The Corrupted Star

by Martin HC

  “What do we do?” Jill asked, for the first time in a long time she felt lost, and it was written all over her face.

  “First, we get Tira into bed, then get something to eat, I haven't eaten in a long time.”

  “What about the others, the Ophelia?”

  “We'll call them when Tira wakes up, they'll be fine,” he promised.

  The Rabbit Hole Goes Deeper

  The seventh fleet had been battered in the opening salvoes and strikes, the Ferren ambush caught them heavily out of position and took its toll on her strike force. Tens of thousands were killed.

  Her fleet's battle command team had been praised by the high admiralty, they split the Ferren fleet, turning the tides of the fight. The damage at close range was just too much in Mergence favour and so the Ferren fleet withdrew, using their wounded and smaller ships as a shield for the remaining body of the fleet. Incredibly none of them surrendered, they fought to the death, all of them.

  The information received from the enemy fleet transmission burst provided much valued intelligence on the Ferrens, she still had no idea who to thank but Y'Riell received the praise.

  In the time that passed, developments had only gotten worse and the drums of war were being beaten by all three nations.

  Haydn's ship ran towards the Darkspace, the sensor link they shared keeping them visible until distance finally broke it. This and their own admissions of intent to re-enter the forbidden region allowed her to report on their supposed destination. She had believed they were dangerous, the level of fire-power they displayed though was beyond impressive. In a single shot, a beam of energy destroyed two hunter ships, completely cleaving the second in half.

  Her instincts were on the mark, the pair held in their hands deadly technology. They may be out of place in this galaxy, but the weapons they used were more powerful than anything she had ever seen, while remaining invisible to all. She couldn't understand though how the two wild cards had gained access to such a powerful ship. What did concern her was if they had a vessel this great, was there more following.

  She would need to try again, she would need to bring them to her side. This time with no government interference.

  The first hunter fleet to have engaged Y'Riell's own had been detected by Darkspace border stations, they were last seen engaging their star drives towards Darkspace, presumably in pursuit of the stealth ship.

  This only allowed her government to drum louder. War was coming now, it was unavoidable but things weren't adding up for her, everything was moving too quickly.

  The hunter fleet was only been seen after she reported her findings, it was also true what the woman Jill had said about their first battle, a true Ferren fleet would have caused far greater damage and losses, such as what they experienced during the second fight.

  Brice confirmed to her similar findings, reinforcing her own thoughts, asking why they'd gone through past the border stations, knowing that Mergence detection arrays would have seen them.

  In response to her reported findings and the Darkspace intrusion, her battered fleet had been resupplied and repositioned to the border. There would be no rest for her already demoralised crews. Three other fleets were reassigned in support to blockade the area but would take some time to organise, she was given command authority of them all. A promotion they told her, being the only Mergence admiral with full fleet warfare experience.

  She could feel the manipulating fingers of warmongering politics behind everything, and it seemed they wanted her in the best place possible to die, should the supposed hunter fleet draw the Darkspace ships back out.

  A Spark of Romance on a Forbidden Journey

  Tira slept for another seventy two hours after Haydn put her to bed, his bed, as she didn't have one that he knew of. After she woke, she appeared in the bridge room as normal and Jill was finally able to contact the Ophelia, explain her situation and let Damon know for the time being she was good. Her relief at seeing them all alive had lifted her spirits too, Damon also told her that he was considering a new member to the crew.

  He told her the story of Kas and Serena, how he remained on board, hiding as the security force extracted themselves. Serena vouched for him, and that was all the justification Damon needed.

  They remained for the duration of the fight, Serena provided ECM support to great effect but left as the Ferren's extracted themselves, using the distraction of the battle to make their escape. Brice sent him a message, the offer would remain on the table in thanks for their help and he wouldn't be pursued, for now.

  The alter Tira hadn't shown herself for another day, when she did Haydn brought her up to speed on everything, including why Jill was still with them. A development she wasn't happy about, but decided to tolerate. They all agreed to explore a bit now they were in the Darkspace, and while there was no one trying to kill them.

  Their journey through the mysterious and hidden region of the Darkspace turned up nothing at first, the signal she detected outside the borders was now all around them, leaving them no clear direction to take, but the deeper in they got, the more they began to find. It began with passing ship patrols, then empty and massive ancient structures were found. Nothing was found on any planet, those planets which supported a breathable atmosphere flourished with wildlife but no remains of any civilisations were found.

  A theory as to why developed after the discovery of a few colossal structures, they were the size of large moons built in orbit around stars, and like the others they too were dead and silent. It seemed that the people of this region of space lived in structures built among the stars, not on the planets but if they were gone now, leaving their structures and cities behind, who was flying the ships patrolling the space?

  The mysterious ships had been so far as yet unable to detect them, Tira could see them clearly and kept them well out of her way, she also identified the signal they utilised and likened it to the one detected by the Desians.

  The ancient empire had found the strange signal emitted by their enemy, they realised by analysing it they could figure out the rough location and number of enemy ships. The sensor stations bordering the Darkspace all had the function to detect and process this signal.

  The major discovery happened much later on, a structure so massive it dwarfed everything they'd found so far, it was so large in size that it housed a blue neutron star in its superstructure. The main body of it was built to cover one face of the star, three massively wide fingers reached from the structures body to go around the star, joining at the other side and continuing outwards a little away from the star.

  Like everything else it was dead as they approached, but unlike everything else it didn't remain that way. A powerful wave of invisible energy reached out and hit her ship, there was no damage. It wasn't an attack but Tira confirmed that they'd been scanned, it could see them through their stealth.

  Shortly after, six small ships ejected from it, and put themselves between the structure and them. They never answered any attempt to communicate and made none themselves, but didn't advance.

  Just as it looked like things were calming down, the structured began transmitting, unbelievably powerful and omnidirectional was the words Tira used, describing the transmission strength.

  They'd been sat for twelve hours. Tira studied the transmission that hadn't stopped the entire time, but now suddenly did.

  Jill and Haydn became close in the time they were together, after speaking with Damon and establishing that he was fine, she loosened up a lot. Haydn only had the one bed and a couch, so gave her his bed. He came into the room once to find her sleeping on the couch so lay down in the bed, a little later in the dim light of the room he woke up, disturbed by movement, and found her climbing onto the bed beside him.

  During that first time together he watched her confidently and slowly remove her clothes, revealing a body as lean and strong as her toughened clothing made it look. What fascinated him most was that Jill was heavily tattooed. He assumed it must have
been a form of marking from her shadowy past, but it wasn't, and it was only after they first slept together that he understood the real reason why, the tattoos were all covering scars on her skin.

  Lying beside her now and looking into her eyes, he traced a tattoo covered scar line across her naked body and winced inside, not at the feel of the scars, but because there were so many. What had she been forced to endure in her past he wondered?

  “They're horrible aren't they?” she asked, seeing the saddened look on his face.

  “No, that's not what I was thinking, it's just that there's so many of them, was your past really that violent?”

  “Some of them are from fighting, yes. We were raised by a mercenary faction and forced to fight, to compete, it's how they trained us.”

  “We?”

  “Me and Brenn, he was with me the entire time. They would beat and break us every week but he always looked out for me. He's like a brother, and together we were unbeatable.”

  “That sounds, terrible.”

  “It does, not for us at the time though, remember we were raised on it as children, brainwashed into thinking that was what life was. We would be thrilled at the chance for the next fight, the next competition, the wounds for us were like trophies earned and we were proud of them.”

  “And the rest of them, the scars?”

  “From the augmentations they would put in me, it was experimental for them using me, they wanted to see if the augmentations would improve development. The problem as a child though was that I was always growing, so they would have to remove them and replace them, each time more and more devices designed to improve muscle and bone development would be put back in.”

  “What changed it all, I mean why did you leave?”

  “That was Brenn, they would have to wait months each time between removing them and refitting the new ones. The old ones would be analysed, studied, and the new ones would be made better as a result. Each time I came out of surgery the pain would be tremendous, eventually it became too much to bear. I tried to ask them to stop but they didn't.”

  “What did Brenn do? Did he take you and run?”

  “No, not at first, he complained, forcefully, and so he was punished. They almost beat him to death in front of me, then to make a point they ruined his vocal cords, as a warning to anyone else who wanted to complain, which is why he never speaks. It was after that point I decided we were leaving, so we held off until they removed the next batch of implants, and after two months of waiting for the scars to heal, we left.”

  “Did they try and stop you?”

  “They tried, but the treatments they gave me worked. I was faster, stronger and far better than they could have hoped for. I couldn't let them put other children through it though, so the day we left I destroyed it all, the labs, the records, the doctors and most of the complex. They sent people after us and we would only return their big toes, so eventually people stopped coming.”

  “Wait, you only sent their big toes back?”

  “Well, a head in a box is too cliché,” she smiled for the first time since opening up, then looked at him seriously. “I've never told anyone this, not even Damon.”

  “It's safe with me,” he said, answering her unspoken question before making a suggestion. “If you don't like the scars, speak to Tira, maybe she can do something.”

  “Would it mean removing the tattoos too? I like them.”

  “I hope not, you look really good with them,” he told her with a cheeky look in his eye, one she'd come to understand. She sat up tall on top of him with her full body on show and said nothing, he took in every inch of the beautiful sight as she began moving.

  “The transmission stopped,” Tira said aloud, walking into the room and interrupting the two naked occupants.

  “Tira come on you need to knock,” Haydn shouted in protest, pushing Jill of off him as he fell off the cover-less bed, grabbing at his clothes.

  “What were you doing in here, oh no... really?”

  “What? Well what were you expecting to find? Haven't you noticed we've been spending a lot of time together?” He was at least wearing his trousers now, Jill still hadn't moved though and watched the two in fascination, completely comfortable with her nakedness.

  “Is this what you've been doing every time you two disappear, unbelievable?”

  “I thought you knew, you know everything, it can't be that surprising I mean there's only one bed.”

  “I don't know what goes on in your living area Haydn, I don't watch what you're getting up to in here, in your own room, that's disgusting,” she looked repulsed at the thought and shook her head. “And we have other rooms, with beds.”

  “We do, where?”

  “You mean to tell me in all the time you've been here, you've never walked further down the hallway than your room door, didn't you see the doors to the other rooms?”

  “I did, but I thought it was just cupboards or something.”

  “You're an idiot, just... just get dressed and meet me on the bridge,” she said while leaving, and causing him to ponder over her harmless but more frequent insults as he got dressed.

  Having stumbled across the ship and her, underground in a jungle on his own planet, a pre-space flight planet, he found there was no life to her emotions. She walked and talked but resembled something more of a robot than a person, always a faint smile and the same passive facial expression.

  “I don't know what's wrong with her,” He told Jill.

  “What do you mean.”

  “Her attitude's changed recently, I don't know what's causing it.”

  “Have you considered changing the way you speak to her.”

  “Why what's wrong with the way I speak to her.”

  “Well I've noticed you speak to her like she's a child.”

  “I've always spoken to her like that, it's never been a problem before.”

  “Haydn, she's not a child, maybe at one point she was, but she's not anymore. She's a young woman now, and an extremely capable one at that.”

  Perhaps Jill was right, maybe he needed to get his head around her being the woman she was. He didn't meet the more emotional part of her until slightly later on, at least not until after he pushed a blue blinking button, attached to a lone chair in the centre of an empty room, whisking them both into deep space.

  “I was lost, it was blinking,” being his only excuse.

  She had no memories, no idea of her capabilities or even her name. He suggested Tiralyn, she never argued, and for an hour a day she would appear to him and talk, then recede back into the depths of her own consciousness to fight the darkness lurking in the corner, always seeking to take control.

  There was no knowing what it was, she couldn't explain it fully. It was like another presence in her mind and body, always seeking to overthrow her grip on reality. She could at the least tell him that much.

  The weeks turned into months as they flew from place to place, her more lifelike alter ego would appear each day for a time to converse, learning more and more about her own abilities, every time holding the darkness down for longer as she gained strength.

  Tira realised one day that her power levels were getting low, upon this realisation, the ship tried to separate automatically, she allowed this to happen. The frigate sized ship they now travel in split from the main carrier, and she followed its automatic journey to watch it submerge into a small star, uncertain of how wise the decision was.

  Her worries were put at rest, the carrier never lost its communication as it submerged. She understood what was happening, as it delved ever deeper into the depths of the fiery inferno it became clear to her, this was the fuel it used and it would need a long time to complete its process.

  Then they found movement, a single object, unnatural in its route, moving through the emptiness between the stars and they followed. It was life, human life, so on that single string they pulled and uncovered a vast web of civilisation.

  Today, she could hold off t
he darkness for extended periods with ease, but her grip on it still slipped in times of distress and anger, so she would descend deep into herself to force it back to the depths, or when she simply wanted some peace and quiet.

  When the Forbidden Bites

  It took them some time to get to the bridge, when they did, the front wall was showing the structure and Tira was staring intently at it. Haydn walked slowly up to her.

  “Look, Tira, me and Jill kind of like each other and what you saw was just...”

  “Please, for the love of everything that's good, please don't go into details, I know what you were doing, it's fine, really,” she said, cutting him off.

  “OK, good. It's just, I've been alone this whole time and things are going well with us.”