Beyond the Veil

by Hamish Spiers

  “I’m not sure I like where this is going,” Maia said.

  “Oh, it gets better and better,” Selina replied. “It turns out that Carla’s mother was born in the Minstrahn Empire so she’s offered to join the envoy as well. She’s bringing her own ship and Carla’s going along too.”

  “Ah ha.”

  “And Carla’s a triplet too, we’ve found out. See? I’m just full of news. Anyway, we met one of her sisters and now Carla’s looking for her other one.”

  “That errand you mentioned.”

  “Right. Oh, and apparently this other sister’s some kind of wild child or something. But, you know, that’s family business as far as I’m concerned.”

  “And I suppose you’re all going with Carla’s mother to the Minstrahn Empire too then?” Maia asked.

  Selina smiled. “Well, you know Asten and Drackson. Carla’s like their precious sister too. And I’ve got to go wherever Asten goes to keep him out of trouble. And now that’s going to include stopping him from ogling Carla’s mother as well.”

  Maia laughed. “What? She must be fifty!”

  “Forty-seven apparently,” Selina shrugged, “but you wouldn’t know it from looking at her.”

  “And now I suppose you want to rope me into this thing, right?”

  “Zak too,” Selina added. “And Asten wants to poach all of Sigma Squadron as well.”

  “What?” Zak asked. “Let’s see... Three Class-A Cruisers, each with the capacity to carry five squadrons of Wasps and two assault shuttles. So fifteen fighter squadrons and six assault shuttles all up. And he wants to bring more back-up?”

  “He wants to bring our own back-up,” Selina corrected him. “He said he’d like to have people we know. If anything goes wrong out there, he thinks the chances are that the Wasp pilots would be more concerned with defending the Federation ships than looking after us.”

  “Maybe,” Zak said. “Maybe not. Admiral Roth is hardly a conventional commander. Who knows what he’d do if the situation came up?”

  “All the same, that’s what he said.”

  “Hey, I didn’t say no,” Zak pointed out. “And I think the rest of the squad might be up for it too. I’ll have to talk it over with them first though.”

  “Fair enough,” Selina said.

  “And this work is what we’re doing for a living now,” Zak said. “So...”

  “No problem,” Selina told him. “We’ll handle everything. We’ll cover fuel. And even though the Harpy only barely qualifies as a cruiser, it’s big enough to carry your fighters. So as long as you’re out of pocket, we’ll cover all your expenses. And knowing what they pay you guys here, you’ll probably be up on credits at the end of it.”

  Zak nodded. “All right. Command won’t like it much but all right. I might run it by the others later.” He turned to Maia. “However, it’s up to you, Princess.”

  Selina couldn’t help smiling. She rather liked it that Maia had softened up enough not to mind Zak’s affectionate name for her. She probably wouldn’t like ‘honey’ or ‘darling’ but her cheeks always seemed to blossom a little when Zak called her ‘Princess’.

  “It’s strange,” Maia reflected. “All my childhood was spent listening to my mother talking about how wonderful her people were and what a pristine world Felarias was. She never mentioned my father’s people.”

  Zak stroked her hand. “She did say he was Minstrahn though.”

  “Yes,” Maia said, “but I don’t think he told her much about the Minstrahn either. Otherwise, she would have taught me more about them, surely.”

  “He died before you were born, right?” Zak asked.

  Maia shrugged. “Probably. He went to Felarias to help my mother’s people during the war and he didn’t come back. You can make whatever you want from that but I’m sure he would have returned if he could.”

  Zak held her hand. “I’m sure he would have too.”

  “But this is why I’m telling you about this trip,” Selina told her. “Don’t you want to find out more about your father?”

  “I don’t know,” Maia replied, shrugging again. “That’s what I mean. I’ve never really thought about it before. I don’t have any burning unanswered questions leaving me incomplete. And it’s not as if there’s some kind of empty void inside me that can only be filled by knowing more about my father. I’m a freak, I know that. But -”

  “Hey,” Zak said. “You’re not a freak.”

  “I look like one of my mother’s people - a people who are extinct for all I know - and my father’s from some distant sector that no one knows anything about.” She put an arm around him. “I know you don’t think there’s anything strange about your glowing-red eyed girl but the fact is I’m a little unique around here.”

  “But no one says you’re a freak,” Zak told her.

  “I do,” Maia countered, then sighed. “But all right. I know what you mean. But that’s not the point I was trying to make. The point is I don’t care where I come from.”

  “But,” she added, turning back to Selina, “I am intrigued by this trip.”

  With a hiss, the hatch slid open and Laila Casdan stepped out onto the landing field. Obnoxious noise blared from the nearby buildings and tacky lights swirled back and forth through the smoky haze that permeated the humid night air.

  “What a dump,” she exclaimed with a shake of her head. She looked at Carla. “Does Alia actually like these kinds of places?”

  Carla shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Laila sighed. “Well, come on. Lyla, where exactly did you say the Goddess was docked?”

  “Twelve,” her other daughter said, pointing ahead. “Two over.”

  It was kind of nice being on an open landing field though, Laila thought as they made their way over. You could check out what everyone else was flying. At the eleventh landing slot, they passed a rather expensive looking private yacht of some description. Laila smiled. She recognized the type. All show, with shoddy handling, slow response times and sub-par engines. But the upholstery was first-rate.

  She then laid eyes on the Goddess, getting her first look at Alia’s ship. It was a slightly older version of the current Dawnyards Witchcraft, a light two-seat shuttle, and it looked as though she’d been modifying it over the past few years. Hacking, that was what it was called, Laila remembered. And Alia was a keen hobbyist. Carla said she worked odd jobs doing ship repairs and maintenance, collecting bits and pieces to improve her own ship on the side. She also had a tendency to flit from place to place, leaving one job once she’d saved enough to keep her going for a while and then setting up shop somewhere completely different. It was the reason she’d been so hard to track down.

  Fortunately though, Carla knew a friend of Alia’s who more or less stayed put who’d been able to point them in the right direction.

  Alia was rather surprised when she opened the hatch. That was expected. Although, Laila thought she could have expressed that surprise a little better.

  “Mom? What are you doing here?”

  “Why don’t you try ‘hello’ or ‘what a nice surprise’?” Laila suggested. “Anyway, we wanted to talk to you about something.”

  “Well, I figured that,” the feisty brunette replied, her gaze flicking from her mother to her two sisters. “Hey, Carla. Hey, Lyla.”

  Carla grabbed her in a tight embrace. “Come on, give us a hug. We haven’t seen you in ages.”

  Alia smiled and nodded. “Right, sorry.” She gave Lyla and Laila a hug as well. “I’m sorry,” she said afterwards, looking a little embarrassed. “That wasn’t really the best welcome, was it? Um... I’d invite you in but I think it’d be rather cramped. Maybe we could go to one of the local bars or something.”

  “Too public for my liking,” Laila said. “And the er... music isn’t my style.”

  “Oh, that stuff?” Alia waved a dismissive hand. “It’s just background noise. No one really listens to it. It’s so when an inebriated guy talks to an inebriated girl, ne
ither of them realize the other’s just talking crap. Well, I assume you guys came in a bigger ship, right?”

  “Big enough for the four of us to catch up and have a bit of a chat, certainly,” Laila told her.

  “I’m not in trouble, am I?” Alia asked.

  Laila laughed. “Why would you think that?”

  Alia made a face. “Because I’m always in trouble.”

  “Don’t worry. You’re not in trouble. But something’s come up and I think it’s important for all of us.”

  Alia was a fairly sharp observer of facts and could quickly assemble them into accurate conclusions.

  “A Minstrahn thing?” she asked.

  “A Minstrahn thing,” Laila said. “Yes, that’s why it’s just us and your father’s at home.”

  “Boy, I can’t wait,” Alia replied, locking the hatch.

  Laila shook her head. “Yeah. Clearly. Come on.”

  The star field stretching across the viewing window was incredible. However, no matter how one looked at the room itself, it was dull. But for the two men and the woman who were seated at the little table in the center, there were more pressing matters to discuss than the decor.

  “Well?” the woman asked the man who appeared to be the leader of the group. The other man also looked at him questioningly.

  “Apparently, the Empress has sent a delegation to the Federation, asking for their assistance in resolving this little problem we’ve concocted.”

  “Why would she do that?” the other man asked.

  The woman glowered. “Because there’s so much poison in the families, she can’t trust any of us.”

  “But outsiders? What do they know?”

  “Nothing,” the woman said. “And that would undoubtedly be the point of our young Empress’s provocative deed. An outsider would not be burdened by preconceptions. They would hold no stake in the outcome of their investigations, bearing no loyalties to any of the families. They would, in short, be perfect.”

  The other man looked to the leader. “Could they discover us?”

  The leader shrugged, unconcerned. “Anything can happen when one weds chance. The possibility that we could fail did not frighten you before though, so why should it frighten you now?”

  “We accept the risk in hope of the gain,” the woman said, glaring at their timid companion before turning back to the leader. “Do our beneficent benefactors know of this?”

  “Alliteration is such a childish pleasure.”

  “At least I enjoy the pleasures of life. There are those I know who do not. However?”

  “Our benefactors are aware of this transgression by our young untried Empress -”

  “And you are unnecessarily wordy,” the woman told him.

  “You are always so kind to me, my dear. If I may continue however, our benefactors advise caution but believe we should continue with our plans.”

  “At more risk to ourselves,” the other man in the room countered, “now that these barbarians will be turning over every fallen leaf in the Empire.”

  “Need I remind you,” the leader replied, “that our friends have always provided us with everything we have needed to perform the tasks that are necessary to our goals?”

  “Why can they not provide some of those ships of theirs?” the other protested. “Such wonderful vessels, magnificent in their grandeur with such incredible capacity to obliterate those who oppose them. Why can they not provide them?”

  “How is it,” mused the leader, his voice almost icy, “that I let you join us in our plan when you have such an infantile understanding of what it is that we are trying to do? Have you not even the inkling of a grasp of what the concept of subtlety is?”

  “Infantile?” the woman asked, raising one eyebrow. “Inkling? Ah, yes. Such a childish pleasure.”

  “I am troubled by our companion’s seemingly non-existent understanding of what it is we are trying to accomplish,” the leader said, pointedly ignoring the remark.

  “I understand what we are trying to accomplish perfectly well,” the other man told him. “But it seems to me that our benefactors are not as gracious as you always make them out to be. What is it they really want in return for their generosity?”

  The woman smiled at this but said nothing.

  “I have told you,” the leader replied, “just a handful of systems on the outskirts of the Empire. They are not important. Yes, there are ore deposits there and some have considerable potential for agricultural production. But they are hardly used and sparsely peopled. In short, it would be no loss to concede them.”

  “But why do they want them though?”

  “Who knows? Who can understand the minds of such different creatures from ourselves? It does not matter. We have an accord, and that is the only point that should be of concern to you. They are honoring their side of the agreement and in return, we shall honor ours. That is both the beginning and the end of the matter.”

  “You are not curious, even in the least?”

  “No, I am not.”

  The other man glowered. “I still think it is a puzzlement as to why our benign friends think these visitors from outside are of so little consequence that we should simply carry on with our plans as if they were not even here.”

  “Well, presently, they are not here,” the woman remarked, giving him another smile before turning to the first man. “However, I feel that our benign and beneficent leader may have more to say on this point, is that not so?”

  “Quite,” he said. “Our friends have certainly not suggested that we ignore these intruders. Not at all. They suggest, and I concur, that our first course of action should be to see if we can use them to our advantage. Failing that, if we cannot persuade them to play along to our tune, then our second course should be to discover whether we can convince them to lose interest. If they should feel that their precious time has been wasted, they will not be inclined to stay any longer. Furthermore, they will then ignore any more requests for aid, and they’d be right to do so. Then we would have no need to worry about them returning.”

  This met with approving nods from both the woman and the other man.

  “Failing that,” the leader said, “then we should do whatever we can to dispose of them. And, in that eventuality, if we can hide our hand in the affair then all the better.”

  4. Lessons on the Minstrahn

  As she stepped onto the ship that her mother had requisitioned from the Laonist navy for this expedition, Carla was overawed despite herself. That her mother could so easily acquire this modified Shokhan Starliner was as solid evidence as any that her relationship to Admiral Kalae was close indeed.

  “So,” Alia asked, walking beside her, “does this thing have a name?”

  “This is the Deliverance,” Laila said. “And I served on it on several occasions during my time in the Resistance. In fact, I was on the bridge when Admiral Kalae led the assault on those Federation cruisers over Phalamki to draw the fighters away from the main defense lines.”

  Alia nodded. “Nice.”

  Lyla grimaced at this and looked as though she was about to comment on her sister’s nonchalance but Carla placed a hand on her shoulder and shook her head. Alia was always nonchalant. She didn’t mean anything by it.

  Behind them, Maia was quiet. Carla looked back at her. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Selina pushed you to come with us, didn’t she?”

  “She thinks I should learn about my father’s people.”

  “You know, you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to,” Carla told her, falling back behind the others.

  “True, but...” A look of amusement crossed Maia’s features. “I figure your sister doesn’t want to be here either, but she’s still making the effort so I may as well too. Anyway, I think we’re probably all a little unsure about this, right?”

  Carla smiled. “True. And Mom’s never really told us much about the Minstrahn before either. Giving us this little cra
sh course is probably going to be something of a learning experience for her too.”

  Maia smiled. “Well, it’ll be good practice for when we get to the rendezvous and she has to explain half this stuff again to Admiral Roth.”

  “I think our lessons will probably be of a slightly different nature to the things he’ll want to know about, but yeah. Good point.”

  Realizing they were falling behind, they then quickened their pace to keep up with the others. Soon, they were on the bridge of the cruiser, where Laila’s command crew were waiting for the order to get under way.

  Laila walked over to a small Tollum, an avian-like humanoid with silver-green feathers. Carla tried not to think about her previous employer, Big Blue, who was of the same species. She had worked for that particular Tollum with Asten and Drackson before Asten bought the Lady Hawk and they had gone into business for themselves. And he wasn’t on her list of fond memories. However, this particular individual had different feather coloration and was rather smaller. He didn’t look like a bully at least.

  “Captain Ah’ness,” Laila announced, shaking his hand and then indicating Carla and the others. “Allow me to present my daughters. Lyla, Carla and Alia. You didn’t meet Lyla during the Resistance, by any chance? She was one of our ground officers.”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “Oh, well. Also, we have the pleasure of another guest as well. Maia.”

  “Welcome aboard the Deliverance,” the Tollum replied, the feathers around his wrist fluffing up in what was a gesture of hospitality for his people. “I am Captain Ah’ness.”

  “A pleasure to meet you,” Carla replied as the others exchanged similar pleasantries. She then noticed that Maia had tensed up. She turned about to see what had got her friend’s attention and found herself a little taken aback as well.

  Although there were a number of Levarc now living in the Federation and the Frontier worlds, they were still scary for the uninitiated. They were reptilian anthropoids but with their slightly pivoted stance balanced by their tails, they were not humanoid. And they were considerably larger than humans and even larger humanoids like Harskans or Phalamkians. This one, like all the others Carla had seen, would easily dwarf Drackson or Lord Erama. However, they were generally inoffensive and tended to keep low profiles. If there were any individuals who missed the glory days when their people had brought the Federation to its knees, they were rather quiet about it.