at my feet. The shuttle was cramped. It was a standard commercial craft, the ones spacelines used for short, in-system domestic flights. Meg and I sat next to each other in the circular row of seats as we left atmosphere. She was glued to the entertainment system that swung out from our headrests, headphones making her look like a star-pilot.I was munching on some peanuts as I looked down through the circular viewport several passenger rows below my feet, watching as the Phife's wool-white grew ever-distant.People were staring. I could see the flight attendants on our passenger deck failing miserably at trying to be covert with their whispering. The passengers didn't fare much better. Pointing, gawking, some daring to even crane their heads out from several decks below just to have a peek. Not at me, of course, but Meg.Or rather, the person pretty much everyone on the flight thought was Cayenne.It was one of the days where Meg would impersonate her sister to appease some arbitrary public appearance quota. Instead of the usual hoodies and sneakers and sweats, Meg would slip into some trendy, chic designer high fashion outfit (apparently Cayenne would e-mail Meg favorite outfits through the cyber-net, so as to not taint her public image), and instead of just rolling out of bed without any effort, Meg would put on some makeup for once. To top it all off, Meg would put on a wig, and with that, she was the spitting image.She was excellent at this roleplay, nailing every single one of Cayenne's mannerisms. From her dainty waves, the subtle bows of her head to onlookers, the shy tinge of her demure smile.I could barely look at her.Seated on her other side was someone else who garnered looks from many of the passengers, although for completely different reasons. He was Eliot, an ensign that Ilya had sent to escort us to the Tzinquaw. He was sort of her right hand, someone who "picked up the slack", as he'd put it, a confidant who'd been stuck at her side for as long as I remembered. And he was also an auton.He was a synthetic species, a sentient (for all intents and purposes) robot from a far-flung system.He kept mostly to himself; the only words we'd exchanged at this point were greetings, some passing comments about the weather, and a joke about Meg's outspoken annoyance at the fact that she had to take off her favorite sneakers. He was quiet company, but good company all the same. His cold, mechanical gaze was more than enough to ward off any looks that lingered on Meg for too long.Eliot was an anomaly, especially in a shipful of folks from the Phife. Autons weren't common around these parts, and as far as their civil rights have come in the past century, the tension of the Machine Wars of ages past still hung around in the general zeitgeist. Even Meg was still a bit apprehensive at their introduction, and her legs slanted more towards me as she sat, munching on her fourth snack.By the time I finished my nuts, I wanted off the shuttle. The recycled air was getting stuffy. These rockets were only really meant for domestic nonstop flights, which was why we boarded it in the first place; less passengers, more discreet, and yes, a perfect opportunity for the public appearance quota for Cayenne.The flight drolled on for a couple hours more, and at this point I was more than just a little antsy. I wanted off. Then again, maybe that was just my irritation at the fact that the spaceline had a strict no-smoking policy."Ilya treating you good these days, L?" I said with a lean forward, making conversation to take my mind off my claustrophobic itch.Eliot kept sitting back in his seat, but his head turned towards me, neon eyes giving a little glint. The warm light of the cabin blinkedoff the gold accents of his paint, his metal skin a dark evergreen and maroon, matching accents to the Tribe's colors. I heard the cogs in his head turn for a moment."Same as always." he said, his baritone as synthetic as it was human-like. "Busy. The High Table seems to hinder Ilya's movements at every turn, and every compensation of tactical efficiency yields more work, more processing. You know as well as I do that the load of Grand Admiral would be too much for just Ilya alone, as gifted as she is for a fleshling."I chuckled. Self-assured as ever."Glad she's got you as support, then. I'd say the war is in good hands."His turn to chuckle, a rhythmic warble that juddered the cogs in his chest. "Tell that to her. I swear that woman treats me like a house-elf sometimes."A ding resounded throughout the flight cabin from the speakers, prompting me to sit back up in my chair. There was a fizzy crackle before the fuzzy baritone of the shuttle captain followed suit."Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. Welcome on board flight TL55, with service to Clemente. This is Captain Elias speaking." A ruffle of paper and a clearing of a throat. "Our flight time today will be a little over three hours, with a brief stop on the one and only Tzinquaw, at behest of our very own Princess Cayenne."I winced as another murmur ran excitedly through the cabin. As if we needed anymore attention."In a second I'll be opening the blast shield so you folks can have a nice view of the Tzinquaw as we dock with it momentarily. On behalf of all our crew, thank you for choosing Pike as your spaceline this evening, and we hope we'll see you again real soon."There was the clack of the captain putting away his comlink, then, a loud mechanical clank echoed throughout the entire shuttle, followed by a slow, droning hum. All eyes turned upwards as the blast shield on the nose of the rocket slowly peeled away to reveal the expanse of space. Soon there was scattered gasps as the curtain of steel slowly revealed the ink-black giving way to striking lightning-yellow, large contours of sacred cedar and flashing steel catching the bright glint of sun-light.Soon enough the aperture of viewport was completely unfurled and all of our eyes transfixed on the looming mass of the Tzinquaw. It was slung just above the crest of Clemente's atmosphere, its shining mass a floating fortress, its regal embellishments giving its contours the ferocity and grandeur of some ancient beast.Our shuttle drew closer by the minute. We skimmed past dozens of the Tzinquaw's escort ships; destroyers, cruisers, and carriers, squadrons of bi-props, gyro-bombers, and suspended Thunderbirds buzzing past like hordes of bees. By now the reflective yellow of the Tzinquaw's cedar hull completely filled the viewport. A bi-prop, alone and separated from any squadron, sidled up to our shuttle to guide us under the Tzinquaw's hull to the docking bay.Cruising this close to the flagship there was nothing else above us but sloping yellow. Below our feet, the Phife became a distant peephole of white.Eventually I felt the little jolts of its afterburners slowing our trajectory. Then, the uninterrupted expanse of yellow sacred cedar finally gave way to the open jaws of a docking bay. The bi-prop that escorted us whizzed right inside. A few more stabilizing hisses of the afterburners and we began to follow suit. Slowly the shuttle rose into the Tzinquaw's belly, foot by foot, until the blast doors boomed shut below us, and we were swallowed whole.An excited chatter spread throughout the cabin. It wasn't everyday that civilians got to see the flagship of Her Holy Navy, much less board it. A few daring passengers went so far as to bust out their cameras, clicking away with faces planted to seat side viewports.I was already on my feet the instant I felt the shake of a gangway latch onto the exit door; I just wanted off.Meg followed my lead, throwing off her headphones and getting to her feet."Your carry-on," I said in a mutter."Oh. Right."She always seemed to forget something behind when we traveled.Suddenly I felt eyes on my back. Before the exit could even open, I could feel the attention of the passengers shift back to Meg; riding off the excitement of boarding the Tzinquaw, the flight grew rowdy. More eyes and more stares, but now much more open and excited chatter, more pointing, and the amateur paparazzi started clicking away.No amount of death glares from our private could deter the ensuing wave of enthusiasm, prompting him to usher Meg and I out of our row towards the exit as briskly as possible.Thankfully, we were seated right next to it. I could already see passengers begin to strain out of their seats for Meg's attention, which she readily gave to the ones closest to us. She smiled and waved all the while as we made our exit, and I knew that if our seat wasn't so distant from everyone else, she'd be more than willing to fully lean into her charade and personally shake every hand on the shuttle, kiss every baby's forehead.She only got the opportunity to shake the hands of the flight attendants who guided us to our exit. Much to Eliot's dismay (and mine), we still had to wait until the shuttle depressurized in the artificial gravity of the docking bay, leaving us to stand there in front of the exit. Meg's own personal stage.At this point the wave of excitement had overwhelmed the entire flight. It was less of a cabin-full of passengers now than it was an adoring throng. The chatter was bubbling over, the furious clicks of cameras, and hollers all galvanized by Meg's smiling waves. She even started to blow kisses."Just keep hamming it up, why don't you." I said.Meg laughed."Calm down Taft, it's not every day they get to see a princess."Soon enough the entire cabin was brimming with a chant. I don't know who started it, which row in the rocket shuttle instigated it, but as we stood to wait for the exit, the door's otherwise loud pneumatic hissing was drowned out by the rumble of three words, cycled in chest-wracking succession. I looked around at the rows of adoring crowds.The blind adoration, the heartfelt awe in teary eyes, the fists clutched over hearts in salute. Then I gave a look at Meg in her wig, knowing full well that they were all lavishing a doppelgänger. It didn't feel quite right."Sieg Fürstin Cayenne! Sieg Fürstin Cayenne! Sieg Fürstin Cayenne!"Meg basked in it all, giving the best curtsies I've ever seen her give, bowing as if she'd just given the most rousing speech in the history of the Territory. The chants echoed louder and louder still, a dull ring in my ear as the collective salute echoed and triplicated inside the rocket shuttle's cramped walls."Sieg Fürstin Cayenne! Sieg Fürstin Cayenne! Sieg Fürstin Cayenne!"Finally, with a loud hiss and a pop, the steel door of the exit swung open to the gangway. Of course, Meg was too busy blowing more kisses and having the time of her life to really notice, and it took me firmly grabbing her arm to snap her out of it. Eliot had long since left, leaving me to usher Meg away from the adoring crowd. Apparently he wasn't a fan of the saluting either.I practically had to drag Meg as she gave her last few waves and bows, all to thunderous, eardrum-shattering applause. Eventually both of us stumbled out onto the gangway, the clapping and hollering of the shuttle following us like a bad fart. The three of us made our way down the steps in silence."Mother," Eliot said as we reached the halfway point. "You deal with this shit everyday?"Meg was already several flights below us, the little scene she'd encouraged in the shuttle already miles behind her as she looked around the docking bay with her signature childlike wonder.I sighed, reaching into my coat pocket for a stick of bacca. I lit it with a shake of my head."No." I said, taking a long drag as the echoes of the rowdy rocket shuttle kept vibrating in small tremors through the gangway. My mind flashed with all of the posturing and lengthy diatribes Meg would go on about while we were alone, with me as her captive audience. "It's usually much worse.""Hm. I'm glad I'm not a thane."I was suddenly more than a little grateful that Meg wasn't as high profile as her sister. At least I didn't have to deal with the crowds. Within minutes we were swept away by a moving walkway, deep into the bowels of the Tzinquaw. The command bridge was at least ten minutes away from us, probably thirty or more if it weren't for the walkway.Despite the outer hull of the Tzinquaw consisting mostly of sacred cedar, almost the entirety of her belly was a maze-work of reinforced Erzenheim steel; supporting buttresses intersected with mammoth steel reinforcements that stretched dizzying heights from her underside, freight lifts incessantly shifting hundreds of tonnes of cargo and materials rubbing shoulders with the vast network of conveying walkways, escalators, and suspended transport lanes.It was dizzying and overwhelming for most uninitiated, but of course, Meg spent the whole journey to the command bridge awash in her signature awe and wonder. She waved at welders swaying from harnesses as they took lunch breaks atop Thunderbirds and bi-props, gasped and squealed at the sight of cruisers and destroyers in the larger docking bays that she'd only seen in photographs and diagrams from her books.Eliot remained stonefaced and steadfast, nodding to officers who'd whizz past on adjacent walkways who'd salute him.I was preoccupied trying to keep my stick of bacca alight, taking drags and periodically shielding its lit end from wind when the walkway would speed up during particular stretches.Eventually, Eliot tapped my shoulder, gesturing over to a lone platform up ahead. It was our stop.The walkway slipped right into the platform, slowing as we gathered what luggage we had before stepping off."Mother, I wish we had one of those in the palace." Meg said, twirling around with a beaming smile. Thankfully she'd stowed away her Cayenne wig at this point. She locked a tuck of hair behind her ear, not noticing the stray strand that stuck to the corner of her mouth."Yeah, then you'd really lose that precious figure of yours."Meg's mouth dropped, as if in disbelief that I even said something so racy. I bit back a smile."Wow, Taft that's fucked!""It's just facts!"We bickered a bit longer, with Meg walking backwards to follow Eliot's lead. I saw Eliot stop in front of a door, thumbing some numbers through a keypad. Meg was too wrapped up in a slew of insults to notice, of course. She was on a major collision course with his towering metallic body, and I had a front row seat.Again, I bit back a smile as I let the whole thing play out.Meg yelped as her reckless momentum was brought to an abrupt halt by Eliot's build. I watched as she fumbled over herself, stumbling on both feet, her suitcase dropping right onto a toe. She yelped again as she reflexively brought up her foot in pain, which effectively ended her body's attempt to regain its balance."Shit," I said, rushing forward the moment the suitcase slammed onto the floor. Meg was teetering and her face was all scrunched up and I was already readying an "I told you so" about how she always overpacks. But right in that moment, I knew I just needed to catch the fucking idiot before she busted open a lip. That wouldn't be a good look for a princess visiting a grand admiral.Fortunately, her next pitiful teeter spun her right into my chest. And unfortunately, said teeter also resulted in a foot catching against my ankle. So down we went.I felt a momentary pang against the back of my head, and it was my turn to yelp. I felt my breath leave for a second as Meg's full weight crashed right on top of me. It took a moment for everything to really register, and when they did I realized I'd closed my eyes. It took a few blinks to also realize that Meg and I were on the floor. My arms had instinctively wrapped around her as she caught her breath on top of me.Then I felt her fist crash down onto my chest, earning another yelp."You could have told me that he was behind me, asshole!"I immediately conceded."I'm sorry, I didn't know you'd fuck yourself up that bad, for Mother's sake. How the hell does that even happen?"I earned two more punches, harder this time as she lifted her face off me to glare. I winced."Alright, alright," I said, moments before she raised her fist for a third strike. "I'm sorry." I paused, eyeing her fist before giving a sigh. I'd take the hit, fuck it. "I did tell you not to overpac-"The third punch was the hardest of them all, and I almost wheezed. A moment passed before Meg broke into a giggle. She was an idiot, just like me, and she knew it. I shook my head, laying there as a grin broke out onto my own lips. I took the moment to brush off that annoying hair plastered on her cheek.There was a clearing of a throat. I looked to the left, my nose met with the leather of a black boot. I turned my head skyward to see Ilya towering over us, a curious look on her face."Oh." I said. Her eyes thinned. "Hey, Ilya.""Taft." she said. Her gaze shifted over to Meg. I could feel Meg's extremities slowly petrify atop me, feel her body grow rigid. "Princess Nutmeg. I'm glad you made it aboard in...mostly one piece."A pause. I snorted, lying my head back down onto the floor. We were a bunch of loons, really.Meg was pale-white as she looked up at Ilya, and only a second later, her skin turned to scarlet."H-Ha ha, yeah we um, got a little tripped up, you see!" Meg said, sputtering the words out a little too excitedly. "G-Good thing ol' Tafty here was there to soften the fall. My trusty thane and all, ha!" She stuck out a thumbs up for good measure.Silence."Well," Ilya said, lifting her face up. "I'll wait over by the lift whenever you're...untangled."With that she strutted away, Meg's forced smile chasing her all the while until she was certain Ilya was fully turned away. Eliot was leaning against the door to the lift with his face firmly planted into his palm.Meg melted down the moment Ilya was out of earshot, her fingers digging deep into my chest as she buried her face in it and screamed.I could only laugh. Idiots, really. Idiots. We eventually got settled in. We had taken the lift up a few levels up, stopping just below the command bridge to step onto another walkway.Up here, there was less of the steel, the cold skeleton of the Tzinquaw's bosom. Instead, most of the walls and the floors were ornate and polished sacred cedar-wood harvested from Sacred Groves, holy and invaluable pockets of cedars across the Phife that were offshoots of the Life Tree itself.Ilya had excused herself to her personal chambers, leaving Meg and I to unpack and settle in in our own quarters. We were to meet her in her chambers within the next half hour. We'd already been in here for forty-five minutes."You're one hell of a master at first impressions, Meg, I'll give you that.""Man, shut the fuck up!"I earned the blouse she was wearing for her Cayenne disguise thrown square at the back of my head as she changed. I'd already unpacked, ready to go, so I just waited. I knew Meg was in a state of undress, and I could already hear the ruffle of her hands already rifling through her suitcase for something to wear."Just get ready. I don't wanna make Ilya wait too long."I gave her fifteen minutes. It took almost half an hour before Meg gave me a shove on my shoulder to tell me she was all ready to go.With that, we made our way to Ilya's room around the corner. Our steps were almost silent, padded by the lush carpet below our feet. If it weren't for the fact that I was so accustomed to the Tzinquaw, I'd have thought we were in some forgotten corner of the royal palace back down on the Phife.The doors to Ilya's private chambers soon loomed before us. They were huge, almost as large as the ones to Meg's bedroom, and with the artisanal etchings and runes inscribed with the finest detail on their face, almost as ornate.I looked over at Meg. As expected, she was nervous, the nail of her right thumb wedged between her teeth as she looked at the entrance expectantly. She was dressed in her usual garb, something comfortable but just a tad bit more special. The glint of an interlaced earring winked from her left ear. Her way of looking her best for Ilya. She gave me a nervous look, and I handed her a smile.I reached my hand out to give a singular knock.Within a moment, the doors smoothly swung open. A warmth wafted from inside, accompanied by the rich smell of smoke, the earthy smell of a lit hearth. It was dimly lit, and before us stood Eliot, his cold, inhuman eyes appraising us."Ah, the royal duo. Took you long enough."Meg flushed."M-My apologies, it was my fault.""She takes forever to unpack." I said, earning an elbow to my side.Eliot blinked. A mechanical quirk that signalled amusement."My apologies then, your majesty. I did not mean to be uncouth.""No, no it's alright!"He gave a curt nod."Well, make yourselves at home," he said as he stepped aside for us to walk in . "I must get back to picking up Ilya's slack.""Watch yourself, L." Ilya's voice drifted from in front of the hearth. "Or else I won't be getting that new processor you've been wanting."We made ourselves into the room with Eliot taking up our rear, closing the doors behind us. He scoffed."It'll be your loss. You know for a fact that if I can't overclock for more than an hour, it'll be your star-maps that won't be sorted and cartographed as quickly."Ilya gave an annoyed grunt.I pulled out a bacca stick as Meg immediately started giving herself a tour, eyes wide with enchantment. Ilya's private quarters were every bit as elegant as Meg's own bedroom. And a quarter of it, the part that Eliot claimed as his own personal living space, was just as messy. Furnished primarily from polished sacred-cedar, there was a homely vibe that juxtaposed the primary elegance of the room.Most of that homeliness derived from the warmth of the hearth, the fire roaring large, crackling idly. Its orange light framed the vibrant red of Ilya's head as she peered into it, her hair seeming to burn just as bright. It was let out of its ponytail, as she usually did when she's winding down.Ilya and Eliot always retreated her off-duty, out of sight of the other officers, other personnel. Even with the power of her position, it was hard to find anyone on the Tzinquaw who'd be willing to see past her ancestry, much less the ancestry of Eliot, who was always by her side. Her cold demeanor and general aloofness wasn't of any help either, but that suited her and Eliot just fine; they didn't want many friends, anyway. Along the walls were portraits of previous Grand Admirals that called the Tzinquaw home through its centuries-long service in the war. I saw Meg silently freak out at each one as she walked under each one, hold back the urge to reach out and touch the various memorabilia and decor that littered the walls flanking the entrance, gawk at the center war room table that dimly glowed with a star-map littered with lines, notes, potential movements drawn by Ilya's own hand.But eventually, Meg couldn't hold back a gasp as she reached the far wall, which was occupied by nothing but reinforced transpari-steel, a floor-to-window viewport peering out into the rest of the fleet. She walked up to it, eyes darting about, drinking in the sight of military activity; of the destroyers slung beside the Tzinquaw, the squadrons of bi-props whizzing about in routine rounds, the cruisers ferrying supplies, Thunderbirds administering maintenance. It was probably something straight out of her idle daydreams, and I left her to her reverie as I made my way towards the hearth.Eliot had already retaken his place at his large desk in the corner of the room. I heard his fingers clacking on a keyboard, other fingers scratching about on a datapad after he'd plugged his head into the hard drive of his workstation, at least a dozen mounted monitors flashing quintobytes worth of data faster than human eyes could process.The flick of my lighter prompted Ilya's head to turn toward me. There was a slight blush on her cheek, and I could already tell what she grasped in her hand as she lounged on the fireside chaise that she always unwinded on after a long day.I took a drag as I sat down on the loveseat opposite her feet. She gestured at the pack of bacca in my breast pocket with small tilt of her chin."Mind if I bum one off you?"I grinned as I tossed it over, onto her lap, my lighter following suit right into her palm."Gum not doin' for you?""Mm," she said, a stick already between her lips as she lit it. The flicker of flame danced on the lenses of her glasses. "Bacca gum can only do so much. There's not much that can beat a stick of it when I'm sipping on mead."She took a long drag, eyes closing shut the same moment her thumb clicked my lighter shut. She exhaled it with a wide smile before she raised her favorite golden mazer cup to her lips, and took a sip. Never one to skimp out on her daily dose of mead, Ilya.We sat in silence as we smoked together, gazing into the heart of the fire. Ilya was dressed more comfortably, stripped down to the dress shirt and trousers of her usual uniform. Her cape, cap, and boots were draped and bundled at the foot of the chaise. She looked the very image of peace, a stark contrast to her usual strung-up rigidity. In my head I wished that I could paint her, if I had the talent. In the middle of her bacca stick she turned around, watching as Meg pranced about the room like the geek that she was. I saw Ilya silently appraise her with those eyes, watched as the iciness of her analytical gaze softened into warmth. She never let her guard down around people easily, and I wondered what ran through her head, that cold, logical mind that had earned her undefeated military streak. She took another drag. And suddenly I could see what she saw. She saw Meg for what she was. A girl who wasn't just a blind fangirl, but a girl who accepted people for who they were. There wasn't fear or hesitation anymore in Meg's steps now as she brazenly walked up to Eliot's work station, peppering him with questions. She saw Eliot as a person.And, by extension, from her respect and admiration, she saw Ilya as a person. Not an Andrean, but a Grand Admiral whose merit derived from her work, her drive. It was all painfully clear from the look that flickered over Ilya's huge eyes, the nod she gave to me as she turned back towards the fire and took another long inhale of bacca. She always was a good judge of character.In due time I felt a weight against the head of my chair as Meg leant against it. Unlike usual, she stayed mum about my bacca habits, and I could see a minute effort to try not to cough as my smoke wafted a bit into her nostrils. I tried my best to keep the sidestream away from her face.We smoked on in silence until Ilya broke the silence, an easy grin on her face. I felt Meg flinch, and I chuckled. It's always unnerving to see Ilya with her guard down."A drink, princess?" Ilya said, raising her maser in offering."Yes!" Meg said instantly. Blurted. She cleared her throat. "I mean, of course!"Ilya laughed, a mirthful chortle. Meg turned red."Help yourself. There's tankards near the keg." Ilya pointed with a tilt of her head behind her. She didn't bother offering me anythingMeg's eyes widened, just realizing that Ilya's private quarters had a corner designated to her collection of alcohol. Of course, it was mostly mead, kegs of it lined up and undoubtedly stocked up from the Phife. Five kegs were stacked atop each other, ready to be drained into Ilya's liver. From my time with her in years prior I've known her to be prone to have at least a dozen mazer cups without even turning a little tipsy. I shuddered at the thought of how many she'd had tonight to trigger her carefree blush, that kind smile.Meg was in good company.As Meg took a seat of her own at the other loveseat next to me, chugging alongside Ilya with a horn-tankard of mead clutched in her fist, the mood of the room grew warmer than ever. Ilya kept initiating questions, mostly about me, easing Meg into telling Ilya stories about my time with her. I sat and smoked with no choice but to take the onslaught as they laughed and joked all at my expense. I'd periodically toss over my bacca and a light to Ilya as she indulged.In due time, Eliot joined our hearthside kickback, sitting back against the viewport in his own little stool. With his company was the soothing notes plucked from his harp that had leant in its spot against the wall. Meg was surprised with it at first, but it didn't take long until the music soothed her as it did the rest of us, intricate melodies and adlibs weaved with every ounce of artistry and passion that could only come from a living soul. We took some moments to just let Eliot play, gentle melodies coaxed by his fingers addled on by the crackle of lit logs, thrumming embers.Meg was on her fourth tankard when Ilya stood. She downed the last of her mead for the night. As I'd expected, she and Meg got along swimmingly; their polar opposite approaches to conversation and overall outlooks made for incredibly-entertaining conversations, and I'd venture to say that their chemistry was nigh electric."So, biggest fan," Ilya said, more playfully than I'd probably ever heard her. "How'd you like to show me a bit of your inner tactician?" She gestured over to the large table in the center of the room with the sprawled star-map.Meg gave an excited drunk grin, bright as sun-light."Would I ever!"She sprang up from her seat (not before she drained her tankard), and dashed off right behind Ilya. From where I sat I heard Meg's unabashed chatter, excited little squeals bubbling up out of her chest without restraint as Ilya showed her around the war-table. This was a hundred of Meg's dreams come true, and I sat back, lighting another stick as I sunk deeper than ever into my seat. Eliot kept plucking, the melodies lulling the warmth that gently sizzled in my lungs. A log in the fire snapped in half, and I watched as sparks gently lilted up from the embers. I felt Eliot's neon gaze on my neck."You look comfy, Taft. At peace." he said. I was in the moment so much that it took a second to register his voice. I turned my head towards him with an easy smile."Mhmm."He took a moment, there was a whir of cranial gears. A cock of his head."Been a while?"My turn to process, the wheels of my head turning a bit. I squinted into the heat of the hearth. Then, I heard the chatter behind me, Ilya's questioning, Meg's earnest gushing. I took a long drag of bacca. The easy smile returned."Yeah."Eliot kept playing. After a minute, the talkbox apparatus inside his throat shifted, and he began to sing, the synthetic vocode of his baritone a perfect complement to his harpstrings' plucks.
It might not be...the right time,
I might not be...the right one...
I shut my eyes for a bit, letting the warmth envelop me. The lyrics flowed, somber and nostalgic. They beckoned for the unrelent of memories that usually assaulted my mind. But as the gentle pulse of the Tzinquaw palpitated peacefully under my feet, I found no recollection or abrasive spectre. Just the smooth harmonies of Eliot's music, just the tittering of Meg and Ilya's reverie, just the softness that wrapped me like the warmest of wool-dog fur. Although we were in orbit above it, Clemente was the farthest thing from my mind.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Episode 4:
clash-space (part 1).
ᚲᛚᚨᛋᚺ-ᛋᛈᚨᚲᛖ.
Clemente stretched in a long golden curve beneath us, its surface glowing against the backdrop of space. Meg and I looked down on the moon from the Tzinquaw's command deck, standing right up to the transparisteel viewport that encircled the entire bridge.The capital ship was finally ready to leave for clash-space, its stores replenished, belly full. Escort ships were falling into line as the command deck bustled with preparations to rendezvous with the rest of Ilya's fleet. I could hear the pulse of the massive engines thrum through its veins, pulse through the mottled feathers of its cedar hull.Ilya was a level above us, standing above her command chair. Ensign Eliot stood next to her, hands poised above a datapad suspended by LAN cables sprouting from the back of his head. Around her, four holo-screens projected the faces of lesser admirals. They were having a meeting.Meg and I could hear the dry logistics of their conversation as we prepared our journey to the outer fringes of clash-space."-back into Fliktograd. Star-maps have proven futile in the quadrant, but intel confirms that the main fleet is at least a few parsecs east of Dyurso. My fleet and I are stationed at the rendezvous as planned.""Good." Ilya said, her tone flat. I looked up and through the sheen of the holo-screen I could see a tinge of annoyance in her eye. Nobody else noticed. She turned to another holo-screen, addressing an Admiral who looked like he hadn't slept in days. "Report on the western front, Admiral Blinton.""Our flank has managed to push them just a couple parsecs out of the system, Grand Admiral." Even from my angle I could see that he was suppressing a sigh. "We've about a fifth of our left wing, but the losses on their side amount to approximately double. Just another day's fighting and we'll occupy the farthest planet." There were flashes of artillery splashing near the edges of the holo-screen frame."As calculated. Once we rendezvous with Admiral Schäuble, we'll resupply and fold through the supply chain to provide assistance." Ilya turned to address all four holo-screens. "Maintain positions. Fold-space readings show that our transit will take less than an hour. May Mother be with you all."Then, in near-unison, all four admirals straightened up as best they could, fists over their hearts."Fire with spirit-fire."Ilya reciprocated the gesture, echoed by the click of her boots' heel."Fire with spirit-fire."With that, the holo-screens dematerialized into blue specks of glowing dust. Ilya let out an audible tsk. She consulted Eliot in a low whisper, who acknowledged her with a blink. An officer made his way up the stairs leading up to the circular platform where she stood. He gave a quick salute."All ships are primed for fold-space, Grand Admiral. Awaiting your command."Ilya nodded."Commence fold."I was suddenly aware of Meg's clutch on my sleeve as it grew tighter. This was her first time going through fold-space. She'd only taken spacelines that followed neutral warp routes to other systems.I looked at her face to reassure her, but instead of the slight worry that I was expecting, she was looking out through the viewport with a giddy smile. I grinned. Why was I surprised?The collective murmur of the command deck reached a fever pitch as the Tzinquaw's captain relayed Ilya's orders, officers relayed orders through command channels to every other ship, technicians triple-checking the status of the engine room, and navigators confirmed coordinates and plugged in fold data into the Tzinquaw's navi-computer."Is it really okay if we're standing?" Meg said in hushed excitement. She'd of course read up all about fold-space and the properties of traveling in it. It was the primary method of faster-than-light travel for the military to utilize, with only the most ancient and sophisticated of ships able to handle the stresses of its use.Her eyes were scanning the room at the various personnel strapping into their seats, leaving only a few standing near handrails. Ilya still stood alongside Eliot with her arms crossed."We'll be fine. Just be sure to hang onto the railing at the jump."Only a few moments later and the idle hum of the Tzinquaw ramped up into a fevered whine, the floor beneath us giving a hearty rumble. I kept my gaze outside above Clemente, catching a stray space rock the size of a car lazily twirling a few hundred feet away from us.Then, everything went silent. I could only hear the collective breath of everyone on the bridge before another moment passed, and the engines let out an echoing crack, like thunder. In an instant, real-space pirouetted into nothingness. The only thing that hung in the ensuing darkness was the space rock that now twirled in place, and the dozens of ships that hung on the Tzinquaw's flanks.Another moment and sound returned, and the black nothingness was replaced with the murky indigo clouds of fold-space. Weightlessness surged throughout the cabin, and my hands gripped the metal railing behind me to keep me grounded.Meg had seemingly forgot to do the same, and I felt her begin to float a foot or two above the ground."H-Holy shit!" she said, elated. She laughed as she let go of my sleeve, kicking in midair, her arms outstretching for balance. "It's exactly like you said…"Behind me, Ilya was suspended too, her arms still crossed as the ship passed through the initial jump. The weightlessness persisted for about a minute before it slowly and steadily eased, and the whine of the engines faded into their consistent hum. I watched as Meg played around a bit more, twirling harmlessly in the air, kicking up and sideways and daring to go horizontally before she eventually lilted back onto the floor. She beamed at me all the while with that infectious smile of hers, and I had half a mind to join her.Eventually the ship's movement resumed a normal pace, as it would in real-space.But the clouds remained.Fold-space is a method that's been used since ancient times, a method that required an extraordinary amount of power, no doubt implementing methods of the divine. The basic idea of fold-space is to manipulate real-space of two distant points to something that's closer, like the tread of two distant systems cut down to the distance between a planet and its moon.But even with the shortened distance, there is always going to be something in between them to traverse, some unknowable fabric of the cosmos that roils and thunders. If a ship were led astray, they'd dip into that infinite swirl of clouds, and be lost forever. Without knowing the proper fold-routes before a jump, fold-space travel could last days, or at worst, even weeks. It's for that reason that fold-routes are guarded with the utmost secrecy; even if one route let slip to Andrea, the tide of the delicate balance in the war would be shifted.If fold-space was a risk for a fold-capable ship, it was all the more risky for smaller, warp-only vessels; all the ships around the Tzinquaw were too small and incapable of fold-space, and depended on the pull of the Tzinquaw to maintain their course, lest they get lost. If one of them fell behind or pulled forward, they'd wouldn't be able to find their way out. Consequently, the space rock and other various debris that followed in our wake were taken along for a ride too.The next hour was smooth sailing. The only voice that rose above the command deck's murmur was the captain's who relayed the navigator's information with simple commands to make slight turns to port or starboard.Meg remained glued to the viewport, watching as we navigated the tunnel of roiling dark blue clouds that engulfed us. It looked like the cloud cover back on the Phife during a storm, but just a tad more tranquil. Veins of silent lightning would shoot through here and there, splotches of unseen flame and energy coloring the walls in bright bursts of sun-orange, neon-green, salmon-pink."What do you think is in there?" she asked, transfixed. I could already tell that her mind was going down wild imaginings, conjuring up images straight from her favorite scifi schlock."Nobody knows, Meg. I know you've read about it.""Yeah, but it's just so different to see in person. Like, there's been travelers who've breached the fold on purpose, try to see what's on the other side, but they never came back.""They probably died.""'Probably' is the key word here. What if they found something and just didn't want to come back? Or what if they knew it'd be a one way trip, and they're still out there, who knows where?""If you're so eager why don't you strap into a rocket and jet into there?"She turned her look towards me with a smile."Only if you come with me, stupid."We shared the view in silence for the rest of the journey, watching as stray bolts of lightning flirted with the outer wings of the escort ships, watched as colors intermittently blossomed on the fluffing roil of indigo canvas.For a single moment, as I gazed out there into clouds of the unknown, something flashed. Pure gold, threading along in our route, as if guiding us. Another blink it was gone.I dismissed it the moment it passed.In due time, the weightlessness started to seep into the bridge, and my feet began to lift off the ground. At Meg's urging I didn't bother to grab the railing, and I joined her as we floated there, relishing the alien sensation of zero gravity.Again, the engines let out that high pitched hum, and I heard the captain shout, "Fold-gate approaching!"Turning our heads to the bow of the command deck, we could see the clouds of the fold eke out around a large disc of ink-black. It contrasted the volatile nature of the fold as it grew closer, a mouth that was primed to swallow all of us whole.The ship slipped into it, and again, the engines let out that crack of thunder before things went silent. My gaze turned again to what was immediately in front of us, finding that space rock that had hitched a ride. It hung there, its twirling slowed to a halt. Nothing but darkness and breath, all of us hanging in suspension. Then, in a dizzying swirl of light, the stars returned in white lines that fell into place, distant color of systems speckled amongst them like candy, and the looming crest of a ringed planet leapt out at us from the black.We were in real-space again. Gravity eased its way back into the cabin and I watched as the space rock that I'd kept tabs on from Clemente found its inertia to keep twirling on into space.Activity on the command deck kickstarted again in that loud and familiar murmur. Meg turned to the stern, checking to see if the fold was still visible. But of course, that wasn't how it worked; there was nothing behind us other than the rear of our escort, line upon line of ships."Mother, how do you ever get tired of that.""Trust me, I never did." I said as Meg relaxed a bit, her excitement a little breathless. "But I'm sure it's nothing but stress for the navigator and the captain.""Sucks for them." she leaned back onto the railway, eyes distant. "I don't think I've ever seen anything so beautiful." "Meg, please wipe that shit.""Hm?" Meg said, eyes above the rim of her mug as she slurped down another gulp of chai tea latte. She revealed the large whip mustache she had on the moment she lowered it. "Wipe what.""The whipped cream on your lip, dumbass."Only a moment later an officer walked by with a tray of food. Meg smiled at him as he gave a small bow, but I could see the tinge of a snicker on the edge of his mouth. I sighed."People may not recognize you as much unless they really pay attention to the royal family, but you can't just waltz around acting like you're twelve." I reached over with a napkin to clean off Meg's upper lip as she thrashed in protest."Alright, alright, jeez, you're not my dad."I shook my head and turned my eyes out to the viewport of the dining hall. We were in orbit above a moon of Yekaterstok, an ringed gas planet on the outer fringes of clash-space. The moon itself was habitable, lush with a humble population of a few million.Sidled right next to the Tzinquaw was the Draugar, the capital ship of Admiral Schäuble. Its hull of sacred-cedar was painted a bright green, its monstrous contours distinct from the Tzinquaw's elegant curves. I took a sip of my coffee as lines of cruisers and cargo ships dilly-dallied between the ships as we hung in space. Schäuble's fleet had just made a strategic retreat, fresh from battle, in desperate need of replenishment from the transports that were full from Phifendyr's plentiful stockpiles. Even form where we sat, we could see the raw battle-scars of the fleet, the chipped paint, the battered Erzenheim steel. Meg and I had just finished lunch. After the jump to Yekasterstok, Ilya had left the command deck to prepare to meet with Admiral Schäuble. It was always the formal thing to do during resupplies while docked out of combat, a tradition that Ilya had always deemed as inefficient ("I have to see this asshole's face every day during holo-screen briefings. What's the point of sidling our ships up next to each other and meeting him in person?").And so we were left to our own devices. The dining hall was the first stop of the day before I gave her a tour of the hangar I used to frequent during mandatory service.Like all the other upper decks of the ship, the dining hall was furnished in sacred-cedar, its layout mirroring a great mead hall that ran parallel to the viewport that stretched end to end on one side. Taking yet another facet of those mead halls of old, a great cedar long-table stretched in the center of the dining hall for at least several hundred feet. Various other tables were scattered about, with the wall opposite to the viewport wall occupied with the kitchen, self-service food stations, a bistro, and, to my dismay, a bar.Fortunately I convinced Meg to hold off until later on during the day, and she reluctantly settled for a latte from the bistro at the other end of the dining hall's food station."Being in the service doesn't look so bad." Meg said as she looked behind me at the bustle of servicemen helping themselves to some grub. "Your food is like, restaurant-tier.""Yeah. Consolation for the possibility of being blown to bits out here in space.""I thought that's what the chapel was for."I snorted.We sat there for another half hour or so, watching the resupply and the various ships that buzzed about until Meg got antsy. With that, we left trays for the waitstaff to make for the hangar.Despite the years that had passed since then, I still knew my way around this area of the Tzinquaw as well as I knew the layout of the palace on the Phife. I didn't recognize any of the servicemen and officers that we whizzed by on the various walkways, escalators, and lifts that we took, but I knew that would change as soon as a walkway started carrying us to the familiar cage of Hangar D-23: home of Salmon Squadron.It'd been years since I'd seen any of my squadmates. We'd kept in contact here and there through letters and e-mails (I've never been particularly good at keeping up with friends), but I was looking forward to checking in on them in person, see if they were all still in one piece. The last time I was here, it was only a day until my discharge. The rest of the squad had decided to stay with the service; there wasn't much for them to return to on the Phife, and the prospects of serving was something all of them saw as an ideal long-term commitment.Hell, if it weren't for my lineage, my duty to care for the royal family, I had more than half a mind to stay myself, even if my mom would have flipped her lid about it.Eventually, Meg and I stepped off the walkway into the hangar. It smelled and looked exactly as I had left it. A loud, oiled-up mess.I had barely a minute to take it all in when I heard the bellow of my name."Taft!" it bellowed again, a deep, masculine roar of a voice. I instantly knew who it was before the pounding of his giant footsteps gave it away.There he was, seven feet of pure muscle with a heart of gold."Briggs!" I yelled back. I threw aside the bacca stick I had in my mouth mere milliseconds before the brick mass of a man could scoop me up into one of his signature hugs. The air was crushed out of my lungs. Just as I remembered it.I tried my best to hug him back in those few seconds of excruciating affection before he let go, his massive hands like weights on my shoulders as he beheld me."Motherfucker, Taft, how long has it been! Look at you! Still as scrawny as ever, uh?"I chuckled as I caught my breath from his bugbear hug."Been a while, Briggs, been a while. And you're still as stacked as ever I see. Thought maybe I'd pull up and you'd turned into a ball."He gave a hearty laugh that echoed and ricocheted around the entire hangar."Naw, cousin. You know damn well I'd never let go of these guns."And so he went, flexing as he always did in his signature show of his exposed biceps, the dark chocolate of his skin imprinted with tribal tattoos of his home system Makua. Nothing had changed with this guy.We shared another laugh before his attention shifted over to Meg."And who this? Your new girl?""Nah, more like my new chore."Meg sneered at me as she stepped forward to introduce herself."Hi, I'm Meg." she said. Unlike her more formal introductions, I guess Briggs' exuberant show was enough to let her know that she was in more easy company.A bolt of recognition struck Briggs as he realized that it was the Meg I'd told him about in our sparse contact. In an instant he grew rigid and a bit flustered, straightening up as if to give salute."O-Oh shit. I mean. Good afternoon, princess, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance." he stumbled, trying his best with a bow. He never was good with being formal."No, no it's chill, seriously," Meg laughed. "You can just call me Meg."It took only a few more minutes before Briggs softened up completely. By the time he was leading us deeper into the hangar, bypassing several bi-props undergoing maintenance, he was already cracking jokes with Meg, giving playful slaps on her back that made her whole body jut forward.Yes, everything was as I remembered it. Every spacecraft of the squadron was sectioned off into their own designated bay, where maintenance crews could apply repairs or fine-tune parts. There were new faces everywhere; I didn't recognize any of the maintenance crews or the various other crew members lounging around, giving us strange looks. Didn't recognize any of the other squadrons there either.But that all changed when Briggs led us around a corner to his bay.There, gathered for lunch at the foot of his Thunderbird were the familiar faces I came here for: Salmon Squadron, the group of pilots I had flown with during my mandatory service all those years ago, and the only group of people I'd really call my friends. The sight of them looking up at me the instant Briggs announced my arrival was like a weight off my chest. It'd been so long.Salmon Squadron was an experiment of sorts. We'd all been tight since the Academy, and our synchronization always scored the highest amongst our class. The problem arose when our individual scores came into account. Once it came to sorting, most of us scored high in completely different fields. I'd shown all the aptitude and skill to be a fighter along with another one of us, Briggs had no place piloting anything other than a Thunderbird mech, our inseparable twins excelled as bombers, and our youngest had some of the sharpest eyes in the fleet, making him an invaluable interceptor.The biggest issue was that we were pretty much unable to synchronize well with our respective squadrons. We tried as best we could but something about us being separated significantly decreased our performance outputs. Of course it was Ilya who had noticed first. At the time, she was a mere lieutenant.She took us under her wing, pulling some strings to form the fleet's very first mixed squadron. For a time, she was our leader, keeping us in check and giving our orders personally when the rest of high command disregarded us as a costly commodity. It was a preposterous idea, one that showed no promise. But in due time our field record spoke for itself, and we operated as efficiently as the other conventional squadrons.I was more than happy to see that everyone still stuck together.All at once they came rushing over to me, with welcoming grins as warm as they had been when I first met them.It was a flurry of "long-time-no-sees" and lots and lots of hugs.There was Lucas, the interceptor. He was as quiet as ever, and unlike some of the squadron, didn't look like he had aged a day over 17, his height almost half a head shorter than Meg. His silver hair was done up in the exact same way, a clean bob cut that shimmered in the dim light of the hangar like gossamer. He was always the best to chill in the rec room with if I wanted company without much conversation."How's your boyfriend doing?" I asked after a hug, the shortest one out of everyone else's.He gave me a small grin."Fiance," he corrected me. We plan on having a mid-summer wedding after the next campaign."I congratulated him, remembering his wistful looks into the stars.There were the twin bombers, Fernando and Adriana. They stuck together as much as they flew tandem in battle, and it was no different everywhere else. I've always admired their bond, how they'd try and keep their hairstyles similar. Sometimes it was green, sometimes it was short, long, and once even bald. As an only child, I'd always envied them."Still sucking on those death sticks of yours, huh? You fuckin' reek!" Fernando said, giving me a playful slap to the chest.Adriana followed up with another and I let out an involuntary cough. They laughed, and I laughed with them."Lay off him, Nando." Adriana said. "We all have our bad habits, and at least his doesn't rock the bunk at night when I'm trying to sleep.""Ayyo that's private shit!"And finally, there was Nancy, the member of the squadron behind the control stick of a fighter other than me. She was the tallest of our lot other than Briggs, and her hug felt the most formal. Her eyes and smile were as warm as they ever were, and she beheld me a moment that felt the same as when my mother appraised me after a long time of not seeing her. Nancy was our de facto leader, and from the rank insignia on her lapel, it was good to see that she'd gotten promoted in the wake of Ilya taking control of the fleet."Keeping yourself out of trouble, Taft?""Unfortunately. Hope y'all would help me fix that today."She chuckled and ruffled her hand through my hair as she usually did. I smiled.It felt like I was home.Eventually we all settled down with the initial greetings, and Briggs grabbed Meg by the shoulders to shove her forward."And this is Taft's new charge, Meg!"Everyone's faces instantly changed as recognition triggered in all their heads. Nancy went so far as to drop down on a knee."Y-Your majesty, we're sorry to not have-""Oh, please!" Meg interrupted, instantly lending her a hand to stand up again. "There's no need for all the formal bullshit. I'm just here to meet the friends Taft mentions all the time. I had to see for myself or else I'd think he was just lying."Most everyone instantly eased up at the comment. Fernando went so far as to chuckle."I assume you're the only friend he has down on the Phife?" Nancy said, giving her a grin. Meg gave me a look. We shared it for a moment."Pretty much," Meg replied, sidling up next to me. "Pretty much." "-fucking insane, man. I swear that the squadron next to us was down for the count as soon as the shard rush began; tore through 'em like paper. Luckily sis here did a perfect embankment over the crest of that asteroid, giving me like a two second window to unload a payload right at their rush apex. BOOM!" Fernando gestured, his whole body exploding in motion with the proton bomb in his story. "Scattered 'em all. From there it was easy pickin's for Luc and Nan before the other squadron could get their bearings together.. To this day that squadron still covers us for drinks at the watering hole."Meg eagerly drank in every word, and I could see her eyes twinkle with the sight of distant clash-space. We were all seated on the foot of Briggs' Thunderbird, passing around stories to pass the time. Ilya was supposed to rendezvous with us after her meeting on the Draugar, but that was still three hours out. For a moment I wondered if the squad had enough stories to keep Meg entertained until then, but that concern passed the instant I saw that twinkle in her eye.As the stories kept going, I decided to walk up the gangway running vertically up the Thunderbird's body. Like the Tzinquaw and all other capital ships of Her Holy Navy, our fleets' Thunderbirds was crafted from sacred cedar. Unlike our relatively-disposable starfighters, a Thunderbird could take a heavy beating. No amount of ordinance rounds could penetrate it, nothing short of an entire payload from an Andrean shard bomber could even attempt to dent it.It was an ancient bringer of death, and as I ran my hand across its massive arm, my fingers could feel a dull sort of electricity from the holy wood.The only real problem with Thunderbirds was their relative lack of speed. They were equipped with thrusters beneath their ornamental wings, but those only gave brief bursts of flight in space, nowhere near enough speed nor momentum for them to keep up in the fast-paced dogfights of starfighters. For that reason, Briggs' job is less one of a nuisance and escort for larger ships, and more of a demolisher. Thunderbids are towed beneath fighters to where they need to go before they're dropped, and from their they can go to work, ripping aside hull plating like paper, rendering entire capital ships useless if enough of them are dropped above key vital points. I was always the fighter designated with hauling Briggs under me. I wonder how quickly Nancy adjusted to taking on the role herself.Like the totem poles on just about every street corner back on the Phife, the Thunderbird was crafted with an artisanal touch. Each curve of its sacred cedar plating was painted with fine detail, most of its body a stark white with highlights of lifeblood-red and conspicuous dapples of ink-black. I made my way all the way up to the head of the Thunderbird, where the sacred cedar was carved into its namesake, its red beak sticking out at me while its weathered old eyes glared into mine.Briggs was seated on its left shoulder, welding something beneath the cedar plating."Surprised you kept this shit in one piece," I said as I primed a bacca stick between my lips and lit it.Briggs chuckled, his voice echoing a bit behind his welding faceplate."Don't give me the shit, cousin. You know damn well I've taken down more rocksucker bastards than you can count.""Just joshin' ya Briggs." I noted the rank insignia. "You earned that promotion as much as everyone else did.""Ah, well. Would have been better if you got it too."His welding stopped and he lifted his faceplate, giving me a smile before both of our attentions were directed below to the rest of the squadron. It was Meg's turn now, animatedly telling everyone stories of what we'd do down on the Phife, adding in her own little dorky embellishments that made everyone smile.It was everyone else's turn to be engrossed now, an easy vibe going around as she animatedly gestured and prattled atop the Thunderbird's talons. When she giggled, everyone else giggled. When she waved a finger, everyone's eyes followed. Meg always was infectious, and it's easy to see that being in front of an audience should be her natural territory."She seems like a good girl." Briggs said, his welding torch limply hanging off the precipice of his knee. He paused. "You still talk to her sister?""No." I said, instantly. My next drag was especially long, and I let the stick hang off my lip as I leaned against the gangway's railing. "No, I don't."The mere mention of her made me feel cold, as if the warmth of everyone's friendship wasn't even there in the first place. I felt myself turtle up, felt my mind start to withdraw inward. I had a sudden need to be by myself somewhere.Everyone in the squad knew about Cayenne. She and I had been an item for about a year before mandatory service. We were each other's first loves, and I never failed to make that known to my squad, much to their annoyance. So of course when things fell through a few years later, they were the first to hear about it.I remember them visiting the Phife on a shore leave, trying to comfort me as best as they could as I refused to look at any of them. How they tried, and tried, and how much I refused to open up.That was the last I'd seen of them until today. I'm sure most of their smiles was relief that I wasn't Taft from back then, that I was a Taft that'd moved on. If only they knew that this was just a front. An escape.I could feel all of it start to creep back all over me, all the questionings, all the doubts, all the insecurities. How did I let her get away? Was I really not enough for her, or for anyone else?It must have creeped onto my face because Briggs was quick to change the subject."You've never flown here around Yekasterstok, have you?" Briggs said. His question broke me out of the spiral I was starting to slip into, and as I looked up at his face I could see the relief wash over it. "When you used to serve with us, clash-space was still a few dozen parsecs north. Crazy how close things are getting to home."I nodded, realizing my bacca stick was in dire need of an ash. I took it out of my mouth and gave it a flick, watched as the burnt white fluttered down against the Thunderbird's leg.I didn't say anything so Brigg's went on."How about you go out on a flight?" Briggs said, making my head whip towards him. The proposal took me off guard. "Your Meg seems to be really into this shit," he nodded towards her as she simulated a night when she'd gotten me piss-drunk. "If there was anyone who'd want to take a spin on a bi-prop…"I considered it, turning my eyes at Meg again. As if feeling my eyes on her face, she looked up at me mid-rant, and gave me a smile. I couldn't help but smile back. A ride in a bi-prop...she'd be over the moons. And I missed the feeling of it. I could feel an itch in my hands, the ghostly sensation of the control stick gripped tight between my legs. It'd been a while."Could help take your mind off things too. You were always sneaking off on night flights."I turned to Briggs one last time, blowing out a plume of smoke as I smoked the stick down to the filter. I spit it out into my gloved hand."Would it be alright? I'm a civvie now." I said, pocketing my bacca butt and flicking a fresh one out of its box into my mouth. "Pretty sure that'd be hard to let fly."Briggs rolled his eyes."You're just makin' excuses now. Nan's a lieutenant. She can write it off as a routine gear check." a sly grin spread on his mouth suddenly. "...don't tell me our old ace Taft is scared of clash-space now, uh?"I scoffed, flicking my bacca stick alight. As I lowered my head my eyes turned to Meg again. I imagined her smile as she rode behind me, how she'd gush about it to me hours after even though we experienced it together. I could almost feel the g-forces as I'd push the thrusters to their limit, bring us up close enough to an asteroid that it'd almost skim against the ordnance tips of the bi-prop's strike coils.I took a moment to puff a drag, and then two. Then, with a shake of my head I turned back to Briggs."When's the soonest we can head out?" Darkness was drawn all around us as we were lifted through the ceiling of the Hangar D-23, and into the Tzinquaw's launching deck with a loud hydraulic hum. The straps of the safety harness was snug around my shoulders, the helmet a little stuffier than I remembered. I'd been up through this mechanical lift more times than I can count, but as kept moving up through that darkness until our bi-prop came to a sudden and jolting halt, my heart pounded faster than it had in ages.We had muttered a prayer earlier with the rest of the crew, chains in hand. But even then, all my mind could focus on as I uttered Allmother's name was getting my ass into a bi-prop.There was another screech of hydraulics as I felt the launch pad tilt us up, its rails jutting out to connect with the exit portal. I gripped the control stick tight, white-knuckle. In all truth, I wasn't nervous at all. No, as I wrapped my fingers tighter, re-familiarizing myself with the feeling of that lifeline of plastic and steel, I was straining at the leash.As expected, Meg was every bit as excited as I was. She kept kicking from behind me as she squealed."TAFT HOLY FUCK WE'RE GONNA LAUNCH DUDE HOLY FUCKING SHIT I CAN'T BELIEVE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAA-"I tuned her out. I strained to focus on the white noise of the communication channel buzzing in my ear. Any moment now and the rest of the squadron would pop up.Sure enough, there were small jolts that reverberated beneath us as more launch pads arose from below us and locked into place. There was a chorus of hydraulics as our pads all lifted the noses of our spacecraft towards the exits. One by one, our pads locked into place in the darkness, and suddenly there was the blare of a siren screeched on the launch deck. Simultaneously, siren light came to life, all of them rotating evenly across the entire length of the deck in a steady and foreboding glow, bathing all of us and our ships in an urgent red.There was one last jolt from below, and I knew it was Briggs in his Thunderbird, ready to separately launch from a separate launch deck.A few moments later and the blast shields in front of the exit portals began to slowly slide open with a heavy hum. They peeled back to reveal the speckle of stars and the orange crest of Yekaterstok.I looked to my left. There was Nancy in her own bi-prop, the gleam of the siren lights reflecting off its furnished steel as her propellers began to roar to life in tandem with my own.I looked to my right, and I could see Adriana and Fernando already bickering in their bomber bi-prop. It didn't look much different than a normal fighter bi-prop; the only notable differences were the longer length of its body to accomodate for their payload, and the defensive guns on its back that took the place of ordnance tips on their strike coils.And beyond them was Lucas. Even in the dark of the launch deck I could see his eyes were closed as they usually were, meditating. He always got himself into the zone before launch, even if it was just a test flight.Then, as the blast doors were almost peeled back completely, Nancy's voice buzzed in my ear."This is Salmon Leader, standing by for launch."Then Lucas'."Salmon One, standing by."Then Fernando and Adriana's."Salmon Two, standing by."Briggs'."Salmon Three, standing by."And finally,"Salmon Four, standing by." I said, the new callsign unfamiliar on my lips."Copy," Nancy said, and I heard the click of a switch. "Control, this is Salmon Leader. We're ready for launch."There was a buzz in the comlink before the garbled voice of the launch operator responded.""Copy. Prepping all pads for launch. Standby."Another jolt shuddered my bi-prop before the deck was suddenly filled with the sound of a high-pitched whine. It drowned out the rev of our propellers, the rumble of our jet turbines. It was the launch pads, ready to catapult us out into space.There was another pause as everything reached a fever pitch; as per protocol, I was bringing my bi-prop to cruising speed, held back only by the launch pad's restraints.Then, the control deck buzzed through the comlink."Commencing launch. Pad 1, launching."There was a booming roar that flared up and dissipated as fast as it had come, and in the blink of an eye, Lucas was gone."Pad 2, launching."Then Adriana and Fernando."Pad 3, launching."Meg didn't even have a chance to say anything before the roar came from right under us this time, and in a heartbeat the g-forces of the launch slammed into my chest like a freight train.There was a moment where everything was a blur, a visceral rush that overcame the anticipation of my pulse, the taut quiet on the launch pad. And only a moment later, and I realized we were in space.I took a moment to catch my breath as my bi-prop hurtled through the expanse of darkness towards Yekasterstok. Everything felt so weightless and so free. The only thing that kept me rooted in any point in time was the speed of the bi-prop, the sensation of its engine being the only thing that carried me through pure vacuum. Just a few moments after that violent catapult, and I felt at peace. I was flying.The smile made itself known to me the moment I heard Meg's ecstatic laughter. I didn't need to look behind me to know that she was smiling along with me, those eyes of her probably wider than I've ever seen."Oh Mother, Taft this is fucking amazing, I can't believe I'm in a bi-prop…"Even for her, words left completely, and she was left giggling to herself as I banked us over to join the rest of the squadron.We flew in standard formation the moment Nancy sidled up to take our rear. Briggs floated beneath her, suspended by glowing grav-cables connected to the underside of her bi-prop's hull.My comlink buzzed with Fernando's laughter."You took a minute there, Taft. Not so used to launch anymore, eh?"I chuckled, grinning widely as I maneuvered us to take point in the center of the formation, just like old days."I'll adjust."Eventually our formation broke, goaded on by Adriana's challenge to see who'd reach the planetary ring of Yekasterstok first. As we flew away from the Tzinquaw, speeding towards the asteroid with the moon against our backs, I grew more and more in tune with my bi-prop. I suddenly remembered how to master its every movement, how a slight pull on the control stick here, a little extra thrust there would change my trajectory in the slightest ways. I flew us in large arcing barrel rolls around the other bi-props, pushing the rustiness of my skills to the limit as the others joined me in elaborate maneuvers that skimmed our cockpits close enough to almost touch.In only a few minutes from launch we'd reached Yekasterstok's rings. I'd reached it first, with only Lucas a few meters behind us.Meg gasped at the sight of it, the various levels of rock and ice spreading out in a seemingly-endless plane. Plumes of colorful particulates bridged the levels, some sprouting from the lowest tiers of the planetary ring, some rooted to the roof of it. Geysers of rainbowed gas would erupt in sporadic explosions, their aero form mushrooms crammed in between tiered levels before dissipating and reforming all over again.Yekasterstok loomed just outside of the ring, casting the storming rage of its surface over it in an orange glow.Like asteroid fields, a planetary ring like this was a hindrance to maneuver around for capital ships, cruisers, destroyers. But for starfighters with nothing better to do? This place was a playground.It didn't take long to get lost in it completely. I pushed the bi-propr for all she could give, with Meg squealing when I'd show off and skim past a meteoroid before ducking into nose dive to streak past a clump of ice with only inches to spare. Fernando and Adriana were left in the space-dust first, their bomber too big to keep up with my zig-zags through donut-shaped meteoroids, my horizontal forward slips around ice clumps, reckless spinning ailerons through erupting gas clouds.Nancy and Briggs didn't even bother keeping up, but just one look behind and I could see Briggs' Thunderbird, now detached from its grav-cables, jumping from meteoroid to meteoroid, his fists smashing through smaller ones, backpack thrusters propelling him forward like some forest giant propelling itself through trees.I kept flying. The minutes flew by as fast as I flew, and only Lucas was keeping up, his trajectories and arcs more graceful and precise as our contrails interlaced behind us in flexing helixes.I didn't know how much time passed before the novelty of it all finally tapered out a bit, and I started slackening on the afterburners. Lucas slowed in tandem, and we eventually eased into cruising speed. We drew lazy circles around the cluttered field of space rock. I brought us about, bringing the bi-prop to a standstill to see where the others were. We'd flown so fast and far that they were nowhere in sight. To my own surprise, the conjoined fleets of the Tzinquaw and the Draugar were distant, barely visible against the immediate swell of Yekasterstok's gassy mass."Holy shit, how long have we been flying?" I said without thinking into the comlink."Almost two hours," Lucas replied. "The others'll probably catch up soon, but we left them behind a while ago.Through another static crackle in my ear, Brigg's voice garbled."I take back what I said earlier, hotshot," he said, the boom of his Thunderbird audible in the background. "You ain't anything but scared. You fly as fast as you did before you left."I grinned, feeling a prideful swell. I missed this.Meg was unusually quiet, and I turned around to see if she was alright.Her face was plastered with a giddy smile. Those eyes of hers were positively sparkling."What do you think?""I can't believe it.""Believe what?"Meg shook her head, the grin still spread across her cheeks."Not only does Taft have friends, but he's also one hell of a pilot to boot. Like, holy shit. I always thought you were just full of shit, no offense."I scoffed, turning back around before she could give me a signature sneer."You haven't seen anything yet."With a push of the throttle, I let the afterburners flare again, rocketing us through the ring with a force that slammed me back into my seat. Meg screamed in delight as I swirled us through yet another cloud. Faster and faster, I could almost feel tears forming at the corners of my eyes. Lucas didn't even try to keep up this time, and after a few minutes I knew I'd left him far behind.I whisked us around and through all the meteoroids, the stray asteroid. I flew us upside down for extended periods of time to the point where I didn't know which was right-side up anymore-space made that difficult as it was. I flew on, and it took me a while to notice the bridges of gas growing thicker here, more numerous. Before I knew it I'd piloted the bi-prop into a forest of them, an eerie floating den of multicolored stalks, roiling and rooted from geysers on large meteoroids.The hindered visibility meant I could only go as fast as I could for a few more minutes, prompting me to show off to Meg a bit longer before it would be too dangerous to keep going. We were surrounded completely now by the clouds.I slowed us down.I let the hum of the engine lull us, let us soak in the sight of the plumes roiling around us. It felt like we were in fold-space, and the deeper we ventured into the grove of plumes, the thicker it got. We couldn't see out of it at all at this point. There was no space, no Yekakerstok, just Meg and I and the volatile clouds.Meg didn't need to say anything. I could already hear the breaths behind the visor of her helmet pass between lips agape in awe. I let the jet engine die out completely, our forward momentum maintained purely by our inertia, and the particulates caught between the propellers on the bi-prop's nose.It all felt so surreal. I'd been in asteroid belts and planetary rings before, but not like this. Stray bolts of electricity struck up through the plumes, spontaneous veins. It all felt so peaceful, yet eerie. As the minutes drolled on I flew us through the plumes with leisure. My nerves calmed as the columns of roiling gas performed their silent serenade.Briggs was right. A flight was exactly what I needed.I let us stay idle in a particularly-dense area of the gas field, arcing in slow embankments around and around, waiting for the others in the squadron to catch up. This deep into it, the clouds went so far as to provide a canopy above us, light gently refracted through the swirling crystalline plumes."I don't ever wanna leave…" Meg said, breathless. She was pressed up against the window of the cockpit, and I was tempted to do the same.That was when something began slipping through the veil of a plume directly in front of us.It must have been Lucas, finally catching up. In the heat of the moment I gave a quick shove of the throttle, zipping our bi-prop behind a meteoroid geyser to hide; at the speed his ship was slipping out of the cloud veil, I'd be bound to give him a good scare."Taft…" Meg said. She rasped out her next words and I could hear her voice crack a bit. "Taft."I turned around. The color had drained from her face."What's wrong?"In reply she wordlessly pointed at what emerged from the veil.I looked again, only to see that it wasn't a shape. It was shapes, five, and then seven, and then a dozen. And in a moment I realized it wasn't Lucas. It wasn't Salmon Squadron, with the familiar hum of rotors and glints of furnished Erzenheim steel, but jagged stone-steel and exposed wiring. Andreans.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Episode 5:
clash-space (part 2).
ᚲᛚᚨᛋᚺ-ᛋᛈᚨᚲᛖ.
My hands grew cold. They gripped the control stick tighter than ever as Meg and I sat there behind a meteoroid. I'd shut off all power as we hung there in the dark; the ships that came out of the wall of gas had probably detected us already (we were much too far away from any Roquai ship large enough to signal jam), but I didn't want to take any more chances.Meg and I didn't dare say a word. Since she'd pointed them out earlier, at least three more squadrons had slipped into the gas grove, followed by a gunship. In all, there were at least three dozen enemy star-fighters, average fighting power for a standard scouting party. They all flew in tight formation around the gunship, more than wary of a patrol squadron from our own forces.The Andreans knew that we occupied Yekakerstok, making their appearance all the more shocking. We had a blockade in front of the fold-gate route that led to Andrean clash-space.How did they get here?The only possibility was that they'd find another fold-space route, but even that seemed impossible; every known fold-space route leading to Yekakerstok was occupied by our fleet for supply lines, their fold-gates blockaded with thousands of ships.The Andreans inched closer, more and more of them started to slip out from that wall of gas. There wasn't just one gunship anymore, but two, then three. Not just a couple dozen brystaya star-fighter shards, but at least two or three wings, almost a hundred of them. As my pulse raced at the sight, one thing was obvious: this wasn't just a scouting party. The fact that they were taking the effort to maneuver through Yekakerstok's concealing rings was an indication that they were trying to take our combined fleets off guard.With the size of these rings, it wouldn't be out of the question for a capital ship to slip through unnoticed as well, snaking through the ice and meteoroid veil and bursting out at full power before our own capital ships could detect it. This was an attack force.Even with two capital ships and the entirety of Schäuble's fleet, a surprise attack would be crippling. We weren't in any defensive position. Even now, the several thousand ships were still weary from their previous skirmish, still being tended to, refueled and resupplied, stationary in what we presumed to be a safe haven.Our forces were sitting ducks.I had to act soon. Nothing came from my comlink except fuzz, all my communications jammed. I had to fly us back from where we came, fast as I could. Luckily, the Andreans' slow pace meant they were still at least a mile out from where we were. The closest of their ships were the first ones that came out from the haze: a gunship and at least two dozen star-fighters. I had to just power up the engine now, push the afterburners to their max and lose myself into the gas.I knew what I had to do, but all I could do was sit there, gripping my control stick.It'd been so long since I'd seen an Andrean this close. My battle instincts coursed through me all at once, but even with my adrenaline pumping hot against my skin, I couldn't move. I needed to get Meg out of here. That should be my priority. I was foolish to have ventured this far into clash-space without the rest of the squadron anyway. With each moment I deliberated, the Andreans got closer. We were dead. In our foolishness we didn't even put on normal-suits. If we were shot down, we'd be completely exposed to space. We were dead. This was all my fault. I shouldn't have brought Meg. I shouldn't have let my own relief from my inner demons bring us out this far. What would her mother think? What would Mother think? Fuck, I-"Taft."I realized I was panting. I felt a bead of cold sweat prick at my cheek.I felt Meg's hand on my shoulder. She was leaning forward, her words brushing against my ear as her hand gave me a squeeze."You good?"Her breathing was even, her voice level. I breathed deep, closed my eyes as I let the cockpit materialize and solidify around me. My fingers found a hold on the control stick, my head the headrest, my ass the seat of the cockpit. She kept her hand on my shoulder, and within a few moments, I cleared my head. The Andreans were still inching closer. They still hadn't seen us."Yeah," I said with an exhale. "I'm good. I'm good."Meg gave another squeeze to my shoulder."Alright. The moment we shoot out of here, we'll have only a few moments before their cruisers notice and send out their bystraya to shoot us down. Before that happens, we should disorient the vanguard with a few rounds before hightailing through the ring. It'll buy us a few seconds, but that'll definitely be more than enough."I didn't know whether or not to be surprised at Meg's on-the-fly battle plan, at how concise it was, how calm she sounded. I shouldn't have been, considering all the time she spent studying tactics and military history in her spare time.Surprised or not, with her hand still on my shoulder, I made the decision to trust her.Not a word later, I brought the bi-prop to full power. The instant I felt the hum of the afterburner, I slammed the throttle completely forward. We hurtled straight ahead before a quick jerk of the control stick brought us in a smooth embankment. I ripped the throttle to zero again, kicking a pedal at my feet to stabilize us to a stop.All of that took the span of a second or two, bringing us out from the safe hiding place of a meteroid out into the open of the gas field, staring down the oncoming Andrean horde.Things moved in slow motion now as we floated there. The vanguard of the fleet, a squadron of bystraya star-fighters, still lazily drifted towards us. We'd used their element of surprise against them.The lead star-fighter was a mere meter or so away from me, easily within spitting range of my ordnance tips. This time, I didn't hesitate. I didn't even need to look at the targeting computer to know that the lead star-fighter was dead-center.I squeezed the trigger.The strike coils around the cockpit roared to life, whizzing around and around as they shot bright green tracer rounds in a blinding volley.But something was wrong. There wasn't the familiar rumble of the ordnance echoing throughout the cockpit. The familiar BRRRRRT of the tracers. The expected plume of fire from a downed bystraya, the confirmation of a kill.Instead, there was the wispy hiss of harmless sparks, their colorful arcs just bouncing off the cockpit of the lead enemy star-fighter before exploding into playful firecrackles.Flares.I felt the blood drain from my face as the realization hit me: we were in an unarmed trainer bi-prop.And here I was, facing down an entire Andrean strike fleet, with nothing to fend them off except fucking flares.I gritted my teeth. The next moment would mean death if I hesitated again, so I brushed the stupidity of it all aside, and I squeezed the trigger. By this point the surprise had almost worn off, so I milked it for all I could. More flares shot forth, completely showering the lead star-fighter and the two other brystaya star-fighters next to it with senseless, blinding color. I heard them start firing back, heavy metallic bursts of ordnance. But the surprise was still there, and the signature red of Andrean tracers whisked past our cockpit.I charged forth, throttle at full burn. I still squeezed the trigger, firing all the flares that I could, blinding the star-fighter in front of me and buying just a single moment more of that precious surprise. We lurched forward only a few feet before I jerked the control stick back completely, ripping us into a vertical arc that turned us into the opposite direction. From there, I kept the throttle at maximum, zipping our bi-prop to the beat of the brystaya's ordnance.That last gamble with the flare bought us just enough time to slip through a veil of gas, obscuring our pathing. This was exactly like the race I had with Lucas. Except this time, the penalty I'd have was death.Faster and faster I maneuvered the bi-prop, trying my damndest to keep us flying in a straightaway. Geysers would pop up to hinder us, existing plumes of gas forcing me to bank left or right to grab a better view of the next few meters in case we slammed into a stray meteoroid.From behind us, the Andreans pressed, closer and closer. I could already hear the brystayas' thrumming jets looming behind our tail like a horde of bees. Andreans, for better or for worse, never approached warfare halfway; with every maneuver, big or small, they would go all in. Just with the threat of my one bi-prop, the threat of letting our fleet know of the impending strike force, they'd sent dozens, hundreds of brystaya. A curse from Meg was all I needed to confirm that.Luckily for us, bi-props always maneuvered faster than the finest of brystaya. It was just up to the pilot to take advantage of that.A meteoroid exploded right next us. Then, a red tracer skimmed my bi-prop's left wing. I barely had time to duck under a meteroid to avoid another tracer exploding right on top of the cockpit.I had to keep moving faster. I knew how the brystaya pursuits worked-the infamous Kagot Formation. With at least four or five squadrons, they'd coordinate a net of star-fighters, the fastest on the outer edges to outpace their prey, while the chased star-fighter(s) are dogged and winded down by the brystaya star-fighters directly behind them. If I didn't pick up speed, the outer brystaya would start closing in on us, surrounding us completely.I'd seen entire wings shot down with their relentless pursuit squadrons. Sure, the mass-produced nature of brystaya star-fighters meant they were slower, their hulls thinner, but all the technological advances in the galaxy didn't mean shit in the face of a mentally-weary star-fighter overcome by sheer numbers.I needed to get a good lead, lest we get swallowed whole. I needed to warn the rest of Salmon Squadron.As I banked my bi-prop to skim past another flurry of enemy fire, I started yelling into the comlink. Lucas would be coming up on us any time now, and it was crucial that he know what was coming. If I didn't immediately tell him of the Andreans on my tail, he'd be fried within seconds.Thank Mother above, I caught him on the comlink just in time."Taft, what's-""ANDREAN STRIKE FORCE. THEY'RE IN PURSUIT IN KOGOT FORMATION, WARN THE FLEET."I didn't need to say another word, and I knew Lucas would turn the other way immediately to link up with the rest of the squadron. He wasn't stupid enough to try and give me support, not with the roar of almost a hundred brystaya hurtling past us.With Lucas flying back to the fleet, it meant Meg and I were truly alone.I could feel the pressure of all those star-star-fighters, all those tracers, all those bloodthirsty Andreans bearing down on me. I could even hear one or two of them succumb to the natural obstacles of the planetary ring, hear an explosion from a star-star-fighter crashing into a fresh gas cloud, into the side of a chunk of glacial ice.But they still kept coming. It didn't matter if an entire squadron, if two, if three, if four entire squadrons would crash and burn. A brystaya pursuit formation never gave up. And they rarely let their prey escape.I was already feeling the fatigue, feel the brunt of the constant onslaught of ordnance draining my mental faculties. I was sweating with every jerk of the control stick, every kick of the stabilizer pedals. We'd only been flying from the initial encounter with the Andreans for less than five minutes; we still had a long way to go before we reached the safety of the fleet, and doubt of our safe passage started to creep in.Could I outrun them?It'd been years since I even step foot inside a bi-prop, and even during my service as a scout, I'd never been in the jaws of a brystaya Kogot Formation.I remembered the hand at my shoulder. The violent explosions and near-death streaks of red tracer fire seemed to quiet themselves as I realized how firm Meg was. She'd never been in the heat of combat, and yet she was calmer than I'd ever felt her. I didn't need to turn to look at her face; I couldn't afford to. I could just... feel it.Quieter and quieter still. Calmer and calmer. I banked us around yet another meteoroid. A shot ricocheted mere inches away from the cockpit, but I didn't feel any panic. I kept flying. Meg kept her hand on her shoulder.A warmth spread through me then, and as I kept going I felt the warmth center around two points: Meg's hand on my shoulder, and my own hand, the hand with my birthmark. The warmth only grew the farther I flew.I don't know what it was but with Meg's hand on my shoulder, it felt like she was guiding me somehow. Without any words, I slowly eased the throttle to flare the thrusters to their fullest capacity. I didn't ease up on it, even in the thickest of obstacles; it felt like nothing could get in my way."To the left." Meg said, voice barely a whisper. "Roll into the plume."My body acted the moment words would leave her lips, almost as if I already knew what she was going to say. G-forces tugged hard at us as the bi-prop somersaulted abruptly to the left, red tracer-fire kissing its hull. A moment later and we sank into the embrace of a gas plume. My vision was reduced to nil as we rushed past yard after yard of gas. Meg didn't say anything as I kept up at full speed, blind.But even so, I felt safe, confident, focused. Meg- no, we guided my piloting. I didn't have to think, I just flew, tugged along by our combined will and that unexplainable warmth."Now." Meg said, and I totally understood what she meant.A violent jerk of my arms upward and the bi-prop leapt upwards, arcing over a geyser meteroid with inches to spare. The gamble had worked perfectly, and we had almost completely pulled away from the leading claws of the Kogot formation. Just one last push.I didn't need Meg to speak as I banked into another plume, hiding us from our pursuers as we also gained more of a lead. We flew in silence, her hand never leaving my shoulder. The bi-prop leapt over another geyser, sipping through another plume, exiting over yet another geyser. Meg didn't say another word. I followed.I wove our way through all of these secret channels as if I'd flown these rings my whole life. I started to wonder if I even needed to keep my eyes open. My heart beat at an even pace, my muscles firm but not tense. All I felt as I flew for my life, for Meg's life, was serenity. And between every blink I saw a golden path weave ahead of us. I followed.Everything began to blur. Moments bled into one another, the present slipping increasingly into the future, bolstered by mounting experience of moments past; real-space began to fold around me as time rolled into singularity. The physical danger, the mental toll, it all seemed so distant under the weight of warmth of our spirit. I followed.Then, Meg's hand left my shoulder. The warmth gradually receded until it emanated only from the back of my right hand. I blinked and a meteoroid rushed towards me."Shit!"I jerked the bi-prop to the left, hurtling us uncontrollably up, around, sideways… We were spiraling.Gone was all the control, the serenity, the assurance that I knew where I was going. But the warmth still flowed from my hand, and panic was still miles away.I slammed the throttle back completely, our bi-prop tumbling forth purely through inertia. The bi-prop sounded its alarm, then I heard various whirs and clicks as stabilizers did their work, their hisses counteracting the tumble.I braced for potential impact but nothing came. It meant we were out of the ring.Soon enough we flattened out with one last hiss, and I sped away with the throttle flared up again. If we were still alive in open space after a spiral it meant we'd at least outrun the brystaya advance's Kogot Formation. But that didn't mean they'd stopped pursuing us.I looked behind and sure enough, an entire cloud of shard star-fighters burst out from the planetary ring, less than a hundred feet from us. Not far behind that, the entire surprise attack force barreled through the ring, cruisers, destroyers, capital ships all crashing through everything in their way; surprise was out of the window.Turning my attention forward, I was met with the combined Roquai fleet. Whatever came over me, whatever had guided me when I flew through that ring had led me right back home.I was moments away from a smile before the bi-prop shook with a violent clang. We'd been shot. Thankfully it just clipped the tip of a wing, but the message was clear: the chase wasn't over yet.At this point it was only a matter of speed and dodging tracer-fire. Easy.Ordnance began to rain around me again, hot red lines of death. I made a beeline towards the Tzinquaw, spiraling in dodging helixes. I felt one with my bi-prop as the warmth kept burning in my right hand, as if melting my own being into the star-fighter itself.The combined fleet itself was still hurriedly arranging itself into defensive positions. Several squadrons were in the middle of dispatch, only a few forward defensive lines waiting for me, ready to engage. Heavy artillery behind them from the Tzinquaw and the larger destroyers were already lobbing arcing shots to the back line, mortars and torpedo exchange racing in thick lines. Gunships unloaded their green tracerfire, answered by Andrean red. Death-fire wove into a tapestry of color all around us.But the defensive line held their ground, holding their fire lest they accidentally shoot me down, and a princess along with me. I could feel them, all those pilots with their hands clutching tight on those control sticks, fingers poised on triggers, nerves taut.I just had to slip through the gap they had open for me. They tried to contact me with the comlink, directing me towards the hole in their defensive position, but I didn't need it. I could see it there, a hole in the Roquai defense like open arms. It got closer, and closer, bigger, and bigger. Just a few more minutes, a few more seconds, a few more yards... and I was homefree.The moment our bi-prop zoomed past it, hurtling behind the forward line, all hell broke loose. Lines of staggered star-ships behind the one we just past opened fire. In the span of a second, clash-space blossomed into the hellish rumble of war. I could hear the Kogot formation behind me crashing through the forward defensive line, relentlessly following the path my retreat cleared for them, their momentum built up from the asteroid ring unrelenting as they crashed through the next line of star-ships, then the next, and the next.No matter how fast I went, how many defensive lines I flew through on my way back to the safe haven of the Tzinquaw, I could hear that swarm of brystaya shards barrelling behind me. I was reminded of how a combined squadron of those monstrous star-fighters could hollow out entire capital ships if they weren't properly defended.And there was the Tzinquaw, our fleet's proud flagship, looming closer and closer with that unstoppable swarm on my tail.The Tzinquaw was more heavily reinforced by sacred-cedar than any other ship in the fleet, its hull and blast doors near-impervious to more orthodox Andrean attack strategy. But the difference here was that there was a docking bay waiting for Meg and I, wide open, completely defenseless to let us and the hundreds of self-sacrificing Andrean byrstaya right into its bowels.This never would have usually happened, not if we were ready for them with defensive lines and protective perimeters set around the Tzinquaw. But even with my forewarning to the fleet, we were still caught with our pants down. I could see dozens of transports still scrambling past dispatched fighters and cruisers, many of them still obviously sent out mid-repair.It was looking like the Andreans' surprise attack worked out for them in the end, and I had led them right to their biggest prize. This was maybe even a greater opportunity than if their surprise attack had gotten off without a hitch: a brystaya swarm actually finding an opening in the infamous Tzinquaw's impenetrable defenses? It would go down as the biggest military disaster in the Roquai Tribe's history, the end of the Tzinquaw's several centuries of naval service. No amount of reinforced hulls or layer upon layer of sacred-cedar could stop a brystaya swarm ripping it apart from the inside out.I had to try and stop that possibility from happening. Meg's life was the biggest priority, but that didn't mean I couldn't take any risks.I grabbed the comlink and dialed to the Tzinquaw's command frequency."Close the docking bay blast-doors, now.""Th-That's impossible, sir." the operator said, his frayed nerves as plain as the screech of emergency sirens blaring in the cabin behind him. "We can't risk-""You don't close that blast-door, and not only will a crown princess die, but that brystaya swarm behind me is going to make sure everyone on the Tzinquaw kicks the bucket along with her. Do I make myself clear?"The docking bay only crawled closer and closer. Another defensive line- this time of sacred-cedar fortified dreadnoughts -rushed past me. A moment later and I heard that unstoppable swarm rip through it like toilet paper. There would only be a few defenses left."But-""This is an order from the Thane of Phife." I barked as I passed another defensive line. The second to last. "Do I make myself clear?"A pause. Then,"Yes, sir."I saw the blast-doors sliding shut, giant slabs of the finest Erzenheim steel closing into place. Within a few seconds and I'd be stuck out here with the mindless horde of Andreans swallowing me whole.It was the tightest race so far as time slowed with every yard, every foot, every inch that my bi-prop shot towards that docking bay. I watched the blast-doors' steel jaws slide shut just as fast as I flew.I swear I could feel tears form in the corners of my eyes as I grit my teeth. The warmth felt as if it could sear through my control stick as I kept us steady, kept the bi-prop aimed for the smallest possible opening for the last possible second. It felt like I was the apex of our tin can reaching critical speed. One moment slower and we'd be a gory stain against the Tzinquaw's hull..The world around me seemed to become the gap itself...closer…closer...smaller...smaller-Then, the world went completely black. The last thing I remembered was the explosion of our bi-prop's four-point wings ripping off, caught in the steel jaws of the docking bay doors. In my last conscious moment, I ripped back on the throttle completely, the afterburners cooling to a whisper and the double propellers in front of me slowing to halt as the blast-doors locked tight behind us. Then, caught in artificial gravity with no wings or stabilizers to help us even out the spiral, I succumbed to the violent jerk of our crash.I saw nothing during the blackout.There was only darkness. It felt great. The past few minutes has stretched impossibly into a mini eternity, and my nerves were grateful for the deadening weight of unconsciousness.In the blackness, I still felt the warmth. It tugged at me. I tried ignoring it, tried to sink further into the embrace of dark, but the warmth didn't relent. It was if it were saying things weren't over. I needed to come back. As I swam in there, the warmth reminded me of my body, its tug blossoming in my chest. I followed it, all around, until I was aware of the rest of me. My legs. My head. My back. My feet. All around, until finally, my hands.The moment I felt the nucleus of that warmth firmly rooted on the back of my hand, I felt myself breathing again. I could feel my pulse. I focused on that, focused on the sound until I could hear my breathing. In. Out. In. Out. Swells of life-blood coursing through me with every inhale, my awareness mounting with every exhale.Then, I could hear more sounds. Dull, muffled, but sounds nonetheless.I heard gunfire. I heard steel against steel. Dampened shouts of soldiers, of distant thuds and rumbles. Explosions. But then, above it all, I suddenly heard violent, near-deafening cracks. Like glass. Then, I felt glass, chips of it, hard and splintered raining down on top of my unconscious head.
Crack...Crack. Crack! CRACK!
My eyes shot open as another shower of what felt like glass bits hit my face. I squinted, my vision blurry. I felt disoriented, dizzy. A throbbing migraine pounded in my cranium like motor pistons. I felt tempted to go unconscious again before that unexplainable warmth, unexplainable strength emanating from my right hand ripped through me in a surging bolt. Just like that, my grogginess evaporated, and yet another violent crack tore into my ear drums.And another shower of what felt like glass pelted my scalp. I only needed to tilt my head up to see what was going on.It was an Andrean pilot, towering above my cockpit. He had a war-crazed look in his eyes, and he had an exo-sword raised above his head.The dots connected instantly as my eyes focused on the hole in my cockpit, its transparisteel melted with the brunt strikes from an exo-sword. One more strike and he'd crack the cockpit wide open. My heart skipped as the next moment seemed to pass in slow motion. The Andrean yelled, the glowing heat of his exo-sword primed to pierce through my cockpit windshield completely, impaling me into hot steel.But I would be faster. With Meg still unconscious, I had to be.Moving on instinct over anything else, my hand shot to the standard-issue automatic pistol right on the side of my seat. The Andrean thrust his exo-sword with a shout, its glowing tip pointed right at my face. It didn't even reach the hole of my cockpit before I unloaded four shots of my automatic into the one spot on the Andrean's body that wasn't protected by his armored normal-suit: his head.A moment passed. Life-blood was the only thing that made contact with the cracked webwork of transparisteel, and the corpse stood for a moment above me, the bloodied eyes pouring rivulets of red all over the windshield, streaming through the cracks, showering me in fresh death.By the time the corpse crumpled to the docking bay floor, my face was covered in life-blood. I could taste it as I panted, its sticky warmth drizzling down my cheeks. I dropped the gun. I didn't need to check behind me to know Meg was unconscious. I needed to get her out of here. Or at least, protect her until the coast was clear.Wiping my eyes clear of life-blood, I pressed the emergency canopy eject, wincing at the harsh crack of explosives blowing the windshield off the mangled steel of my trainer bi-prop.The docking bay was in chaos.Despite the blast-doors shutting out the swarm of brystaya, it seemed that they still made it inside; there was a gaping hole in the blast-doors, the rim of its mouth still orange-hot from being melted through. On the other side, Andrean soldiers, Golems, and brystaya shards streamed through like bats.We'd been boarded.It was less severe than an entire Kogot formation ripping through the Tzinquaw's innards, but Andrean boarding spigots would still take hours of fighting to repel. The large, cylindrical transports were segmented transports carrying at least three battalions' worth of men, on top of a squadron of back-up shards, heavy mobile artillery, and dozens of Golems, stocky, Thunderbird-like mecha composed of Andrean marble.Once a boarding spigot's fangs hook onto the side of a capital ship, no hull in the galaxy would be thick enough to withstand its concentrated forced-entry lasers. And from there, it'd be up to the ship's crew to deal with the boarding party.From the final resting spot of our bi-prop's violent skid I drank in the uncontrolled chaos of battle.The Andrean boarding party had found more than sufficient room to form up battle lines in the docking bay. I could hear their brystaya shards causing havoc behind us in the Tzinquaw's innards. Despite our own forces gathering up quickly enough to stop the boarding party from reaching any of the passages leading into the inner and upper decks, the impromptu mobilization was sloppy, and the clash was fractured into several pockets of intense, bloody combat.The massive docking bay was proving to be a perfect battleground.From the distance I could see Briggs' distinctive Thunderbird grappling with two golems at once. I couldn't see anyone else from the squadron, seeing how they'd be busy chasing down the rogue shards causing mischief or helping secure the defensive perimeter outside.Before I could assess the situation any further, I sensed an immediate danger below me.It turns out I wasn't the only thing that he managed to squeeze past the slim gap of the closing docking-bay doors: just a few yards in front of me were several brystaya shards, their marbled hulls as worse for wear as my bi-prop, mangled and smoking.And just like me, the pilots were all conscious, two more of them stalking towards me with exo-swords in hand.I took a breath as they eyed me down, smearing more life-blood off my face with the sleeve of my topcoat. Another breath, another pulse of that galvanizing warmth from the back of my right hand. I cast a look below me into the exposed cockpit. Meg, unconscious, her peaceful face oblivious to the life-bloodshed around her. I was the only thing standing between her and the neon-green heated edge of an exo-sword.I shrugged off my topcoat, crouching to the side compartment of the cockpit. All bi-props, even trainers, were issued with a standard issue weapon for hand-to-hand combat. My pistol wouldn't do me any good: these Andrean pilots had their helmets on, and I knew my pistol wouldn't have nearly have enough bullets left to give me a fighting chance.So I pulled out the handle of the weapon lodged into the side of the cockpit and jumped to the ground.Its two-hand grip was familiar in my grasp: a Roquai battleax. I'd spent hours in the training room with one. Even after mandatory service I'd dedicate a few hours in there every weekend, keeping my skill from dying out.I hefted it, keeping my eyes on the two Andreans slowly approaching me. I took my own steps forward, getting a good feel on the battleax, on its weight before I hit the activation switch. The battleax extended to twice its length before its cutting edge sparked into fiery red. It faintly hummed in my grip, palpitating in rhythm with the hum of the warmth on my right hand.I eyed the Andrean closest to me.I never was that good at hand-to-hand. I wasn't built like Briggs, for one, and for two, even compared to the rest of Salmon Squadron (we were pilots, after all, not infantry), I'd suck complete ass even in training sessions against active, reciprocating target-dummies. In all my service, I'd only been in two situations where I'd needed to pull out a battleax, and both times I'd just be behind Briggs who'd barrel through anyone in his way with his sheer size alone.At that moment, I had every right to be nervous.To have a cold sweat, have a jackhammer heartbeat, to completely shit myself as I approached two, obviously very pissed-off Andrean pilots with exo-swords in hand.But, again, I felt that reassuring warmth of my hand.I kept myself grounded, focused. My breathing was as focused as it was in the asteroid field. I'd just escaped a Kogot formation and blasted some chump in the face a minute ago.Two Andrean pilots? Cake.I looked at the pilot closest to me, and got into a defensive stance, hands wide apart on the handle. He was close now, only one stride and he'd be within striking distance. We stared each other down, slowly shifting our feet. He had his exo-sword raised, its hilt next to his cheek, its tip poised towards my throat like a viper moments before a strike. The Andrean behind him was still approaching, at least a dozen yards away. I needed to get rid of this pilot before this turned into a two-on-one.I had to strike first.With a yell I shifted my footwork faster than I ever had in my life, dropping the defensive stance, letting the front-heavy weight of the battle ax bring it towards the ground in an arc. One step forward and I used the momentum to swing it upwards.The Andrean's offensive stance made him falter, and the red-hot edge of my battleax nearly grazed his nose as he staggered back. My hands were closer together on the handle now. Planting my forward foot, I threw my weight into a downwards strike. The Andrean had barely a moment to block it with his exo-sword. Sparks flew. He had one gloved hand on the blade itself as I pushed down hard, the vibrations of our fiery steel making my knuckles white. His comrade grew closer; in the corner of my eye I could see him break out into a run.Gritting my teeth I closed the distance between us with a kick to his armored abdomen. It wouldn't hurt him, but it completely broke his already-faltering balance. He let out a grunt, the exo-sword helplessly slipping away from the domineering push of my battleax. One upward slash and the edge of my battleax melted through his chin, his jaw, his entire face with the smooth slice of a hot knife through butter.I stopped the battleax's arc mid air, locking into another defensive position as the Andrean's corpse plummeted to the ground, the gashed meat-bag of what remained of his face spraying me in more life-blood.One down.And only a moment later, I looked up to see the second.Without even thinking I struck, fiery steel cracking against fiery steel. The warmth of my right hand grew hot. And the hotter it burned, the stronger I became, the faster my reactions. It felt like the Andrean was moving in slow motion as I parried, lunged, countered. Unlike the first Andrean, this pilot was obviously a bit more experienced. But my battleax cut through the thick cord of his neck nonetheless. I watched as his horrified eyes bulged out of his head the moment I decapitated him, his pilot's helmet flying off in the force of my slash, life-blood of what was once a living man staining my sneakers as a reward.I'd barely broken a sweat.And yet I panted, looking at the two fresh bodies before me. Their life-blood didn't stop spilling out onto the docking bay floor. Its red initially spurt like hot geysers before accumulating to thick pools like molasses.I'd done it. I'd protected Meg for now. I just needed to get her out of here.But I couldn't tear my eyes away from the disembodied head at my feet. The life-blood was starting to congeal over his sockets. His open mouth was the only signifier of what he felt during his last moments: horror.The same sentiment ran through me as my heart pounded, as the sounds of battle turned into a din of pink noise around me.It's just been a while. That's what I said to myself as I closed my eyes. I was just doing my job. It was either them or Meg. It's not like this was the first people I'd killed either. Thoughts of the cruisers, destroyers, countless brystaya shards I'd shot down with a single squeeze of my bi-prop's control stick flashed through my mind. See? I've killed dozens, hundreds of these bastards. What was the difference of three more?Wouldn't you feel jaded at this point?The life-blood seeped through my turtleneck, making the fabric stick against my skin. I didn't even know whose life-blood it was.I took a breath before turning back to the wrecked trainer bi-prop before I heard footsteps. Turns out these two weren't the only Andrean pilots who'd crash-landed near me.I turned around again to face whoever was approaching me. If he had a pistol he'd easily could have shot me; I wasn't armored like everyone else was. But one look at his scarred and battle-mangled face and I knew he probably wouldn't be the type to shoot me in the back even if given the chance.He was huge. Probably as tall and stocky and built as Briggs if not moreso. He had a grim smile on his face as he hefted his exo-sword, dragging it along the ground, its laser-green edge drawing a sparking line against the steel floor.He had a bright green sash tied to around his forehead.An Andrean captain."So you're the little fucker who found us out there, huh?" he said, his voice a growl. "Lanky little thing for causing all of this."I gripped my battleax, slowly shifting into a defensive stance. The warmth of my right hand was scalding now. It felt like it was burning through my skin. I winced."Yeah well I was expecting a pleasure flight. I only 'started' anything because you came after me in that fucking Kogot.""You know mercy isn't a rule of engagement in clash-space. With the way you handled that little trainer out there, I'd say you've quite the experience Roquai Boy."He sure had a big mouth to match his size.He cast a glance at the bleeding corpses again. Then, inexplicably, he shoved his exo-sword into the steel ground. Sparks flew as it sat there while he started to take off his marbled Andrean armor. He kept talking."But seeing how you've already taken care of some of my men while you're outnumbered, I figured I'll give you a more honorable fight as your last one." he said, each article of plate armor clanking against the ground.I coughed, my chest giving a crackle. I managed a little loogie and I spat it straight at him. It didn't land anywhere near close but the statement was clear. I reiterated it just to make sure."You know as well as I do Andrean honor is bullshit.""And Roquai honor isn't? Isn't that what your 'Allmother' asked of you? 'Spirit-fire with spirit-fire'. Centuries of war waged to bring her glory.""I don't need some Andrean to preach at me right now." I said. He was getting under my skin. "I just capped one of your boys in the fucking face with a pistol without giving him a fair fight, you think I care about bullshit like honor? I don't fight for fun like you, asshole. I'm fighting to survive so I can go home and have a smoke. We fight to live."The Andrean captain chuckled. He was completely rid of his armor now, clad only in the base layer of his combat gear. He gripped the hilt of his exo-sword, flashing me that tired smile. He could have been old enough to be my father."Honor isn't just bullshit, Roquai Boy. It's a lie. If you've seen as many comrades fall as I have, as many battles, then you'd know that all of this is a lie. Even your reason to fight? To live? Nothing but more bullshit. They tell us the same. I grew up my whole life believing it.""Then why believe in your lie, old man?""Because if you're a soldier, you die as a soldier. If I put down this sword, my neck will meet your ax. And vise versa. It won't stop, and once you become a soldier, you don't have much else to believe. I can see it in your eyes, kid. You look soft, but those eyes...it's easy to see they don't find any meaning when it's not out here." he paused, letting the chaos and the bloodshed surrounding us take the place of words. "You'll never find a place back wherever you call home. Not when there's a war without end. Not when you know you have a chance, however small, to stop it. But at the end of the day you're a soldier as worthless as the rest of us. We all think we can stop it. We all lie to ourselves that we can stop it. What else can we do? " the Andrean extracted his exo-sword from the ground, a blossom of green sparks sprouting from the hole it had melted. He pointed the exo-sword at me. Not in any practical stance, but as a showy, traditional display of challenge. "So buy into it, just this once. Role-play with me."A golem crashed into a wall just a few dozen feet away from us as a Thunderbird immediately followed with a crushing elbow to its face. Another golem ran in to grapple it from behind, while a third golem charged in to rip off the Thunderbird's head. The mechanical titan exploded, rocking the ground beneath us.But we held steady, eyes locked. I lowered my battleax."Believe in this lie. It might be your last chance to have a bit of fun. And if you win with my blood on your hands, you'll see that lies are almost always better than truth." he said. He closed his eyes. The next moment he opened them, the tone of his voice changed completely. It bellowed louder than anything around us. His voice this time sounded more lively, less jaded. Younger. A voice that bought into every word that followed. He was lying through his teeth. And to my surprise, I was buying it. "I am Fyodor Ovcharenko, Captain of the Andrean 422nd. In the name of our mighty Father, your blood will pave the path to His paradise."Silence hung in the air for the next moment. I could have lunged forward then and there with my battleax, but I remained where I stood. My throat grew dry, and my gloved right hand felt like it was going to burn itself off my arm completely.I took my right hand off my battleax, and returned his icy glare with one of my own. I'd buy into the lie. I'd fight him with "honor".Then, I took my right hand to my mouth and ripped the leather glove off with my teeth, revealing the blinding light of my birthmark. It was glowing impossibly-bright, its interlace a distinct gold. I spit the glove from my mouth and gripped the battleax with both hands, pointing its activated edge towards his extended exo-sword."I am Taft Royalguard, Thane of Phife. In the Allmother's name, my spiritfire will douse yours to the darkness of eternal sleep."He didn't even acknowledge the divine glow of my right hand, and instead charged at me headlong. I saw the wisps of grey in his hair for a fraction of a second before our blades clashed. I returned the favor in force, parrying one of his strikes to lunge for his throat before he countered that. Sparks flew and our blades violently shook, their heated edges intersecting in brilliant flashes of light.Just from the first few blows I knew this Captain Fyodor was heads and shoulders above the pilots I'd just slain in skill. Even with the enhanced strength, the instincts, the speed that I got from that birthmark coursing through my veins, he still anticipated my next stabs, my next lunges, almost all of my next attacks.A blow from his exo-sword hit me off-balance, and in the moment's stagger he lunged forward, the heat from his blade's edge whispering a close death near my cheek. I took a step back.I panted as our feet moved in tandem, our eyes in a deadlock. Nothing else was around me. I needed to kill this man. My fingers readjusted, every minute detail of my stance planned. I could tell that he was studying all of them just from the corners of his eyes, and that thought excited me.I didn't even realize that he had me stepping back. At this rate I'd only be a few paces backwards before I'd be cornered against my bi-prop. There was another burning flash from my birthmark and I surged forward before he could continue. Again, his exo-sword caught my battleax's downwards arc. More sparks.He parried, knocking me off-balance. I ducked his sideways counter-strike, his blade grazing my hair. It was when I peered past the deadly green glow of his exo-sword that I noticed his scarred and grizzled face. He was grinning.Even after acknowledging the futility of all this, the deaths, the war, there was a gleam in his eye that was undeniable mirth. And after I countered his next swing with a hard shove, grip on my hilt white-knuckle, I realized I was grinning too.In that moment nothing else mattered. For the first time in a long time I felt like I had a purpose, something other than to survive on to the next day, something other than vainly hope for some lost love to rekindle out of thin air, something other than dedicate yet another sleepy day in a dusty old palace to perform a duty I'd inherited as birthright.War, believing in what it meant, or, what everyone else said it meant, made me feel alive. Every clash against this stranger's blade felt better than the last. And I never wanted it to end.I felt more alive than I have in years.He gave a yell as I pinned him, his sheer strength sending me flying back several feet towards my bi-prop. He panted, wiping his forehead with his forearm."Starting to get it, Roquai Boy?"I didn't need to say anything for him to know the answer. He flashed a smile."I never thought you'd last this long. I'm starting to think you'll actually kill me.""I'm surprised you'd think otherwise.""Come, then."That was right. That was the only way to make this lie reality: I needed to kill him. I needed his life-blood showering all over my face, that warm sticky splatter of death to remind me why I was alive. It was just the kind of insanity that would make everything else gain new meaning. I'd be living out all the mantras and the endless recited tenets to fruition. Killing this man would give me purpose.He was tiring in the next second that our blades clashed. I could feel it in the way his next swing felt just a fraction more sluggish, in how his labored breath snaked its way between the steel of our weapons.And to my shock, I was tiring too.The burning heat of my birthmark was fading. I still felt the warmth through me, the added strength, but I also felt it starting to wane. I had to end this quick. I needed his head.We were close to the bi-prop when he read my parry and shoved the hilt of his exo-sword deep into my gut with his entire weight. My breath left my lungs and I was thrown onto the ground. If it wasn't for the divine warmth, I would have passed out then and there.But I held on, managing to fend him off as he bore down on me with his exo-sword grinding against my battleax. It was a show of strength, a last-ditch effort on his part. He straddled me on the ground, seeing how low he could push the hilt of my battleax with the weight of his blade. The sparks made me wince as they splashed against my cheeks, the heat of our clashed blades making me sweat.I just needed a minute. I could already feel my second wind returning. I grunted, clenched my teeth. I reached deep into his eyes with my own, telling him that this fight was far from over. I could see that he knew it too. He wanted it as much as I did. My legs found a good position to throw his bulk off me, and it'd take only a few more swings until-
CRACK!
Life-blood exploded all over my face. The impossible weight of Captain Fyodor's exo-sword bearing down on the hilt of my battleax waned in an instant. I lay there in shock, my vision obscured in sticky and warm red as I felt his monstrous body sink on top of mine.A few moments passed before I threw aside my battleax. I wiped my eyes clean of Fyodor's life-blood, feeling fragments of his skull and bits of what was once his brains smear against my skin. I wriggled out from under his heavy corpse, my eyes fixed upon the aftermath of what had just happened.He lay there, sprawled out with a gaping hole on the side of his head. The grin was still on his face and his eyes looked up at me as if he were as alive as he was just a few seconds ago. My breathing grew uneven.I didn't do that. That wasn't my kill.Then I heard someone else's panting coming from above me from the wreck of my bi-prop.Meg stood there, shaking. The standard issue pistol was gripped in her hands and I could see just a faint thread of smoke wisping from its barrel. Her eyes were wide with fear, with horror. She'd just killed Captain Fyodor.She'd just taken her first life.I looked up at her, my entire body caked and sticky with blood. I felt more defeated than I'd ever felt in my entire life. Everything about this felt wrong, yet I couldn't put my finger specifically on what about it bothered me the most. Captain Fyodor shouldn't have died like that. I felt a pain sprout in my chest for this enemy, this stranger that I'd just had the intent of beheading, this old man who I only met a few minutes ago. I barely knew him, yet the sense of loss remained. He shouldn't have died. Not like this. Not at my hand.This was my fault. I should have ended the fight faster. I was infuriated, horrified, and utterly empty all at once. Captain Fyodor's kept ringing in my head; I felt like the fight hadn't ended, not when I wasn't the one who killed the man who now lay dead before me. I wanted more. I needed more.The pistol clattered to the ground as Meg clambered over the lip of the cockpit. She was shaking a little, and I saw the faint glow of gold interlace over her heart, its light piercing through her hoodie. It slowly faded to nothing. She locked eyes with me and slowly walked to where I stood. I didn't move.I broke our gaze and my eyes refocused to the fresh corpse that lay before me. I felt her arms wrap around me, felt her softly sob and whisper my name. I kept looking at the corpse as my own arms wrapped around her. She held me tighter. Life-blood from the fabric my clothes oozed onto her skin, staining her whole body in red. We held onto each other all the same.The battle raged on, and that strange emptiness gnawed at my chest.
----- CHAPTER BREAK -----
Episode 6:
wergild.
ᚹᛖᚱᚷᛁᛚᛞ.
“Fucking idiot…” Ilya said, biting into her thumbnail. She watched the Draugar inched closer and closer to its death as the Tzinquaw inched further and further away in a tactical retreat.
The command deck shook with a stray artillery blast. Alarms that had been ringing out for the past several hours had turned into pink noise. Officers and staff at their various stations were strapped into their seats as the Tzinquaw did a slow retreat from the entrenched Andrean fleet inside the planetary ring. Only Meg and I dared to remain standing alongside Ilya- Eliot was strapped into his chair, his eyes blank as megabytes of battle data streamed through his systems.
It’d been at least three hours since the crash landing into the docking bay, meaning Meg and I had plenty time to clean ourselves in our quarters after being extracted from the heated battlefield by nearby reinforcements.
We didn’t have time to talk or think much; immediately after we solemnly shed our life-bloodied clothes, took turns to shower, and changed, right after we were decent, Ilya summoned us back onto the command deck.
At first, it was just to make sure we were safe. It was a rare moment where Ilya showed genuine concern beyond her words, and even with her usual averseness to physical contact, she’d given both of us a hearty embrace. But before she could dismiss us, a brystaya swarm hammered into a control tower only a few yards away from us. The bridge’s blast-doors slammed shut out of precaution of more boarders. We were stuck.
We stood there and watched as Ilya returned to her command, dishing out her orders and demanding status reports on various parts of our fleet. After the threat of more boarders was neutralized and the blast-doors were lifted, Meg and I decided to stay there, standing alongside Ilya’s unyielding arm-crossed stature.
Now, we watched through the viewport as the “idiot” Ilya referred to, namely, Admiral Schäuble, manned his fleet and the flagship of the Draugar towards the planetary ring. From our safe distance we could see flecks of brystaya tear through his destroyers.
Earlier on, Ilya had told him to take the retreat with us, pull back all his forces to put distance between us and the surprise attack, waging a temporary war of attrition to gather our wits and think of the next move.
But even with her rank Ilya couldn’t stop the stubborn old Admiral, who insisted that if they struck hard and fast now, heavy artillery and torpedo-fire could easily work in tandem with the geysered planetary ring to put a stop to the attack. Since that last transmission, he’d cut off communications completely, leaving us to watch as his fleet brazenly advanced upon the Andrean fortification.
Granted, it was an admirable plan to use the natural environment in an offensive manner. But what Admiral Schäuble just didn’t take into account was that maybe the enemy fleet had more hidden units inside the gaseous meteroid graveyard that he so wanted to use against them.
Sure enough (not even half an hour into Schäuble’s slow advance to the Andreans’ flank), hidden brystaya squadrons started pouring out from the ring into his own left flank, their high mobility and deadly boarding spigots felling destroyer after destroyer, carrier after carrier, until finally their larger hidden units arose to further push into Schäuble’s panicked and scrambling formations.
Gradually the chaos continued. The Dragaur and the vanguard pressed on, but his fleet’s flanks were slowly and steadily whittled away. What capital ships remained from the carnage rushed to the offensive’s core lines, sidling up to the Dragaur to attempt a spearhead.
Schäuble’s folly came into full fruition only a mile or so away from optimal firing position. At this point, both of his flanks were scattered and all but useless, his core vanguard unloading all of its ordnance and artillery, jettisoned torpedoes streaking white lines through the red-green exchange of death. Andrean brystaya fighter shards were already skimming against his innermost defensive lines; Schäuble’s core was so compromised the Dragaur itself was unloading broadsides just to repel any incoming forces.
It was at this point that the Dragaur exploded.
It was obvious from the getgo that it would eventually sink or Schäuble would finally see reason, finally notice that none of his artillery or torpedo-fire had caused any significant dent in the enemy fleet’s entrenched position, but it still shocked the entire command deck into silence as we watched on.
With its massive size, it was like watching a trainwreck in slow motion: the spectacle of the capital ship’s sacred cedar silently succumbing to blooming shrouds of fire went on for at least fifteen minutes, its innards gutted by swarm after swarm of brystaya, its hull battered and blown to bits by incessant artillery.
Almost instinctively I grabbed the chain around my neck to kiss it. The second before it touched my lips I paused. Life-blood was still encrusted in its little golden knots, and Captain Fyodor’s face flashed in my head. I’d need to deep clean it later.
As the Dragaur completely splintered into useless hunks of wood and twisted steel, the rest of the formation broke completely. Ilya just shook her head, no doubt thinking of the thousands of deaths we’d just witnessed, preventable losses. Routing forces desperately raced towards us, and we watched as ruthless Kogot formations entrapped hundreds of hapless pilots. A shiver ran down my spine at the sight, thinking of what could have happened to me and Meg only a couple hours ago.
I felt her squeeze my hand. I didn’t even know how long she’d been gripping it.
I looked down at her. She still looked distant. Her brow was furrowed and her eyes glazed over, peering into the impenetrable. Her skin felt clammy in my grip, and I felt the instinct to hold her.
She didn’t look up at me. Instead, her grip squeezed tighter.
Clash-space was no place for her.
An officer brushed past me, a star-chart in his hands. He curtly handed it to Ilya.
“The charts you requested, Grand Admiral.”
Ilya dismissed him with a nod. She pushed up on her wireframe glasses, eyes scanning the plastene scans. She brought her thumb to her teeth again before she strode over to Eliot’s data-processing chair. Ilya slipped the star-charts into a slot in the back. Eliot’s eyes flashed in a surge of data.
“Eliot, run me calculations for these coordinates, and extrapolate their fold-yield in relation to current position.” Ilya said.
“...don’t tell me you’re going to try that , Ilya,” Eliot said, presumably knowing her intentions the moment he’d scanned the charts.
“What else do you propose we do, genius? Turn tail and let them follow us? Just run those calculations. Let’s see if all that RAM is actually worth something.”
Eliot let out a mechanical hum that was his equivalent of a scoff, but his fingers went to work all the same. More and more lines of data stacked on top of each other in his eyes as his metal fingers furiously typed out calculations on the digi-pads of his chair’s armrests at an inhuman speed.
A minute later and Eliot was finished, new data being printed out from behind his data-processing chair.
“And here you were calling Schäuble an idiot.”
“One more word out of you and you can kiss that new motherboard goodbye, L.” Ilya said, reading over the new data with keen eyes. Eliot let out his warbling grumble again but stayed silent.
Then, Ilya had an aide summon her Vice Admiral.
He was a stocky man, on the younger side of forty. His eyes were weary, and he looked as if he’d been in battle for more than a day instead of a few hours.
“Tell the fleet to fold-jump to these coordinates at my command. I also want all heavy artillery and torpedo bays to hold their fire and primed until my order.”
The Vice Admiral pored over the data, his tired eyes widening in shock.
“With all due respect, Grand Admiral, this-”
“...is a maneuver that requires very direct orders, and also requires the fleet to follow those orders to a T.” Ilya said, her voice as unyielding as her posture as she crossed her arms. A stray detonating shell glinted off the lenses of her wireframe glasses. ”Do I make myself clear?”
The Vice Admiral obviously had more protests as he double-checked the data to make sure Ilya wasn’t insane, but a moment later, he bit his tongue.
“As you command, Grand Admiral.”
Ilya nodded.
She turned about to stare down the Andrean forces. The Vice Admiral remained where he stood, waiting for a dismissal.
“And tell the rear vanguard to stay behind. We still have routing forces from Schäuble’s counter-attack. Wouldn’t want them to fend for themselves.”
“Of course, Grand Admiral.”
She dismissed him with her signature curt nod. With a click of his heels he gave her a salute, then turned to Meg and I and did the same before he finally strode off the central command platform’s stairs. Ilya waited for him to be out of earshot before a sigh passed through her nostrils.
“...what exactly are you planning, Ilya?” I said, curious about what sort of crazy maneuver we were about to get involved in. I saw that look in her eye, that fiery assuredness, the determination in that unreadable line of her lips. Then, right after I asked, the confident smirk on the side of her mouth.
“A way out.”
Suddenly the hum of the fold-drive reverberated throughout the command deck. I felt its telltale pulse under my feet. At the same moment the torpedo-fire and heavy artillery ceased. At this distance, both counter-offensive measures were blind shots into the dark anyway, but it was still noticeably bizarre to only have red Andrean ordnance whizzing past the viewport.
Ilya stepped forward to the frontmost handrail of her command platform. From below, every officer and technician and aide had their eyes on her; the whole fleet was waiting in bated breath for Ilya’s next order.
Stoic as always, she kept her arms crossed and her eyes focused on the Andrean entrenchments. They didn’t budge an inch.
Then, with a mighty flourish Ilya extended her right arm, giving the signal to advance.
“Commence fold, keep thrusters on standby.”
The bated breath was released with a sudden burst of activity. The command deck turned into a rushed murmur as the preparations were put into place, orders relayed to the hundreds of other ships around the Tzinquaw .
Then, that hum of the fold-drive began to ramp up, escalating into that precarious-sounding whine.
“Ilya you’re not seriously doing a fold-jump are you? We don’t have fold-space here charted at all.” I said, starting to feel the panic that the Vice Admiral had probably felt when he’d read the data Ilya gave him and the maneuver that it entailed.
“Fold-routes are irrelevant in small distances less than a parsec.” Ilya said, calm as ever. The warp-drive was reaching its fever pitch, and I could already feel the weightlessness of a fold begin to creep under the soles of my sneakers. “And it looks to me the distance between us and that planetary ring isn’t even close to a parsec.” Ilya turned and gave me a chilling smile. “...wouldn’t you agree?”
A crack of thunder and suddenly we were in the fold, ink-black turning into the rush of lightning-veined cloud walls.
“Here comes the tricky part,” Ilya mumbled before raising her voice to its full capacity. “Bring us about.”
“Ilya are you-”
“We have less than a minute for this to work. Bring us about.” she repeated. “Hard to port, concentrate full power to starboard thrusters.”
Then, she turned to Meg and I as she uncrossed her arms and found a hard grip on the handrail.
“You might want to hold on to something.”
This was pure insanity. I suddenly regretted the choice to stand alongside Ilya as Meg and I followed her lead, gripping onto the nearest handrail for dear life.
Spatial maneuvers in the confines of fold-space were never attempted for a reason: g-forces were amplified tenfold in there, and if you weren’t careful about exactly how much force your craft produced and where, the sheer inertia and g-forces of hurtling through fold-space could easily rip your ship apart.
I could only watch in horror as the Tzinquaw , and every ship in its wake, followed Ilya’s orders and began to about turn. This was suicide.
It didn’t take long before the consequence of our turn slammed into us full force. Instead of the weightlessness of a typical fold-jump, my body was wrenched to the side as if I was just hit by a freight train. The entire deck let out a resounding boom as the g-forces swept over the entire fleet. Meg screamed.
“Steady!” Ilya yelled over the din. “Ride out this next wave, and keep those weapons hot!”
Above the clamor, Ilya kept her voice constant and unyielding, even if her own body was being thrown around by the incessant battering of fold-waves against our hull. Sparks began to burst from the ceiling. Cracks started splintering through the viewport.
“Steady…” Ilya said. An officer screamed as he was flung against a wall. “Steady…”
The Tzinquaw let out moans of pain, bellowing creaks that came from the deepest bowels of its hull. I could only imagine what the other departments were going through, how the other several thousand men on her crew were holding on for dear lives inside the steel confines of the ship like corned beef in a tin can.
My own grip was beginning to slip. I gritted my teeth, feeling my hearing buzzing as the corners of my vision slowly ebbed into darkness. Through the transparisteel it looked like we were in the eye of a storm; the fold-clouds seemed to be spinning around us at an impossible speed, round, and round, and round, veins of unknown lightning threatening to pick off our corpses like plasma buzzards once our structural integrity would fall apart completely.
It was like fold-space itself was trying its damndest to spit us back out. Gone was its tranquility, the slow cruise through usual fold-routes. My brain felt slammed into its skull, reality seemed to tear and pull as the Tzinquaw kept turning around.
One more wave of this and we’d be done for…
I was close to just letting go of the handrail when-
“Open a fold-gate! Now!” Ilya yelled, and only seconds after her command, the familiar crack of thunder rocked the entire ship. The world outside of the command deck turned black, and all the g-forces threatening to rip us apart vanished, leaving a sickly weightlessness in its wake. A moment later and real-space careened into view, artificial gravity crashing around us all like a ton of bricks.
My lunch barreled out of my stomach in a torrent of vomit. Meg followed suit, and throughout the command deck I could hear several other retches and wet splatters onto the floor. Ilya- of course -seemed perfectly fine.
I didn’t even have a chance to look up through the viewport when Ilya bellowed her next command with another flourish of her arm.
“Open fire!”
Thousands of hot lines of heavy artillery and torpedo-fire lit up the viewport. The moment I recovered from another projectile discharge of whatever I ate at the cafeteria, all of that forward fire was met with distant explosions of contact.
It took me a few more moments to situate myself. Then, looking up, I found us suddenly positioned right behind the Andrean entrenchment, snuggled comfortably between Yekakerstok and its planetary ring.
Now it was the Andreans’ turn to be caught with their pants down.
Blossoms of hundreds upon hundreds of explosive contact spotted the long line of Andrean ships like bloody berries on a vine. Some of them tried to return fire, others desperately sent out brystaya squadrons, but it was too late. Within minutes, the Andreans were beginning to rout.
Our fleet kept up its bombardment, the rear vanguard we’d left behind to rendezvous with Schäuble’s routing forces pressing on in a surprise advance; we’d effectively sandwiched the Andrean forces, with our heaviest firepower unloaded onto their rear without giving them any time to formulate a counter-strategy. And unlike Schäuble’s bloody counter-offensive, Ilya’s impromptu and extremely unorthodox strategy cost us zero casualties (aside from the thousands of regurgitated lunches, and probably more than a few hundred broken bones).
Meg and I could only watch in amazement as the battle, which seemed like it would have taken several more hours of grueling exchange of fire, suddenly ended in an endless string of exploding Andrean craft.
“...I’m starting to think that crazy fold-space stunt of yours was worth it.” Eliot said.
Ilya gave a satisfactory chortle.
“It’s not too often that I impress you, L.”
“Don’t get used to it.”
We watched as the routing Andreans forces were pursued by bi-prop squadrons and cruisers picking off the stragglers. Ilya also had some reconnaissance tail closer behind just so we could see exactly what unknown fold-route they’d taken to sneak up on us.
I let out a long exhale, still feeling a little sick to my stomach.
“You’re still batshit insane as you always were, Ilya.” I said, staggering back to lean against a rail behind me.
Ilya just flashed a grin at me before taking a few steps back to take a rare seat at her command chair. Distant explosions refracted in sprouts of color on her glasses, her attention affixed to the routing Andreans.
“I prefer ‘unorthodox.’” she said, her thumbnail slipping between her teeth. “After all, everything went according to plan.”
Meg turned away to hurl again.
Just like that, the battle was finally over.
The dining hall was packed. After the chaos of the surprise attack, it seemed everyone had an empty stomach.
It was loud, but all of it wasn’t as loud as the violent tumble I felt inside of me. It felt like the battle was a temporary sun-break from the roiling black of stormy cloud cover, but now that cloud cover was back in full force.
I shut my eyes, trying to keep myself grounded. It'd been an exhausting day as it was.
We’d left the rest of the fleet and whatever was left of Schäuble’s decimated forces back on the moon of Yekakerstok to lick their wounds and resupply with the native population. Meanwhile, the Tzinquaw and a detached escort fleet was now en route back to the Phife.
To my relief, Salmon Squadron had made it out of the life-bloodbath unscathed, and everyone was just as relieved, if not more so to see Meg and I still in one piece.
We shared a long meal through fold-space. I was still picking at my meatloaf at this point; I wasn’t really in the mood to eat. Fernando was regaling us with tales from the battle, the tally of his killcount in the heat of the fighting with Fernanda downplaying every single thing he said. Meg was leaning forward, her face scrunched in attentive rapture. But I could see her eyes. She wasn’t ok-she’d barely even touched her tankard of mead.
For my part I just kept quiet, casting spaced-out looks towards veined fold-clouds scrolling past the dining room viewport.
Lucas mostly kept to himself with a pleasant smile as he usually did while Briggs kept piling on seconds, thirds, and fourths. Everybody seemed…normal. And why wouldn’t they be? They’d been in the service for all the years I’d dropped out of it. A skirmish like the one we just had was just another day…
Captain Fyodor’s grin flashed in my mind.
...just another day in an endless war.
I took a long draught from my mug of coffee-my fourth that evening.
Nancy seemed to be the only one who really noticed something was off.
She kept giving me concerned glances that I casually brushed aside with reassuring grins, a sip of coffee.
But she kept it up as the minutes slid on by, and with a sigh I dismissed myself to use the lavatory. As expected, Nancy was right behind me.
I found us in an offshoot hall a few turns away from the dining hall. Even in this random hallway, the homeliness of the light cast off furnished sacred cedar put me a little more at ease, its warm glow framing the tight curls of Nancy’s frizzy hair tied up in its bun.
We shared a look and gave me a small squeeze of the shoulder before crossing her arms. She gave me that motherly look she always did, the look she’d give at the perfect time when someone in our squad needed someone to talk to.
She didn’t even need to prompt me and I pulled out the catalyst of my distant looks.
It was Captain Fyodor's bandana. I unfurled in my palm, its length hanging off the sides of my hand. Only a few hours before it was strapped around his head, wildly flying about in a verdant green as we crossed blades. But now it was a dark red.
I looked up at Nancy again and started to spill.
She listened throughout it as I stumbled through everything. About how I’d somehow awoken that weird power that guided Meg and I through the planetary ring. How I killed three pilots without so much a drop of sweat. How I felt more alive than I ever had when I met that queer old guy who started to wax poetic about war. And how Meg blew his brains out with a single shot from a standard issue pistol.
By the end of it, I felt as empty as I did standing over his body. I remembered his grin, the words that I kept replaying in my head ever since the whole thing ended. I remembered how it felt to parry his blows, to
buy into the lies everyone thought I already believed in.
I remembered how it felt like the soul was sucked out of me the moment Meg took her shot.
I took a breath, remembering the dark red crust that I couldn’t wash out of my chain.
Nancy didn’t say anything. Instead, she closed the distance between us and gave me a hug.
Another breath and I wrapped my arms around her all the same. We stood together like that for almost a minute.
“You have to be there for Meg,” she said, her words muffled against my chest, but their lucidity as clear, pragmatic, and caring as they ever were. “but you still have a lot about yourself to figure out.”
I let out a sigh, my fingers fumbling for a ghostly bacca stick. I broke the hug and gave her my best attempt at a smile coupled with a shrug.
“Yeah. Obviously.”
“It’s never easy. I know what you might be thinking, sitting over there with the squad and everyone’s making jokes and eating dinner like it’s another day at the office. But let me tell you this: every life we take has a price. Spiritfire is an exchange of life, not just the dousing of it. We all give a part of ourselves every time we take a part of others.”
“ Wergild .” I said, quoting the Tosodan’s doctrine of the “man-price”. “Every life or injury taken will have to be repaid somehow.”
“It’s the ‘somehow’ that’s the tricky part,” Nancy said. “The very concept of wergild tries to pose an answer to the question: ‘what is the life of a single man worth?’. Or more specifically, ‘how much of ourselves do we owe to repay the life we’ve just taken?’
“Back then, it was easy. You’ve read the nursery Tosodan picture books. How ancient thanes and prophets preached about wergild , how wergild to them was simply sacred treasure given to the family of the warrior they’d killed. It was honorable. Clean. Simple.
“But now we’re zipping around in bi-props, blasting away entire fleets with capital ships, bombarding enemy entrenchments with heavy bombers. And so we all tell ourselves that its liberation from the Andrean regime that’ll be our wergild, giving all those billions of ‘subjugated’ people a chance to taste the freedom of an order under our Holy Allmother.
“We all tell ourselves that every life we take is the Andrean wergild for taking lives of our brothers. And we keep lying to ourselves that our spiritfire somehow deserves to burn brighter than theirs.”
Nancy paused. Her eyes searching into mine for a moment, growing wet.
“But it’s all lies, Taft, like that Captain said. There’s no quantifiable ‘price’ for what you’ve done. For what Meg did. We all know that, but you’ve always just been more sensitive to that fact. It’s not like the ancient days when we can just fork over a gold buckle to a wife who we just turned into a widow.”
I slumped against the wall behind me, shoving my hands into my pockets. I fiddled with the steel of my lighter, turning it over and under my fingers. I’ve heard this spiel before, but hearing it from Nancy again just felt right. Still, a slowed tailspin was still a tailspin. I could just see the clouds around me better now.
I sighed, letting a moment pass between us as Nancy kept reaching out to me with those eyes of hers.
“Then how do cope?”
She shrugged.
“You know the answer to that Taft. You asked this the first time you scored a direct hit on that cruiser during our first operation together:” she put her hands on my shoulders. Nancy had always been the same height as me and her eyes bore into mine, looking for something that I couldn’t see. “you surrender it all to Her.”
I didn’t know if that was the answer I wanted. Brother Ayer’s platitudes of how “Mother works in mysterious ways”. Vague dismissals of personal struggles. Inside, the tailspin continued, and I could hear thunder.
“Yeah, bullshit right?” Nancy said. And again, she could see right through me. I flushed.
“Sorry. I know it’s fucking stupid. Like, out of literally anyone else to start having a crisis of faith it’s the guy with Mother’s power literally flowing through his veins…” I said, trailing off as I subconsciously brushed Captain Fyodor’s bandana over my gloved hand.
“ Anyone can have their doubts, Taft, even you. How many years have you had that birthmark without anything happening because of it?” I stayed silent. We both knew it’d never done anything other than looked cool since birth. “Thane or otherwise, if there’s anything that’s guaranteed about faith is this: you can find peace. No matter what you’re wrestling with inside, just let it go. You don’t need to concern yourself with that guilt, the little answers and repercussions that we can’t fathom. How much wergild do we owe? Have we paid back exactly how much we need to? Or do our enemies owe us ?
“That’s not our place to know and it never will be. War has changed, and so should our faith. We shouldn’t expect to take runes written down thousands of years ago to make exact, literal sense. That’s the fun part about faith, isn’t it? The personal interpretation. The personal relationship.” Nancy trailed off and her fingers were fiddling with my chain. For a moment her gaze looked distance and I wondered who she saw in my chain. The remaining hand at my shoulders slid away.
“Anyway. I’m rambling.”
“No,” I said, bringing a hand up to grasp hers. “I think I needed to hear that. All of it.”
Nancy smiled, clasping both of her hands over mine.
“Okay. I’m glad. Always remember that you come first, Taft. I know you’re a thane and all, and Meg is your number one priority, but you can’t be there for her if you can’t be there for yourself.”
I paused, feeling a little hitch in my breath at the way just that look of hers warmed me up. She kept her hands over mine, and in the palm of my first I clutched the bandana.
“Can I pray for you?” she said, giving my first a little squeeze.
“Sure.”
Nancy’s prayers were always the best. Eloquent but to the point, long enough to sound genuine and short enough to wear out our attention spans.
“Through Mother we live,”
“Through Mother we live.”
She gave me one last squeeze of my hand before she slipped them away and made to leave.
“I’m gonna stick around out here.” I said. “I need a smoke.”
She shook her head with a knowing smile.
“Just don’t set off any smoke detectors. Mother knows we’ve all had enough excitement for one day.”
She walked off, but before she turned the corner Nancy looked back at me in the dark of that forlorn hallway.
“We’re rooting for you, buddy,” she said. Her voice was soft but it carried over to where I stood in a way that felt like she was still right in front of me. “We all are.”
With that, I was alone.
I spent a moment replaying some of Nancy’s words in my head, fixing my eyes to the place she had been standing in just a moment before. A small golden thread slipped around the corner to follow Nancy, like a tail. I was tempted to reach out and grab it, make her stay to lull me with her motherly words. But another blink and the thread was gone.
I turned my attention back to the bandana still unfurled in my hand. My mouth felt too dry for a bacca stick. I kept staring.
The thunder was growing louder.
When I joined back with the others I found Meg’s hand under the table. She gave a start, her dazed eyes finding mine. The conversation around us faded into the familiar unfocused hum. I gave her hand a squeeze, she tried her best attempt at a grin.
We stayed in the dining hall for another hour or so, long after our empty plates were stacked and forlorn in the middle of the longtable. More stories were passed around, more regaling tales falling on the deaf ears of Meg and I.
Peace. That concept of serenity grappled with my head. So under the guise of starting off into space for no particular reason, I prayed. I reached out to Mother with an intensity I hadn’t mustered since the silent prayers I had in the planetary ring, gripping onto my control stick with all my strength.
In my inner voice I told Her everything, as I did to Nancy. I told Her about how I manifested Her power flowing through me in a way that was more tangible and overwhelming than anything I’d ever felt before. I told Her that even if I’d physically felt that undeniable strength, that undeniable proof that She was there for me... I haven’t felt Her presence inside me for longer than I can remember.
The silent prayer lasted for what felt like hours but also felt like a few minutes. And by the end of it I…
I didn’t even notice we were out of fold-space until Nancy gave a pat on my shoulder.
Clemente rolled past the viewport directly in front of me.
The dining hall was mostly empty at this point. Most of the squad had already dismissed themselves too; Briggs was laid out on the bench of the longtable like a massive snoring log as he took a post-meal/post-battle doze, Lucas was sketching in the little drawing pad he’d always carry around, and Nancy was standing above me, ready to leave.
“Don’t forget to drop on by the bay to say goodbye,” she said.
I looked back up at her trying to blink away the glaze that’d formed over my eyes. I blinked it away, realizing they were tears. Nancy frowned. I smiled.
“Sure.” I said, putting my hand over hers, gave it a squeeze. “I’ll see you there.”
I looked back out through the viewport, watching as Clemente’s sun-baked savannas and sprawling cities reminded me exactly of what I was running away from.
That familiar sting in my heart returned in full force, and I realized what Nancy meant when she said I had my own shit to deal with.
Mother was listening. I knew that. But as I sat there, feeling the full gravity of the Phife’s murky cloud-cover draw me back into its orbit, I also realized I wasn’t giving Her a chance to respond.
I didn’t know how.
A storm that raged inside me now, the one that was raging for so long as I was anchored down on the Phife that its thunder, its lightning, its pain was my normal. It had been temporarily sated with the raw adrenaline, the raw thrill of war, the closer we got back home the more I felt that storm begin to roil and rage all over again.
It felt more violent than ever. I felt the hard clawing of its winds tearing me apart from inside, each breath like a violent gust tearing into the tattered sails of my lungs. Thoughts, images, names careened through my head.
Cayenne. My chest constricted.
And now, Captain Fyodor. Meg’s face after she’d shot him. Scattered brains, empty eye sockets, bits of skull floating on congealing life-blood. The clawing anxiety of being so close to the sleep of death. How much of my life did I owe? How many other lives have I taken? How much was a life truly worth? Was mine worth anything at all?
I’m sure Cayenne didn’t think so when she left. I’m not even sure how much I was worth as the Thane of Phife.
I’d taken pieces from that battle and now they’d joined the storm inside.
Maybe Mother was saying something, but I couldn’t hear her. I’d shout and pray but I wondered if she could hear me above the thunder. In my head I could barely hear myself.
The Tzinquaw was settling down in-atmosphere now.
Meg looked at me with her blank stare, but I saw her brow crease when she saw how wet my eyes were. I couldn’t even attempt a faked smile, so I let go of her hand and left the dining hall by myself. The prayer didn’t do anything for me.
I just really needed a smoke.