SeptStar

by Blaze Ward

  “We are standing on a ledge, Spectre Twenty-Three,” Kathra said, invoking A’Alhakoth as part of the comitatus, rather than the only non-human on this deck.

  One of them.

  A’Alhakoth nodded her understanding. She had proven herself to them, both physically, nearly dying with WinterStar, and otherwise, when Daniel had brought the other women into her mind and shared his own with her.

  Family of blood, rather than the waters of the womb.

  “That dragon will never cease stalking us,” Kathra said. “Before, we had the Star Turtle as a threat to keep them at bay, however little Daniel was interested in mass murder by attacking one. Now, we must either flee beyond the Free Worlds, or find a way to turn ourselves into pirates and fight back against the Sept.”

  A’Alhakoth waited. The Commander had not asked a question.

  “What will we find out there?” Kathra finally asked.

  A’Alhakoth considered her answer for a long moment. It had been the first thing on the tip of her tongue, but Father had taught her that such things were frequently wrong, if not well thought out.

  The thought did not change it.

  She felt her shoulders come back and her chin come up. Humans had the same body language, she had learned, so Kathra Omezi would understand what she meant.

  Understand the implications of the answer.

  “Friends.”

  Four

  Tavle Jocia.

  Imperial Naupati Amirin Pasdar had never been to this system before, nor traveled this far beyond the borders of Sept space. He would never have likely come here, even if the Sept had decided to finally conquer the Free Worlds, as it would have taken a generation to spall off all the chunks closer to home than this.

  However, conquest wasn’t his mission.

  Today.

  He had chased the Mbaysey Tribal Squadron this far. Nearly caught Kathra Omezi and her flagship by surprise in orbit of this very planet, not far from the station that Septagon Vorgash was currently trailing.

  The image probably reminded many of the locals of a small child holding the reins of a warhorse, considering the relative sizes of the TradeStation and his monstrous Septagon.

  Of course everyone was behaving themselves exceptionally well today. One Septagon could not destroy all the various squadrons that made up the Free Worlds naval forces if they came here, but with the four Patrols he currently had at hand, he could scrub orbital space of Tavle Jocia clean in a matter of hours.

  But again, that wasn’t his mission.

  Amirin Pasdar, Naupati of Septagon Vorgash, Destroyer of Worlds, was a customer.

  He allowed himself an ironic smile looking out the porthole as his transport finally docked with the main station, shutting down local gravity field inducers with just the slightest blip as the station’s gravity came in range and caught everything again.

  He waited patiently while his combat troops filed out onto the traveler’s concourse and took up station. It wasn’t that he was planning a physical assault, although Pasdar still had the scar from his left forehead that ran all the way back on his shaved head, caused by a rebel’s blade that just missed penetrating his eyeball so many years ago.

  A Naupati had no business leading troops into ground combat. These forces were to remind the locals that he could, if he had to. He wore a field uniform instead of his normal command uniform. This one included a pistol and a medium blade, just in case he needed to actually kill people.

  Finally, Pasdar emerged, greeted by an amazingly-nervous local that represented the man Amirin Pasdar was here to see, rather than the station authorities. He wondered what the man would tell those folks after he was gone.

  “Naupati,” the man bowed deeply at the waist, Imperial style, which Pasdar found impressive, this far from home.

  Doubly so because his records suggested that the man this majordomo represented specifically had no direct trade whatsoever with the Sept Empire, all of his hulls stopping at Free Worlds TradeStations and not crossing even imaginary borders.

  The man rose again and waited with patient care, surrounded by Pasdar’s troops.

  Amirin nodded and the man immediately turned and began to walk at a pace somewhere between a sedate jaunt and a purposeful stride. Probably trying to not do anything to offend the Naupati following him, presumably.

  It was not a long walk. Up an escalator, rather than cycling lifts, and they were onto what Amirin’s operatives told him was the personal quarters level of the station.

  Through a door, Amirin found himself in an impressive waiting chamber of a salon with an enormous fish tank taking up one whole wall, but they did not pause there, crossing into a deeper chamber, where a half-dozen of Pasdar’s troops took up station around the walls.

  Factor Mikhail Isaev was standing on the far side of a conference table, with only two other men with him, neither of whom was armed, nor looked like guards of any kind.

  Mechanics, perhaps.

  Isaev bowed as well. Not as deep, but he was possibly the wealthiest human in the sector, so perhaps he saw himself as only slightly below Pasdar on the local social scale.

  But then, Amirin Pasdar was a Pasdar of the Founders. One of the seven clans that had conquered first Earth itself, and then expanded into the Sept Empire and included more than half of all human-colonized worlds.

  And was slowly taking over that other half.

  “Naupati, it is my great honor to be allowed to host you,” Isaev said, speaking like a Court merchant rather than a barbarian from beyond the lines of civilized culture. “I am given to understand that tea would be appropriate, but that you would not trust Free Worlders with your health?”

  Pasdar nodded. Too easy to poison him, even accidentally, and upset too many plans in motion. But Pasdar had also reviewed his reputation within and without the Sept, and decided to make changes to how he did things.

  It was never a good thing for the most powerful politicians to consider one merely a warrior.

  “Indeed,” Pasdar sat, so that the others could as well. “However, I have brought my own tea master instead.”

  He turned his head enough to nod to the man, an ancient, wizened scholar of Chinese ethnicity, whom he did trust. Who had been with his family for more decades that Amirin Pasdar had been alive.

  The look of shock on the merchants face was fleeting, but telling. This was a man who seemed almost an artificial construct, with a bald pate covered up with implanted hairs that were not graying at the same rate as the hair on the sides. The tan on his skin was an unnatural color, such as you got from taking pills, rather than the proper ultraviolet lighting in the shower every morning.

  Possibly the only thing real about the man was his money, and the power that the Trade Factor did exercise locally as a result. Factor Mikhail Isaev owned the largest ships foundry in the sector.

  That was why Pasdar was here.

  Time passed. For Amirin, amiably, watching his tea master work and seeing the others fidget as things progressed. Then on to small talk about meaningless things while enjoying tea and biscuits baked this morning on Vorgash.

  After all, if Amirin Pasdar was going to be taken seriously by serious people, it was not enough to be an exceptional Septagon commander. He must also be a Sept gentleman.

  Isaev was not his peer, but Amirin could practice more important things on the man, secure that nothing this merchant did or said would matter later on.

  “There is a particular reason I have called upon you, Factor Isaev,” Amirin Pasdar eventually got around to turning serious. Thirty minutes was a good use of his time to just chat. He needed the practice being human, and not just an effective naval officer.

  “Sir?” Isaev’s face again lost all coherence for the briefest moment, almost gone before it happened.

  But this man had never visited the Imperial capital at Rhages. That was where you learned what cut-throat politics really meant.

  “Commander Kathra Omezi was a recent customer of yours,
Factor,” Amirin smiled, perhaps twisting the knife into the wound just a little bit. “I’m given to understand that she sold you a handful of interesting shuttle craft for your personal collection, acquired from parts unknown.”

  “That is correct, Naupati,” the man said carefully, probably wondering if the Sept were going to demand he give them up.

  A Septagon parked nearby at the optimal distance to use the Axial Megacannon on this station was a powerful inducement to behave however a Naupati demanded.

  “I am less interested in those vessels, Isaev,” Amirin smiled genially. “Rather, she commissioned a vessel from your factories. SeekerStar, I believe, was the name.”

  “She did indeed, Naupati,” Isaev’s fake tan lost even more of its luster as blood drained out of the man’s face.

  Wealth brought power, and this man was probably as powerful as they came in places like this.

  Not that it meant anything when the Sept Empire arrived.

  “That vessel was armed,” Amirin noted in a neutral tone. “Including Ram Cannons, which I am given to understand are not legal on a private vessel in Free Worlds space.”

  He dangled that out there and watched the man swallow carefully.

  “There is legal precedent,” Isaev replied slowly, carefully. “The Mbaysey are not members of the Free Worlds, but consider themselves an independent star nation engaged in legitimate international trade, sir.”

  “Do they now?” Amirin let his face grow just a little more serious.

  “I am a merchant, lord, not a politician,” Isaev deflected the blame, just a little.

  If Amirin was willing to allow it. He decided to let the technicality slide. He still needed this man.

  “Indeed,” Amirin nodded with a warmer smile, prompting the man to continue.

  “Additionally, it was her stated intention to remove that vessel from Free Worlds space as soon as she could, so that local authorities would not be threatened,” Isaev offered.

  “Ah,” Amirin Pasdar, Naupati of Septagon Vorgash smiled now. “That is why I am here.”

  “Lord?” Isaev asked, completely pale now, aware that the Sept Empire itself had taken notice of him.

  “Do you know where she is headed?” Pasdar asked. “I have already destroyed the other vessel, the older one known as WinterStar, as well as her strange, alien allies. But SeekerStar has eluded me, for the moment.”

  He watched the implications of his words play out in the eyes of the merchant.

  Destroyed, just like that.

  Rats that fled.

  Mikhail Isaev seemed to be wracking his brain for clues and tidbits that might deflect his possibly-impending doom.

  “I seem to remember my spies pointing out that Omezi had recruited one alien while she was here,” he stammered after a moment. “The ClanStars, her other vessels, recruited perhaps a hundred people while in system, mostly human but with a smattering of aliens as well.”

  “Why is this one alien important, then, Isaev?” Pasdar asked.

  “She was attached to WinterStar, Lord,” the man said. “Presumably as crew for SeekerStar as well, if you destroyed the one, as they did not recruit sufficient crew while here to man both vessels simultaneously, unless they stripped the ClanStars first.”

  “Interesting,” Pasdar noted, leaning back and nodding to the tea master to refill his mug.

  It also allowed some of the tension to bleed out of the room. That would be important.

  “I would like to see that report, Factor,” Pasdar continued, granting the man some comfort by using his title, like a regional noble. “If they have fled from me now, perhaps that will give us some clues, when we again take up our pursuit later.”

  “Later, Lord?” Isaev asked carefully.

  “Indeed, Factor Isaev,” Pasdar smiled warmly now. “I want you to build me a warship of a class like SeekerStar.”

  The shock on the man’s face was worth all of the rest of the discomfort Amirin had endured today, traveling off his Septagon and dealing with Free Worlders.

  Indeed.

  “Why would you need such a thing, Lord?” Isaev asked with a stammer. “You have a Septagon. Patrols of craft. Enormous firepower.”

  “A Septagon is a slow, implacable Leviathan, Factor,” Pasdar said. “Omezi can continue to elude me, as long as she has something light and fast, like SeekerStar. My mission, from the Emperor himself, is to hunt this woman down and destroy her. If you build me the vessel I need, the Septagon and this squadron can return to Sept Space and the Free Worlds can return to normal. All will be well.”

  “Where will you go, Lord?”

  “Into the darkness, Isaev,” Amirin Pasdar said. “I will pursue her wherever she goes and kill her. You will be well rewarded for forging me the sword, the steed that I will need to do it.”

  Five

  Daniel had taken to retreating occasionally to the little white ship, sitting off to one side down on the flight deck. It was the only shuttle they had left from the bizarre collection that he had inherited when he took command of the Star Turtle over Urid-Varg’s dead body. All those individual ships belonging to the various people that the Conqueror had captured and ridden, all those centuries.

  Kathra had sold four others to that Trade Factor back at Tavle Jocia, getting the funds to build SeekerStar, even if some of it had been the promise of future things to sell.

  The rest were all gone now. Destroyed when the big ship fell into that nameless star, already mortally wounded by Septagon Vorgash. He wanted to feel rage, but most days, just getting out of bed was nearly too much effort.

  He’d understood depression in a clinical sense before this. Witnessed it in others from time to time. Understood that the best solution, most of the time, was for outsiders to just keep in place and offer positive thoughts, while the person suffering worked it out on their own.

  It had never been him at the bottom of the pool, slowly drowning in the critical voices racing madly around inside his head.

  Daniel was used to hearing strange people, but these new ones were him, rather than all the aliens that existed as ghosts inside the gem. The loudest one was Doubt, with his cousins Fear and Irritation. Daniel had to focus on not reacting to things, most of the time, lest he flee from everyone or lash out unprovoked in an unexpected rage.

  When he was not cooking, he used to go over to the Turtle and try to inventory all the strange trophies he had collected. Or Urid-Varg had. Something.

  The shuttles, for instance, many of which used technology he didn’t understand but could repair from someone else’s memories. The skulls of victim races as well as beings Urid-Varg had ridden. Ground vehicles of every technology Daniel could imagine. The strange orchards the man had accumulated over the centuries. Millennia.

  All of that was gone now. It was probably a good thing, when Daniel thought about it, but it still left a hole in his soul and he hadn’t figured out how to fill it. So he again found himself down on the flight deck of SeekerStar, just sitting and staring at the strange shuttle that he and Erin had been able to use to escape the Star Turtle at the end.

  Everyone always wondered if this thing was made of glass, internally lit by bands of white light. It had that look, and the skin had that texture, but it wasn’t transparent, and it absolutely flew in space. Plus, he knew it was tough enough to resist Daniel pounding on it with the biggest hammer he could lift.

  It helped if you envisioned a series of hexagonal pieces of indestructible crystal, stacked upright on top of each other. Each of the rods was about a meter and a half wide, and the ship was nearly sixty long, but didn’t have any sort of thruster nozzles or anything that marked even one end from the other.

  Looking in a visual database, Daniel had seen a rock formation from Earth called the Giant’s Causeway that was shaped in a similar manner, although he had no idea if the ship was the result of natural processes or a bizarre design aesthetic so alien that he could not understand it.

  In the end, he didn’t
suppose it mattered. The vessel worked. Nobody could explain how, but it would fly through space and had something vaguely equivalent to a valence drive, if utterly different. It also required no fuel at all, and had no working parts that Daniel had been able to find.

  Even his ghosts mostly just shrugged when he asked. That was how old the vessel was.

  But it brought him solace.

  Nothing of Daniel Lémieux had been lost with the Turtle, as all his personal gear had already been aboard SeekerStar.

  But the memories of others haunted him.

  As did the young woman walking towards him now with a purposeful stride.

  Spectre Twenty-Three. A’Alhakoth.

  Daniel twisted his torso, flexed his shoulders back, and popped his neck to loosen everything up. She had not always dealt well with the aspects of his abilities, although no cross words had been spoken.

  You didn’t need words when you occasionally became the other person as a way to communicate.

  But she had also become him a few times. It was one of the ways he could know his sanity was intact, because Kathra, or more importantly, Erin, would snap the whip on him pretty hard if he started to slide into darkness.

  “Madame,” Daniel said as she got close.

  He was seated on a mechanic’s chair, a low structure that let these tall women get under and around low things without necessarily being on a rolling board. A’Alhakoth had brought something similar, if smaller.

  That she was one of the few women on this ship shorter than him meant that she also had to make daily adjustments.

  She pulled up her chair and sat silently next to him, both of them staring at the side of the glass shuttle for a time, this ship being well away from the active parts of the flight deck and the other women working in the distance.

  “I spoke with Kathra,” she began after a time. “Eventually, I think we’re going to Kanus.”

  Daniel nodded sagely and waited. He was a chef, the very definition of careful patience. Plus, she hadn’t asked him a question. Even his depression was not enough to cause him to react now.