"Before that, though," Vessa replied, blinking rapidly, "you were struck in the back, by some purple… thing. A hag." Her face paled. "And a powerful one at that. I had no idea it was even there, or I would have gotten you guys out of there sooner."
"My grandmother suspects it was one that specialized in stealth and ambushes," I put in gently. "The bulk of its power lay in avoiding detection and landing incapacitating blows. Most of its power was spent when it ambushed Nova, so she was able to maim it, and then I drove it off."
"I hadn't even realized something could get past my sensors," Vessa said guiltily. "If that had happened before now, especially back when Jasper was alone… we're lucky," she added glumly. "If you had faced a monster that could hide like that sooner, then one or both of you would have already been dead."
"Yes, but there's nothing we can do about that," I pointed out. "Though I don't think anything with that kind of stealth could have passed this deep into your ship. We'll just have to take this as a reminder that your new senses and even your memory are still imperfect, that there may very well be plenty of new threats none of us had considered yet, and that we just need to do the best we can with whatever we encounter, surprised or not."
"I don't like that," the beautiful gray woman admitted, "but we have to roll with that mindset for now. And I'm realizing that I'm more deeply connected to Nova than I thought I was, or that blast wouldn't have affected me as much as it did."
"What do you mean?" Nova replied, staring at her other body. "I've been injured before. The cage-drake tried to imprison me with its breath, and the Longman slammed me into the floor once or twice. Did you feel either of that?"
"No." Vessa shook her head. "The first instance doesn't count, because it wasn't an attack that actually harmed you, and we weren't linked yet. The second instance, I didn't feel anything at all. But this time, whatever knocked you out sent me sinking to the floor."
"Speaking of that," I said to her, looking at her temple, "we need to take a look at this bruise."
"Jas, I'm fine," Vessa insisted, without pulling away from me. "It's just a bruise. You've gotten hurt far more than this multiple times already."
"That's why I know how much it hurts," I replied. "You taught me a qi technique that lets me slowly recover damage, and it's already saved my life once or twice. Can you use the same technique on yourself?"
Vessa frowned, and then looked away from me.
"No," the gray woman sighed glumly. "I've got too much missing from me to really use it, or I'd have the power running all day."
"Nova," I said, "you have healing powers, correct?"
"I do," the blonde woman said. "But it's just a bruise, Jas. Are you sure you don't want to just treat it yourself?"
I suppressed a sigh of my own. For some reason, Nova refused to help her other body while I was around, unless there was some dire emergency that took the both of us to help care for her. I had tried asking her about that once or twice, but she had always refused to explain why.
But she was right. It was just a bruise. I had begun to recover enough Source energy to treat something minor like that. So I performed a minor wood technique that Grandmother Mara had taught me, one to speed up the recovery of superficial injuries, to make them heal cleanly without getting worse.
A green stream of energy drifted from my finger and floated into Vessa's temple. She closed her eyes in relief.
"That… helps way more than I thought it would. Thanks, Jasper," she said, massaging the vanishing injury. "I can actually think a little more clearly now. I think I know what happened." She looked back at me. "It wasn't just the attack. It was the information. Now that the boarding portals have been destroyed or removed, I've gotten another degree of information, and unlike when I just activated the array, it's all coming at once. I'm starting to process it better, but it's going to take time. Time I hope we have enough of," she added, looking nervous.
"What do you mean?" I asked, supporting her a little more as we walked. "What do you need us to do?"
"I'm not sure yet," she said, holding up her hand. "I'll need to sleep on it for a little bit… but I may need you two to go planetside again… something's happening in this sector of worlds. Something that might explain why everything else down here has gotten so jittery. I'm going to try and get a firmer lock on my local Beacon, and see if I can figure out more."
That was right, I realized. Vessa had another body down on one of these worlds. We hadn't visited her yet, and Vessa seemed as if she wanted our contact with her other bodies to be as limited as possible, but she was out there, and I found myself wondering what she looked like.
"Will it affect us here?" Nova asked, walking over. "Or could Elder Mara's Sourcepalace wind up as a target?"
"That last one would result in all-out war with the Sparkling Sky Sect," Vessa answered, shaking her head. "They have an excellent reputation on many worlds, to the point where they could call in a number of allies if they had to. I don't think even the Glorious Star Charter would be willing to face that kind of consequence, not over something on a far-off asteroid. Still though, we'll need to distance ourselves more and more from that place, unfortunately. In fact I'm not even sure if you two could go back there to Draw more than a couple times."
"It's not really an issue," I said, as we walked into the warp drive room. I started to turn toward the sanctuary, but then Vessa shook her head and pointed to the living chambers that were only a room over. "We've carted off almost everything of value there that we could use, and we can always find new locations to Draw. Besides, we seem to be Advancing quickly enough as it is."
"Correction," Vessa said, raising her finger again. "You can never Advance quickly enough, as long as there is a greater threat out there looking for you. By that same token, you can always Advance too quickly, or too slowly. Advancement is not so much a narrow road you must walk on as it is a steep cliff you must climb in stormy weather with no tools."
"Noted, teacher," I said reverently as I walked her to the closet capsule bed. She glared at me, then punched me lightly on the shoulder.
"Shut up and put me back in bed," she mock-growled. "Then go get me something to eat. And thank you both for coming back alive. And for saving me and Nova, Jas," she added, looking me in the eye and smiling at me. "Now go get some rest. I mean, feed me. I mean, whatever I said to do."
I left Vessa to recover, got everyone some more jerky and food pouches for lunch, and promptly passed out in a capsule of my own.
After a few hours of rest, we returned for another meeting. For once, everyone seemed like they had gotten enough to eat, which satisfied my ego well.
"Alright, more of the information has become clear," Vessa said, after taking a sip from her food pouch. "I need a few more moments to think about it, but I noticed you both Advanced again, on your last mission."
"I did," I replied, "another substage in each Source, putting me six-tenths of the way through. It happened when Nova was in danger."
"I gained a substage in every Source, too," Nova confirmed. "I noticed it when I woke up."
"That, there, is different," my teacher said, looking at us both. "Nova's Advancing along with you, Jas. I want to find out more about that, but I want to caution you about stabilizing your next substages: don't do it, yet. Now that you have five locked down in mana and essence, as well as a third of your qi, you should let your soul and body process a bit of this new change on their own. Don't make a habit of waiting, but this is one of those rare instances where it's the right thing to do. If you haven't gained any more substages by the end of the week, and I can't believe I even need to say that," she said as she closed her eyes and covered her face, "but we need to see just how much this rush of progression is going to happen to you, Jasper, before we make any more decisions. For all we know, you're about to rocket all the way through to the third stage. In that case, it will be better to just lock everything down in one go. This time," she sighed.
"Is there a way to
predict this?" I asked. "In the future, how will I know when to pause and stabilize, and how will I know to keep going?"
"If you're progressing anywhere close to the normal pattern most practitioners take for Advancing, it's easy," Vessa replied, shifting to sit up in the capsule. "But since you're so far outside that pattern that even telling you what others do would probably just confuse you, then I will just say that you can't. Come get me whenever you can, or let your grandmother help you figure out what to do. She's done as good a job at teaching you as I have, frankly."
The Holy Vessel is too generous with her praise, Mara said humbly from within my soul.
"What about Nova?" I asked, nodding toward my blonde childhood friend. "She's even farther ahead than I am. Do I need to be aware or concerned of her Advancement?"
"At the risk of sounding rude, no," the gray ship-woman said firmly. "The truth of the matter is that she's progressing close to the rate I need her to, and have even designed her to do. Her current power is the result of careful planning on my part, as well as a massive sacrifice of my remaining resources. Her gain earlier today was a surprise, but not one that disrupts my plan for her progression—our plan, excuse me, Nova," she corrected herself with a glance toward her Beacon, who just shrugged. "That said, Jas, we need you to continue doing what you're already excelling at in regards to fighting alongside her and shielding her when she needs it. Whatever trick you did earlier today just saved her life, and possibly mine as well."
"Did you find out a way to fix that?" Nova said, stepping forward a bit. "Because I'm going to get hurt if I keep leaping into combat, and that feedback could be very bad for you."
"I think so," the ship-woman replied to her Beacon. "It was a holdover from my creating you, and your special link to me. I did what I could to fix it, but the only way to make sure it works is to see what happens if you hurt yourself severely again."
"Hmm," the golden-armored woman replied. "So, we either find out the next time I get stabbed or shot in combat, or…" She suddenly walked closer to Vessa, removed her gauntlet, and slammed her fist down on the gray woman's capsule with a hard crack.
"Seven and a half hells, that hurt!" the blonde woman said as she wrung out her hand, before turning to look back at Vessa. "Did you feel any of that?"
"Nope," the ship-woman said, looking exactly the same as she did a few moments ago, save for the smug smile now on her face. "Great test, Nova."
The Beacon glared at her primary body for a few moments, before inhaling deeply and looking away.
"Well, I'm glad we're finding out now, instead of having the issue nag at the back of my mind all the time," she huffed. "What else did you want to discuss?"
"Good question," Vessa said with a nod. "I have been thinking that it's time to turn our attention back outward. The growth of the two of you has been fantastic, but it's still too dangerous to go deeper into my ship-body right now. My invaders have gotten more wary of me, to the point where more groups are organizing for safety—and that's just the locations I can see. There's a lot more to me that you two—three, counting Nestor—haven't seen yet, and I need to accept that it's probably going to take a long time before everything is reclaimed. Which brings us to my current point." She paused to take another breath. "I don't think the night sky can wait for me to be fully functional before I try to save it. Forces that wish to burn and pillage worlds are moving now, and thanks to my improved sensors, I can finally see how bad it is. Let me activate the new navigation display."
She waved her hand through the air, and the grid-map of an entire planet appeared before her.
"This is Qarm Prime, the world of my local Beacon. I didn't bother to bring it up, since I knew we weren't going to be there very long, but Qarm Two and Qarm Three were the other two worlds you visited here, respectively. Qarm Prime is by far the most populated and has the densest concentration of practitioners and Sourcebeasts. It is an essence-rich world, even more so than the other two you visited, and with a much larger population. Or at least it used to be," the gray woman added darkly. "Recently, more and more people are either moving off-world or leaving their communities and gathering around certain visitors—and from what I can tell, the movement seems involuntary on the part of the locals. It's just a guess, but I suspect the visitors belong to a foreign power seeking to monopolize the resources of this world—especially the people."
Nova's jaw clenched, and Vessa nodded when she saw it.
"I know," the ship-woman affirmed, "I hate slavers too. Oppressors of the innocent are the very bane of what we stand for as Soulships. They destroy the balance of civilization itself, of the opportunity for communities to grow, for certain species to leave their benefits upon their respective worlds."
That sounded rather naive to me, because I had grown up around oppression and had seen the strong oppress the weak my entire life. If there was truly a time when people—especially people of different tribes and races—were able to coexist with each other and non-human beings as well, then it was lost to every history I knew.
Exactly, Grandmother Mara said in my mind. There was a time when oppression was either non-existent, or at least extremely uncommon. Every tyrant has done what they could to erase such knowledge. Know this, grandson. As broken as your world was, the parts that worked at all were the result of a few people who did what they could to be just, fair, and wise. Like the Holy Beacon herself. Do not tell yourself oppression is necessary, child, just because it is so resilient to stamp out. That just means resisting it is all the more important.
I nodded at my grandmother's words, and let Vessa continue speaking.
"You look like you're thinking, Jas," the gray woman said as she looked at me. "I'm guessing you've noticed something important."
"Possibly," I hedged. "But first, what is the technological difference between these groups and their visitors? Are the people of this world on the same level as the ones we saw on Qarm 3, with the bloodbeast?"
"No, despite their appearance," Vessa said as she shook her head. "The people of Qarm Prime dress similarly, but that is due more to their climate and their proficiency as hunters. They are skilled in a vast number of crafts, ranging from use in animal hides and bones, to woodwork and construction, and especially metalworking. They are exceptionally talented jewelers, and even better blacksmiths. In fact, they have one of the oldest traditions of steel-making among the night sky. Those who mistake them for a primitive people are often scorned by civilizations more familiar with their work, and run the risk of losing valuable trading partners."
"Wow," Nova said, "that's amazing. I'd love to see them."
"How well-known are they?" I asked. "If their crafts are so valuable, and they are being moved offworld in such numbers, wouldn't their benefactors come to their aid?"
"That's what I was thinking," Nova said. "So whoever has chosen to move down here must be powerful enough to intimidate the locals and careful enough to avoid too much attention from their benefactors."
"That's the most likely scenario," Vessa answered me. "The people of Qarm are a private lot. They leave most of the distribution of their craft to trading partners. They don't even care for gaining much recognition. They just wish to live in peace with their wealth and maintain their world."
That sounded like an ideal society to me. So of course it would become a target for someone else.
"Has civil war broken out here, yet?" I asked. Nova turned to look at me in shock, but Vessa regarded me with a careful gaze.
"No," she said as her gray eyes watched me. "But I suspect it will, soon. How did you know to ask that?"
"Because whenever the tyrants on Earth wished to acquire either the people of a land or their resources, they would instigate conflict between the different local groups, in any way they could. They would then either leave those peoples in a state of permanent unrest and quietly harvest their resources, or they would swoop in themselves after the populations had been damaged enough, claiming they were there to offer a
ssistance, and assume control of the people directly. I assumed the tyrants among the rest of the night sky worked no differently."
"There are a few differences, but you have the right of it," Vessa answered me. "I suspect you have another question, though."
"I do," I answered, "I am remembering the attack of the bloodbeast, as well as the devastation he would have wrought on that planet if he were not stopped. This does not yet seem to be on that level of distress."
"I am aware of that," Vessa admitted with a nod. "I am also aware that we risk discovery with every world we help. That is forcing me to consider just when a world can possibly solve their problems on their own, and when that same world is facing an event that will require their receiving outside aid to ensure the population's survival. In this case, I am suspecting this star system is undergoing an invasion that they will not only be unable to resist themselves, but will also lead to the devastation, however subtle, of many nearby worlds—even ones that orbit other stars."
That made sense, given how important the production of this one world was.
"What do you want us to do?" I asked.
"The disappearing tribes are likely going to be used to create unrest among the remaining population," Vessa began to explain. "They are just the right size to cause that—big enough to be known and noticed, but small enough for any of the major powers on the planet to devastate them. It's likely that the invaders' agents will soon filter among the different groups and begin planting evidence to cast suspicion on key tribes."
"Which means our enemies aren't that strong," Nova pointed out, "or they'd start abducting the major tribes and cripple the population that way."
"Also true," Vessa agreed. "Which means exposing the instigators will go a long way in unraveling their plans for this world."
"Or escalate them," I interjected, realizing I was being pessimistic, and unable to help it.
"Or escalate them," Vessa sighed. "It is entirely possible that our interference will backfire based on knowledge we never could have known. So I am going to keep our strategy simple. My sensors have revealed the locations of the kidnapped tribes. Most of the people haven't been taken off-world yet, so it is possible to swoop in and free them from their perspective prison camps."
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