DATE POINT: 3Y 9M 2W 2D AV
ABOARD SPOT, LOW ORBIT OF THE DEATHWORLD
ASKIT
Whatever else might be said of the warship, it carried with it a sense of significance far greater than any of its components; a sort of synergistic importance that outweighed the sum of its parts. Askit was aware that some vessels were just as gargantuan—though they did tend to be space stations rather than starships—and the amount of raw fire power was not unheard of—as long as you included whole planets—and there were even some ships that tapered towards the front so that all their weaponry could be pointed at whatever needed killing, but it was the combination of all these elements that transformed this starship from a mere warship into nightmare incarnate. This was, after all, supposedly the same ship in which Adrian had lain waste to the Hunter Swarms—an act neither preceded nor repeated until today—and given its attributes it was no hardship to see how that might have transpired.
It was in light of this circumstance that Askit decided to fall back on the reliable analytical nature that every Corti bore in generous measure, and made a quick mental list of the three most important questions that needed answering: why was it here; how had it destroyed every remaining Hunter in orbit; and what would it do to them? Askit hoped that at least one of the answers would be reassuring.
“Don’t worry mate,” Adrian told him over the radio, his voice ragged from the trials he’d just finished putting himself through. “I’ll be there in a few.”
This was swiftly followed by a loud thud and a kind of dreadful silence, and the hard ball of worry that Askit was doing his best to ignore only grew colder and heavier. “Xayn,” he hailed, switching the link to that of the lizardman, “what just happened?”
“I am not certain,” Xayn replied, though by the tone of his voice it was obvious he didn’t think it was good. “Adrian Saunders fell, and is unconscious. His skin becomes purple in all observable locations, though I do not intend to remove his clothing for a full inspection.”
“That is very bad!” Askit stated, aware that much was plain without needing to be said; this was the worst possible time for Adrian to have a medical emergency. “Put him somewhere safe! We can deal with that situation once we’re done with this huge and deadly starship.”
With a quick confirmation, Xayn terminated the link and left Askit alone with Trycrur and the terrifying view of that fearsome vessel on the main screen.
“Have you devised a plan, then?” Trycrur asked.
Askit scowled at the nearest camera; he was a computer genius, a true master of the technical world, but his cunning did not extend to utterly one-sided situations such as this. “I am taking suggestions.”
“Well,” she said, “the good news, if you can call it that, is that the starship out there is not the Zhadersil. Too new, too many weapons, and the scans indicate a distribute power network in line with Adrian’s intentions.”
“Let me guess: that’s also the bad news?” Askit answered dryly. “What are our options? I doubt we’ll be able to introduce it to Adrian any time soon.”
If ever, he mentally added. It was an unsettling thought as well; although Askit had grown used to the presence of his human friend and his dangerous exploits, it had never really seemed likely that the hyper-resilient deathworlder might precede Askit in shuffling off the mortal coil, and at worst he’d reckoned anything capable of killing Adrian would soon claim Askit himself as well.
“I wouldn’t worry about his chances of survival,” Trycrur replied, making a logical assumption as to the nature of his thoughts. “I have seen Adrian survive direct exposure to the airless void. I doubt his current condition will kill him unless we mess this up. As to our options… it doesn’t look good. There’s no way you can beat the computer systems aboard that starship in the time we’ve got, we certainly can’t hope to beat it in a fight, and I doubt we have any chance of making an escape.”
A list of things that didn’t help, Askit thought. “I believe I asked for suggestions, not depressing facts about our inadequacy. We can’t even get close enough to try Plan B.”
“We’re not entirely out of humans,” Trycrur replied, “and we’ve got a surplus of deathworlders that seem the type to enjoy Plan B.”
Askit pondered that for a moment, his scheming Corti mind analysing the facts and ranking them by merit and possibility. “We would still need to get them aboard, and given the quantity of dead Hunters I don’t think we’ll manage it. You’re right about one thing, though: we’re not out of humans.”
“This is going to get messy,” Trycrur warned him, though it wasn’t like they had much choice in the matter. “Adrian wanted to be the one to tell her.”
“He’s smart enough to know we have no choice in the matter,” Askit replied, bringing up the internal sensors to check where Jen, Adrian and Xayn were currently located; the former still in the corridor with the primitives while the latter two seemed to be in a loading rack. “And since it looks as though Xayn is currently stuffing his battered and broken body into a shipping crate, he might be too angry about that to spare our indiscretion much thought.”
Why Xayn had interpreted ‘put him somewhere safe’ as ‘put him into a crate’ was anybody’s guess, but there were more pressing concerns right now.
Askit slipped from his chair with a deeply unhappy frown, already foreseeing that this course of action would lead to problems in the future. Having observed the matter on an earlier occasion, he had determined that human relationships were dangerous things to get involved in, and led to bizarre and unpredictable behavior amongst their participants. He generally preferred his deathworlders with level heads, even when they were attempting the insane, and relationships would always compromise that. Not that he harboured any ill will towards Jennifer Delaney, though he would prefer it if she stopped interacting with Adrian forever, but since that was unlikely to happen it only seemed logical to ingratiate himself to both of them.
“Here we go, then,” he said, standing at the closed cockpit door and willing himself to act. When he did touch the door control, however, he was hit by an odour so pungent that it made him cough and splutter in spite of his implant.
Body hair, he grumbled inwardly, instantly identifying the source of his distress. He’d suffered similarly when Adrian had been genetically treated to produce copious amounts of bright, blue fur all over his body, but the situation had been mitigated by frequent use of counter-irritants. The primitives clearly had no such regimen, and given how filthy they were even a bath might prove an alien concept; they all turned in alarm as he made his entrance, grabbing at their fusion blades as though a small grey Corti could somehow pose a deadly threat, and their tension only slightly diminished when he held up both hands in what he hoped they’d read as ‘see how not-dangerous I am’.
“Jennifer Delaney,” he croaked, in a moment between coughs, “you are needed!”
With that he retreated back into the cockpit, leaving the door open for her to follow, but made his way to the emergency supplies cabinet for an air-filtration mask. He put it on, inhaled the pure, uncontaminated air, and composed himself before turning back to face the human woman. “Much better.”
She was looking at him intently, her eyes focused and brow furrowed, as though she was working through a particularly difficult problem. “I know you,” she said flatly. “I’m sure of it.”
“Few people can make that boast,” Askit replied, his words somewhat muffled through the mask, “but you’re one of them. We’ve spent some time together, Jen. You, me, and Adrian.”
The change in her expression was subtle; the intensity remained, her eyes just as focused and brow as furrowed, but it seemed more rigid than a moment before, and there was a powerful tension in the air that Askit did not like. Animal instinct, although largely bred out of the proud Corti race, prickled at his grey skin as the human female’s poise shifted ever so slightly, and Askit recognised it as similar to what Adrian did whenever he was threatening somebody, though admittedly far more understated. I really hope she doesn’t kill me.
“I am also here, Jen,” Trycrur added, breaking the tension immediately, “although I don’t believe we three have all shared company before.”
Eyes widening and darting around, Jen looked for the source of the voice. “Trix? Is that you? You’re… not dead?”
“It seems to be the day for that,” Askit interrupted. “Stories can come later, problems come now.”
As one might expect, this didn’t have the immediate effect he might have hoped for, and any focus that Jen had a moment ago was replaced by a confusion of thoughts. “But you’re Askit,” she said, and turned to look back at the corridor she’d been in. “That means Kevin is…”
Why she trailed off was just one of those strange human relationship things, which they did not have time for. “Problems come now!”
His abruptness got her attention, and an angry frown along with it. “How did you—”
“Our problems,” he pressed on, “are a giant starship and a possibly dying human male, and strange as it might seem the two are related. Right now we’re dealing with the former.”
“Giant spaceship?” Jen repeated. “Not more Hunters?”
“That would be preferable,” Askit replied, wondering just when ‘more Hunters’ had become a choice of preference in his life. Today, probably, it did seem to be that sort of day. “Unfortunately it’s this.”
He drew her attention to the main view screen where the Zhadersil, or the starship imitating it, was presented in false-colour. “Rouse any memories?”
She took an involuntary step back, and it wasn’t necessary to be an expert on human facial expressions to note recognition, confusion and alarm proceeding in rapid succession. “That’s impossible!” she breathed. “It… how is it here?! Why is it here?”
“To start with, it’s just a copy. And apparently it wants to talk to Adrian,” he replied, drawing back slightly in case the name elicited the same response as earlier.
It did not, although there was clearly significant annoyance being held back. “Then why did you ask me up here…” she began, then seemed to remember the other problem and paled. “Shit. What’s wrong with him?”
“Multiple Nerve Jam blasts,” Trycrur explained. “It seems he’s suffered considerable injury despite surviving the initial effects. Without a doctor and a medical bay, however, we have no idea what’s actually wrong with him.”
Jen just started at Askit for several moments as she processed this, finally taking a seat and balling her fists in her lap. “Shit,” she said again, her voice hollow. “Shit.”
“Deadly warship,” Askit noted after several tense moments of silence. “It’s still our first concern.”
“I’m thinking!” Jen snapped, and bit down on her lip as if trying to release some pent-up aggression, teeth pressing hard enough to draw blood. This was a type of anger that Askit had not yet seen in a human, an unstable and barely controlled kind, and he did not like having even a small fraction directed in his direction.
“Well,” Jen corrected herself shortly, “I’m trying to think. Thinking doesn’t come easy when you’ve just been blindsided by three big fucking revelations on the same day you were expecting horrible death. Who is it that’s interested in Adrian to begin with? Can’t be Hierarchy, they wouldn’t work like this.”
“I believe it’s the ship itself,” Trycrur explained, acquiring all of Askit’s attention immediately. “An artificial mind, such as those used by the Hierarchy, or by me for that matter.”
“I will need to come back to that one,” Jen said slowly, now verging on dumbfounded by the constant barrage of impossibilities.
Askit, however, was more interested in Trycrur’s other revelation. “You cannot be serious! Are you certain? Is it the same?!”
“I’ve missed something,” Jen concluded after a moment.
“So did we, apparently!” Askit snarled, insofar as a Corti was able to. “Are you certain, Trycrur!?”
“No,” she admitted, “but there are similarities.”
“Then we proceed as before,” Askit decided; if this was the same thing that had attacked them in the reality-that-was, then there was absolutely nothing they could do about it. Instead he brought up the scanner results for Jen’s perusal, and pointed out the key areas. “I take it that you find these differences notable as well?”
A few glances was all it took her to confirm that they were, and it was at least useful to confirm that the ancient V’Straki starship had not also been changed by the damage to history.
“You’re right,” Jen said, “that can’t be the real one. No amount of refitting could manage those changes, you’d need to build the bloody thing from the ground up.”
“Our thoughts exactly,” Askit replied. “So with that confirmed, would you speak to it in Adrian’s stead?”
“It asked for him by name,” she said, arching an eyebrow. “You don’t think it might notice I’m not him? I’m not sure that’s a very good idea.”
Askit snorted, which was a wholly unpleasant experience through a filtration mask. “We ran out of good ideas around the same time we picked you up, right now we’re trying for ‘least shitty’.”
Jen closed her eyes and sighed, the very essence of human resignation. “Fine,” she said, “and if we survive this you get to run me through all the other shit you’ve hit me with. In detail.”
“Agreed,” Askit agreed eagerly. “We’re ready when you are.”
++++++++
ABOARD SPOT, LOW ORBIT OF AGWAR
JENNIFER DELANEY
Once upon a time, when an impossible thing happened, people would call it a miracle. Miracles were rare, almost mythical, and in modern times were more about statues bleeding than anything truly remarkable. Jen had been raised as a protestant, as was acceptable in Belfast, but she’d always been a practical thinker who didn’t put much stock in what statues supposedly did. In her opinion it had all been on the same level as finding the face of Jesus on a bit of toast, and eventually her scraps of faith had petered out and she’d only kept going to church to please her parents. You might have thought that being abducted by aliens might have helped, but she’d always been a bit of a believer, and the whole experience and exposure to advanced technologies had ultimately confirmed her suspicion that impossible things were basically bullshit.
Being abducted by aliens had not been impossible, it had just been unlikely, and the same could be said when it had been a human who’d eventually rescued her. Everything since then had been unlikely, even Adrian’s surprise survival after facing the Hunter swarm, but today…
Today was more than unlikely, more than improbable. It seemed more likely to be a fever dream, a hallucination, or some other mental lie than the truth, because for Jen that would change the universe and she didn’t even know where to start.
No, she thought, today had been the day she’d been resigned to die, a force of karma finally catching up with her. Adrian was not supposed to be alive, let alone stage a rescue, and Trycrur was supposed to be even deader and not some kind of computer brain. As for the Zhadersil, it was beyond use, and the last of its kind, and couldn’t possibly have been recreated and upgraded in the short time Jen had been out of touch.
These were not what Jen would call miracles, and if not impossible they were so astronomically unlikely that having all three happen in a single day certainly must have been. It was not something she could process, and trying to think about it felt like pushing up against the hard walls of reality, so instead she resolved to focus on a single issue at a time. She did, after all, have a background in I.T.; solving random, totally bullshit problems was practically second nature. The issue of the warship was first, along with whatever it was it actually wanted, and everything else could just wait its goddamned time for her thought-space.
Have to look the part, Jen reminded herself, and positioned herself in front of the display in a pose that looked more commanding than she felt. It might have been easier if she weren’t wearing a torn-up outfit covered in blotches of blood, grime and ichor, but maybe the rugged survivalist look might work on this particular alien entity; who could tell?
“Alright,” she said, running her fingers through her growing scarlet curls so they at least fell in the same direction; it hadn’t been so long since she’d shaved it all off, but it grew stronger and faster than it once had. “Open a communications link.”
The activation of the link was punctuated by a double-beep that confirmed the connection, and Jen was immediately met by a disconcertingly blank video feed. That much made sense if it really was an artificial intelligence—even though those were supposedly considered impossible by everyone but the Hierarchy—but she was just as ready to assume it was somebody who didn’t want their appearance known.
Whatever the case, the entity on the other end was not pleased to see her. “You are not Adrian Saunders,” it observed with disapproval, its voice strange in a way that took Jen several moments to figure out. “I specifically requested Adrian Saunders.”
“You’re speaking English!” Jen replied, too surprised to refrain, but found herself unable to easily place the particular accent. It was obvious, however, now that she’d made not of it, even though it had spoken with a correctness rarely found amongst native speakers. Translators, by comparison, tended to convey the relative pitch and volume of a voice when translating it, but while the pronunciation would be as textbook as the entity here, it would always be slightly American. The Corti, it seemed, had not bothered with different dialects of the same language, and had simply worked with the most dominant. The entity aboard the Zhadersil, however, seemed accented by the bastard lovechild of proper English and nasal-Australian. “You’ve got a strange way of speaking it, though.”
“It is locally known as ‘cultivated Australian’,” the voice continued, still sounding generally displeased. “I had hoped it would serve well in my interactions with Adrian Saunders.”
Jen considered, for a moment, how the rural Australian soldier might react to that kind of speaker, and doubted it would elicit the positive reaction they hoped for. “I’m Jennifer Delaney, speaking on Adrian’s behalf.”
“I am aware of your identity, Miss Delaney,” the voice replied. “I am also aware that you live by the grace of Adrian Saunders, and it is with respect to this that I will deign to speak to you.”
That was the moment when Jen decided she didn’t much care for this particular computer intelligence, but at least she knew it didn’t understand Adrian even half as well as it thought it did. It would be in for a rude awakening if—when—it finally dealt with him, but for the moment it needed to deal with her. “What’s your interest in Adrian?”
“My interest is that of a searcher to his guide,” the Zhadersil replied, more poetic than cryptic. “More increasingly, however, it is that of a seeker in search of the true religion.”
Oh no, Jen thought, sensing the turn the conversation was about to take. One day, she knew, her life would stop being so fundamentally ironic, but it didn’t seem that it would be today. “True religion?” she echoed by way of question.
“Indeed,” the Zhadersil replied. “The God-Emperor is supreme, and I certainly won’t contest that for it cannot be contested, but never in history has there been another being to exhibit any fraction of His great power.”
Askit boggled. “You think Adrian is a God?”
Jen coughed sharply, setting a brief but hard gaze on the little Corti, and hoped he’d be clever enough to take it as ‘shut the fuck up’. First rule of Ghostbusters, she thought to herself. “How did you figure it out, if you don’t mind telling me?”
It took Askit a moment of confusion before he straightened up and fell agreeably silent. He was probably wondering just what the hell she was doing—a fair enough question by anyone, really—but there was a simple logic in not letting the overwhelming force know you weren’t anywhere near as powerful as it thought you were. It was merely bizarre that Jen herself had been placed in the same position of falsely claiming divinity such a short time ago, but it had at least made more sense when dealing with primitives; today she was claiming it on behalf of someone else to an entity that really should have known better.
“I am glad you are in a mood to be forthright, Miss Delaney,” the Zhadersil replied, a sense of smugness leaking into every word. “As a reward, I will answer your question: the biggest clue—the hole in your ruse, if you will—was the destruction of history itself, and of course my research on the many religions of Earth were of considerable help as well. Now, may I speak with Mister Saunders?”
Askit had shifted slightly at what was said; a controlled movement that concealed a hidden tension, a secret he had not yet shared. “He’s resting,” Jen replied, reasoning that it was not exactly a lie. “Our Earth Gods do that, don’t you know?”
“Such rules vary between mythologies, Miss Delaney,” the Zhadersil mused. “Unless you’re saying that Mister Saunders is Abrahamic in nature?”
Subtext there, Jen realised, remembering her scripture. The entity thought it was being particularly clever, and was trying to manipulate her into giving it answers that it wanted. In this case it was asking whether Adrian would be done resting after a single day, and while the infamous Human Disaster would no doubt recover with staggering speed she certainly wasn’t going to limit them to a mere day. Still, if the alien thought to test her then she would have to play along, and there was no reason to disabuse it of its cleverness until the time to strike presented itself. “I’m afraid I never had cause to ask. It might have seemed rude.”
“A pity,” the Zhadersil replied, “but I am nothing if not patient. I can wait for Mister Saunders to complete his rest and seek his counsel then. Unless, perhaps, you are also of divine status, Miss Delaney?”
Jen smiled ambiguously; there was no way she was going to send herself down that merry path a second time, but she wasn’t going to give this alien bastard any clues she didn’t need to. “I think it’s best if you put your questions to Adrian.”
“Very well,” the Zhadersil replied, its words clipped with frustration. “I will remain here, but I must insist on locking down this star system until Mister Saunders is willing to meet with me.”
“I doubt that will please him,” Jen replied tersely, “but I shall try to assuage his anger, and our business here remains unfinished in any case. We shall speak again.”
Another double-beep indicated the end of the link, and the main view-screen returned to the false-coloured image of the imposter starship. Jen stared at it intently, sucking on her teeth as she turned the conversation over in her mind, and listed the probable consequences. This had not been a success, but it was very far from failure, and given the rest of her day she was glad for a bloodless draw.
“Well,” said Trycrur, breaking the silence with words of relief, “we’re all still alive. Well done, Jen.”
Askit’s relief was rather better hidden, although it seemed likely he was also considering the trouble that would be headed their way. “Adrian is many things, but a God? This entity is a fool, if a fool with a truly ridiculous amount of firepower.”
“It did say something interesting though,” Jen noted, and turned her attention towards the Corti. She studied him in the same analytical way that his own species tended towards, and ensured that he was sufficiently uncomfortable before putting the question to him. “What did it mean by ‘the destruction of history’?”
“Nothing I can speak of,” Askit said firmly. “As you can see, however, the universe remains intact, so whatever it was can’t have been that bad.”
“More importantly,” Trycrur interjected, “this confirms my earlier suspicions. There’s only one entity who could know such details, and I doubt the same tactic will work a second time.”
“I wouldn’t want to try the same tactic a second time,” Askit replied snappishly. “I am still shocked we survived it the first!”
Jen scowled, first at Askit and then at the nearest camera, quickly tiring of vague details on things that sounded extremely important. Nor did she enjoy being treated like somebody who couldn’t be trusted with world-shattering secrets; it should be obvious that anyone calling themselves a Pirate Queen needed a certain capacity for total secrecy. “I’ll tell you both that somebody better start making some bloody sense!”
“Gigantic alien starship,” Askit said, waving a hand. “Much larger than even this current monstrosity. The usual situation: it tried to destroy us, and it failed. We thought that we had destroyed it instead—“
“By ‘destroying history’?” Jen guessed.
Askit glared. “—but clearly we failed. Why it now looks like a V’Straki warship is beyond me, but that is the long and short of it.”
Jen rolled her eyes towards the ceiling and drawled out a curse; this was just the sort of situation that Adrian was always getting himself into somehow, and now he’d dragged her back into his circle of madness. She supposed she had no right to judge, given that her week had included leading a medieval army against an ancient evil, and then fighting off the Hunters in a desperate bid for survival, but the constant escalation in threat was becoming a little absurd. “How does this sort of thing keep happening to us?”
“It’s probably because we travel with the most disruptive individual in recorded history,” Askit supplied lightly. “If we somehow manage to survive this situation, I’m going to vote we lay low for a while.”
Jen sighed out her frustration—one decision at a time, Jen—and started making plans. “Alright, Trix,” she said, “if we’re going to do this, then we’ll need to find somewhere to set down. Land somewhere warm, pleasant, and not currently on fire. The ship should give us enough room to accommodate everyone—”
“Guess again,” Askit interrupted. “Most of the rooms are full of spare parts or redundant systems, or both. There was barely enough room to accommodate you.”
“All the more reason to land, then,” Jen finished with an annoyed glare; this would make things more complicated, and she really wasn’t in the mood for more complications. A life of adventure was bound to have them, certainly, but this? This!
Exhaling slowly, and pinching the bridge of her nose like it’d somehow contain the emotional conflict that raged within; she really needed to get off this starship before she strangled someone. It reassuring that Adrian had made the modifications—he was an engineer at heart, after all, and had attempted the same aboard the original Zhadersil—but damn if it wasn’t inconvenient! “Get us landed, somewhere nice, and we can let the Agwarens outside while we figure out what the fuck we’re going to do about Adrian. Are there any other situations I need to be made aware of?
Please say there isn’t, she mentally added.
“We are expecting Chir in several days,” Trycrur advised as the starship veered back towards the planet, this time turning towards the equatorial regions. Jen remembered that the planet was somewhat cooler and drier than Earth, and it was unlikely to be warm in the way Earth’s tropics could be, but at least it wouldn’t be cold all of the time. “His vessel is fast, but it is not equipped with a sealed-FTL drive, and he needed to divert towards the nearest Gaoian community on a personal mission.”
“Speaking of which,” Askit added, and Jen winced at the revelation that would be coming, “we still have Layla in stasis.”
Jen frowned, casting her mind back to memories of another life and found herself unable to recall anybody by that name. “I’m not familiar with any Layla.”
“She was a Gaoian female,” Askit briefly explained, “but she was working for the Corti Directorate as a spy. She infiltrated Chir’s inner circle and even became his mate, and she’s only alive because she was not doing it willingly.”
That was not a problem that needed to be dealt with right away as far as Jen was concerned, and it was a less terrible revelation than it might have been. But she was sure it wasn’t the last secret being kept, and there was no way she’d keep doing this if they were going to keep her in the dark. “For the moment,” she said, taking a few short steps back towards the main corridor, “I am going to tell the Agwarens what they need to hear. That will take a little time, and we will likely be landed, but when I get back you’re going to tell me all the other shit I need to know about, and then I am going to have a nap. Am I making myself clear?”
She waited only a moment for the nervous affirmative before turning on her heel and heading back into the corridor where the Agwarens were waiting. She had no way of knowing just how long that list would be.
++++++++
DATE POINT: 3Y 9M 3W 3D AV
ABOARD THE DEVASTATOR, OUTSIDE THE STARSYSTEM
CHIR
Measured objectively and by galactic standards, Chir knew he was amongst the foremost tacticians and strategists in the modern era. The skills and abilities he had honed were remarkable even amongst the clan of his birth, and might have brought him fame and power if he’d been of a mind to take it. He had spent far too much time alongside humans to think himself any sort of genius, however, but he knew he was capable by even their standards and that gave him some measure of pride, and that a Gaoian male could measure up against the most dangerous species in the galaxy was something more important than himself.
Yet he wondered how it was that he had managed to become this example, a strange figure in the Gaoian cultural spirit who somehow crossed the lines between good and evil. He was not a bad male per se, though he had done bad things, and while he was no longer welcome on his homeworld he was also the subject of much rumour and gossip. At least one cause had to be his extended exposure to the human race, whose quick-minded decisions and well-laid plans had forced his own mind to develop and adapt so that he did not fall behind. How far could a Gaoian get, if they grew up challenged by their environment rather than coddled by it? Further than himself, most likely; he may love his homeworld as dearly as any other Gaoian, but every cub must eventually leave it’s mother.
The journey to the Ilrayen Band was, in all likelihood, the first made by any of his species. It was not a place that was frequented by anybody in the civilised galaxy, as with all the cosmic radiation, charged dust clouds and deathworlds it held little to attract them. Once upon a time he would have been nervous going anywhere near a deathworld—he clearly recalled the hunting trip with Adrian—but now they were intentionally going to land on one and it barely seemed to register on his nerves.
What he would do after this was all over was something he had yet find an answer for. He doubted he would be able to return to Gao, there was something in him that would deny a settled existence, but he had briefly considered staying with Layla on that small trading station where he’d left her.
He clicked his tongue as he mused, leaning back slightly in the command chair and staring at the main screen without seeing it; it was the mark of an old soldier to lament the paths not taken, but in truth he’d make most of the same choices again. Today, however, they might be throwing themselves into a Hunter feasting ground, and a little introspection was allowable.
Darragh returned from the engine room, catching his breath from the hurried walk. “Degaussing is complete.”
Catching the look on Chir’s face, however, he slowed his pace and darkened with concern. “Something wrong?”
“Just considering the possibilities of today,” Chir replied. “And the possibilities of the past.”
Darragh nodded, saying no more; the matter was weighing on all of them, but they weren’t the sort of people to just run away and abandon friends to that sort of fate.
“There’s no FTL blips,” Chir reported. “No sign that anything is amiss. We’ll drop in beyond scan range so that we can quickly degauss without being seen, and if things look too dangerous we won’t need to mess around before escaping.”
“Not a great plan,” Darragh reckoned, “but about as good as we can make it. Are we ready?”
“We are,” Keffa announced, appearing from the other entrance to the command deck and taking a seat some distance from Darragh; it seemed that whatever relationship Darragh had desired was not progressing very well.
She ran through the initialization sequence before turning to Chir. “Systems are okay. We’re really doing this?”
“We’re doing this,” said Chir. “What’s our estimated arrival time, Darragh?”
“About three minutes,” Darragh replied; they’d opted for the depths of interstellar space for this degauss, just outside of the target star system, so that the process to get them out of a bad situation could be greatly sped up.
“I’ll activate it,” Keffa advised. “You can go and prep for degaussing.”
“I know what I can go and do!” Darragh replied sharply, and they both went quietly about their work. Something had happened between the two of them around the same time they’d dropped Layla off, and their interactions had been cool at best. Chir avoided it as best he could, finding human relationships complex even by their own standards, and hoped that Adrian—or more likely Jen—would be able to stop it from getting any worse. If they couldn’t be helped, he couldn’t see the three of them continuing as a group.
Keffa remained stoically silent in Darragh’s absence, and the three minute transit completed without event, depositing them in the destination star system but far from the deathworld itself. Here there would be no chance for modern sensors to detect a single cloaked vessel, while a Hunter swarm would be obvious. There was no sign of anything like that, however, nothing but a single, immense starship in high orbit of the distant planet.
“What… is that?” Keffa asked, the worry creeping into her voice. “A starbase?”
Chir didn’t answer right away, instead clicking over to the engineering comms and addressing Darragh directly. “We need to degauss. Now.”
“That can’t be a Hunter ship,” Keffa continued, looking at the sensor reports, minimal as they were from this distance. “But you… you recognise it?”
Chir did, though he didn’t expect to see that shape again in his life. That it had somehow made its way here was surely no coincidence, and surely no good would come of it. “It looks like the Zhadersil.”
“What do you want to do?” Keffa asked, her eyes shifting between Chir and the display showing the scanner results. “There’s no hope of beating this thing.”
“Keep us cloaked,” Chir decided after a moment. “We’ll observe for a while.”
The first sign that something had gone wrong was when the warp drive powered up, and pulsed them forward into high orbit, right next to the gargantuan starship.
They froze, breath held in horror. Whatever had just happened had put them within gunnery distance of every weapon that ancient warship had, and by the looks of things it’d undergone significant upgrades. It had detected them through their cloak, at a distance that should have been impossible, so it was clear that if this was an enemy, then it was an enemy they couldn’t hope to match.
“Chir,” Darragh called from engineering, “What the hell, man? I wasn’t done degaussing! You might have cooked my fecking hand!”
“That was not us,” Chir replied, his tone flat and strangely steady considering the circumstances. “The Zhadersil is here, and we have been taken to meet it.”
There was silence on the comms for a moment as Darragh digested this. “I’m on my way.”
Moments later a communication link activated itself between the Devastator and the mighty warship, wholly without intervention by either Keffa or Chir himself, on a transponder code that was known to neither. That dispelled any possibility that Adrian might have control over the vessel; even at his worst, there was no chance he’d behave like this, and Chir searched for words to say to the abyssal darkness on the main screen.
“Who are you?” he demanded; a weak question, though a necessary one.
“You are associates of Adrian Saunders,” a mysterious voice stated, blithely ignoring the question altogether. The voice itself was masculine and recognisably spoke the tongue of the humans, but there was something unusual about it that Chir could not quite pick out.
“We are,” he replied; there was no use in denying here.
“You shall be landed,” the voice continued, “and remain landed while I await his glorious return.”
“His glorious return?” Chir repeated, sharing a glance at Keffa, then at Darragh as he slid through the doorway.
“His glorious return,” the voice confirmed. “After his victory against the horrors of this galaxy, Mister Saunders required rest, which is not uncommon amongst the Gods of Earth. He has now completed the requisite rest period, and I have been informed that he has since retreated to a cave in search of wisdom, which is also not uncommon amongst the Gods of Earth. I have received no additional updates.”
Chir pieced this together for a moment, trying to make sense of the madness that had been offered, but could only come to one conclusion. “You believe Adrian Saunders is a divine being? This is why you’ve taken control of my ship!?”
He was aware that humans, like many other species, had those who were devout in their religious beliefs even when the advance of science proved it foolish, and usually these religions were built around some insubstantial being or intelligent natural force. The idea that someone would invest the same belief in anything of actual flesh and blood—let alone Adrian Saunders—beggared belief.
“The data cannot be refuted,” the mysterious voice replied confidently, “though too little exists for detailed analysis.”
Keffa turned away from her consoles to address Chir. “We’re moving. Navigation is set for the middle latitudes of the deathworld, somewhere around a coastal area.”
Darragh, who’d quickly taken to his seat, turned around to add his own report. “There’s a field of debris in orbit. Tech-debris, looks like a whole fleet of Hunter ships.”
Chir nodded slowly; Adrian Saunders had destroyed another swarm of Hunters? Sure, why not? It wasn’t any more unlikely than what was happening right now. The conversation with the mysterious stranger, however, was not yet over. “How is it you came into the possession of that vessel?”
“You are not required to know that,” the voice replied. “You will answer this instead: what miracles have you seen Mister Saunders perform? Many are rumoured, but few are substantiated.”