Time for what? For whom?
The key contributions of a specific few wouldn't make the headlines. Maybe that was something else he had in common with the Iron Commander. Both had fought with the backup of Sojourners. It was so counter to to the current Zeitgeist that he almost didn't believe it.
Incoming Magistrate Van Buren was new faction. How galling it must be for them to admit to being saved by Sojourners, an emasculating indignity quite damaging to their cause.
The Egress Incident was shrouded in too much mystery to be labeled Sojourner work.
Ingots, I was in the room when the plan was pitched, and even I don't know what happened out there on the egress.
But the fireship and its strange manifestation were undeniably Sojourner. They would try to explain it away as an old, leftover weapon. That would probably work for long adolescents and those newly ascended to vigere, people lacking knowledge that such things required an active, high-level user.
"Were at hilltop now, Captain Steede," the superhauler captain said. "Thanks for the escort."
Mason could hear it in the man's voice. Adams Rush units were getting a lot more respect, at least at Windermere.
"Not a problem, Captain. Pop an Aquarii mead for me at High Castle."
"Will do."
Space distorted around the fully loaded superhauler. A sphere of dark space appeared before it and a bright one behind. The ship accelerated from sight, "sucked downhill" across space. On it were carefully packed parts of the mystic staryard segment.
A VAD floating before him was dedicated to the ongoing war trial of the handful of recovered senior P-Star officers. The rest were already halfway back to the Perigeum. They all fit in one transport. Automation was making crews smaller and smaller, but humankind wasn't ready to turn war over completely to the AIs just yet. Thank God.
On the stand was Admiral Buisart. He was an odd one with a unusual story. Certainly, his injuries were more consistent with a fistfight than battle damage. His implausible tale of fighting an android, and escaping from his own ship sounded more like fiction. Whatever the case, he was cooperating, although most considered his testimony biased and suspect.
The trimensional nav showed two haulers, linked to the rest of the staryard, also plodding their way toward hilltop. The mystic yard segment was once a cumbersome afterthought, not even worth taking to Castellum. Now politicians and new military hierarchy alike couldn't get it to headquarters fast enough. Atalantia would not be split up again.
But there were no magic ammo nuts in the mystic section. No super-secret weapon technologies. The power of the mystic contained therein had to be unlocked by those outside any Vallum Corps chain of command. If anyone kept an updated inventory of the segment and associated drifting hulks, and Mason doubted that was the case, a number of hulls beyond those expended in battle would be found missing.
No one was going to notice a few less mothballed ships in parking orbit above Windermere, waiting for the possible return of Atalantia in a decade or two. Let the Sojourners take what they wanted. It was theirs anyway. It would do the Asterfraeo no good gathering more dust. But maybe, in the right hands, it would get some real use, and perhaps even return in an hour of need.
I'm starting to sound like those Rebounders, true believers looking to the Sojourner's return.
The Wilkrests... that kid and his father, and whoever was down at the yard. Only the father's involvement would get the press it deserved. The rest would only be whispered among senior officers across Asterfraeo militaries. There would be no official record beyond the impressive damage done by an ancient, prototype fireship. From what Mason surmised, such things came at a price. Who bore it this time? That kid? Could it ever be repaid?
The Vallum Corps would have been forced to retreat had there been no Sojourners to do whatever they did.
A retreat from Windermere, a Palisades!
The Cohortium was too weak to withstand a political blow like that. Without it, as unpalatable as the Cohortium sometimes was, the Vallum Corps would dissolve. And without the combined fleet—and the Sojourners—the Asterfraeo would fall to the Perigeum's industrial might.
They approached a distant, unremarkable chunk of space. It was technically designated Asterfraeo only because of its location. There was nothing to it, and virtually nothing in it.
Rewe floated in semi-consciousness. The original command couch had been replaced with one from the medical bay. His body had seen more ruin and rebuilding than anyone outside of a Hektor. He allowed Auscultare to medicate and repair it on the long, investigatory voyage. The Forward Scout Support ship was finally doing the job it was meant for.
"I'm bringing you up slowly, Commodore. Please don't touch the NuSkin graft on your scalp. I believe you'll be able to grow hair again."
Rewe had sensed their arrival before Auscultare roused him. There was no need, though, to let the AI, or anyone, know the extent of his new mystic awareness. Auscultare had hidden the autobuss after the previous incident, but Rewe could sense exactly where it was now that he had become so attuned to it. The AI didn't need to know that either. Let him think it was beyond reach, for now. The Dragon was dangerous, and Rewe knew less impulsiveness and more planning might keep him alive long enough to rise.
He sat up, flexing his half synthetic arm. The artificial components would have to be replaced again, this time with mystic ones. Whatever quality he could find in mystic substitutes, it would still gel better with his new awareness than scientum drak.
The same old utility bot scooted it up to the medical couch and replaced a tank of consumables.
"This lump survived again?" Rewe said. "Your shortness finally paid off, runt." He shook his head and addressed more serious matters, if there was any to be found. "Looks like we can downhill all the way in."
"Yes, there are no planetary bodies nor major sources of inhibiting gravity."
Colors on the forward bulkhead display warmed away from blues, filling manifold space with reds and oranges before finally bursting with white streaks. Something that barely qualified as a star system darkened the bridge by contrast with its wan light.
A dim, unstable star, drained of energy, weakly illuminated a number of asteroid belts. The rocks retained a level of turbulence that, perhaps, harkened back to whatever cataclysm had originally destroyed what had been there. His new awareness convinced him that was the case.
"Anything?"
"Nothing active, Commodore. The sneakership coordinates are correct, though. There was a battle here not long ago." Auscultare highlighted various asteroid regions on the display. "The remains of an Archiver hybrid corvette are scattered in this area, along with substantial resources I'd associate with a small outpost."
"A mystic outpost."
"You're correct. I'm detecting significant platinum group metals, most notably palladium.
"This place ever have a name?"
"My oldest accessible records show a long-range astrogation scan. There were planets here once. But only a number designation for a name."
Rewe placed the palm of his organic arm upon a recently reactivated control stalk. He felt within Auscultare's systems until he found the AI's control spikes. He loosened them slightly in a specific area. It took effort, and weakened him, but the thrill of just being able to do it was worth it.
"Look again."
"Oh, another file snippet. Strange. This system was known to the Sojourners during the war. They called it Drekka. Something happened here, but not a battle with the Perigeum. That's all I have."
He let the control spikes fall back into place and released the stalk. Auscultare got them close to the asteroid belt region near the recent battle. Rewe laid back while they scanned. They came up with nothing.
"The Second didn't send us out here to sight-see."
"Your hunches have been uncanny of late, Commodore. Perhaps you could direct further investigation."
Rewe put both hands on the control stalks and sat back concentrating
, feeling everything coming in through Auscultare's sensors. Somehow, he saw beyond the elements detected. But it was like looking through dark crystal. He sensed ghostly information, without detail. Suddenly, there was a ping on the display. A homing signal.
"It's not too far into the belt. Get a slag out there in a shuttle."
Even the nimble shuttle had to penetrate the belt slowly and carefully. After some hours when it neared the source of the signal, its feed cut out. Only telemetry came back. The combat bot had found something, retrieved it, and was returning. Three-quarters of the way back, the shuttle took an asteroid hit and was disabled. The bot had the foresight to eject, attempting to complete the journey using its space operations jet pack.
"It should have just enough fuel to return, Commodore."
"Let's get down to the bay and see what we've got."
He was walking more every day, but not quickly, nor free from pain. He stood before the open bay doors, the soft air barrier before him. Finally, movement caught his eye. The jetting combat bot grew bigger until it penetrated the barrier. It landed strangely, apparently carrying nothing. But something was different in its gait. It was more sure, more human. The pack fell from it, discarded as if an afterthought.
One of those new sensations he was still getting used to spiked.
What is this?
"Commodore, this bot is not under my control!"
The bot strode confidently to him and stopped, it's head lifted proudly somehow. A dark, ceramic-looking band ran around the circumference of one wrist. Light emanated from minute fissures when it moved.
"Avere, Commodore Inspector Rewe Frixion, Archiver Division," said a resonant voice with an edge. It was not the bot's. "My name is Waxad."
They held station in a distant corner of the Asterfraeo bordering the TransVex. The immense, turbulent region of space roiled before them. It stood like the enormous fence to a giant's yard, its colors churning deeper until all within was obscured.
The Hesperus Aurora, Alb-Sone's scout, and a mystic tug somehow coaxed to life, were linked around a cruiser-sized auto-miner. Aristahl thought the old mystic mining ship worth salvaging, and he spent considerable time figuring a way to drag it into manifold space with them.
Jordahk realized all of this after the fact. They were 20 days out from Windermere when he was first awakened from juvi sleep. He found all of their bays loaded with assorted finds from Atalantia's long disused mystic segment. A few other revived ships had been similarly loaded and sent to a point in deep space.
Where that was, he didn't know. Aristahl had plans. Jordahk could imagine the possibilities but didn't have his heart in it yet. The death of Khai-aLael had hit him hard. They could say she wasn't dead, but he couldn't detect even the faintest sign.
But what could he expect while she remained in entropic magnetization? Her very atomic activity forcibly slowed to an extent that many called it death without dying. Indeed, a percentage of those put into entrop refused to ever do so again.
He didn't recall much from the end of his encounter with the strange legacy shell. The Spirit's design took much out of him, but the result was a heartbeat and the spark of life in the girl. However, he couldn't begin to imagine the damage done to her brain.
When he saw her last through the containment crystal, she was still dressed in her outfit from Castellum. He couldn't make physical contact with her, nor could any resonance communication penetrate. As they loaded her aboard the shuttle, Jordahk insisted on affixing the blackened piece of jewelry, given to her by his mother, to the crystal, so it would stay with her wherever she ended up.
The bridge of the Hesperus Aurora was expanded to maximum size, and the bulkhead at the rear to the captain's quarters was folded away. Aristahl looked almost as drained as the day Jordahk left him in Grjot, but he stood tall with a spine of granix. Alb-Sone was quiet, wearing the expression of a man who had something precious beaten out of him.
They stood waiting, staring out the display. Turbulent hues flooded the bridge, oscillating through a gamut of colors, painting them in false shades. A pointless exasperation rose within him.
"Gasket had to put her in entrop?"
Gasket stood solemnly at the back. "I'm sorry. It was the best thing I knew to do."
"It was my programming," Aristahl said. "And it was the only thing he could have done."
"There's no way the current state of her brain would have accepted juvi sleep," Alb-Sone said.
The man looked like he had lost a child. Or had seen the culmination of two century's work burn up. Perhaps it was both.
The conversation was a near repeat.
Why did I need to hear it again? I must accept it.
"You are fortunate The Spirit found you worthy to use one of her high mystic devices," Aristahl said. "It is an unusual honor, although she was always partial to our line. My father came closest to understanding her work. Certainly more than I."
Alb-Sone took on the impartial manner of a doctor. "Rest assured if you hadn't made it work, even entrop couldn't have saved her."
Jordahk tried to hold off sullenness. "But saved for what? You said if we take her out, her brain will cascade fail."
"If we take her out," Aristahl said.
"The prearranged template for the experiment was completed, and we have no other," Alb-Sone said. "Besides, the equipment is gone. It was the genius of another era that gave her a chance."
The shuttle containing the girl swooped into view and continued on. As it grew smaller, Aurora put an indicator circle around it. Suddenly, the color of the maelstrom began to change. There was something in the TransVex, and it was approaching the surface. It was spherical, and mammoth.
What is it? It's too big to be a ship.
The spherical thing, whatever it was, stopped deep enough within the TransVex to remain obscured. It positioned itself directly in front of the receding shuttle, generating its own light to mix with the maelstrom. The back of Jordahk's consciousness was tingling. A part of him felt like running.
A smaller, colorless sphere appeared to be orbiting the giant one. It extended outward with each orbit until it broke free of the TransVex. It looked like a scaled down moon, gray and cratered. It passed next to the shuttle, grabbing the little ship in a tight orbit before receding back into the nebula. It moved behind the large sphere and didn't appear again.
It seemed a nebulous ending, and he felt like blurting out, "So that's it then?" But the solemn look on Alb-Sone's face made him think twice. The tingling sensation in his head grew strong, and his compy began to take on mass as it had once before. He struggled to bear up against a bracelet threatening to pull him in.
He widened his stance and concentrated hard. He wouldn't be overcome. There were too many questions needing answers. The back of the bridge began to grow bright, although no light source could be seen. The bridge display showed subtle colors and the white streaks of manifold space appearing around the Aurora. The streaks penetrated the hull to coalesce into the shape of a giant chair.
It was the same as last time, although the brightness was more tolerable. Perhaps he was getting used to it, if one could get used to a fanicle-sized, golden chair. Channels built into its structure were filled with trapped streaks.
A man sat upon the chair-thing. It was time to come up with a better name. Manifold throne?
Eww, that's terrible.
Dimensional chair?
Too amorphous.
Starchair. That seemed to fit. Like a starkeel.
The man was covered with a thin veil of light. It shimmered into rainbow colors when he moved, which was hardly at all. He sat, content to observe, finally deigning them with a subtle nod of acknowledgment.
Jordahk clenched his fist. That wasn't enough. He wanted answers and would not be rooted to the ground. The man in the starchair stood after Alb-Sone took two steps forward.
It caught Jordahk by surprise. "Wait, what?"
"It is out of our hands," Aristahl said.
He stood defiantly as the shimmering man alighted down the starchair and approached. He still looked like an older, thicker, more iridescent version of Judicum. Twin numenium bracers were affixed to his forearms, and over his white tunic and shoulders was the large, almost Egyptian-looking, metal collar. Upon it, mystic runes moved in counter-rotating circles.
The man's vision focused on Alb-Sone, as if from afar. He stopped a few meters from the doctor and sized him up. Though hard to tell, it appeared the man's expression softened. Then his head shook in the negative. The doctor, looking sadder than Jordahk had ever seen, closed his eyes for a moment.
Alb-Sone stepped back. "I understand."
Maybe he did, but Jordahk did not. Was this what their hopes had come to? This apparition and Ajurian Realm fables? The shimmering man paid Jordahk no mind, and turned back to his starchair. Jordahk pooled his strength, flexed his arm, and took a single step toward him.
He had little strength left for speech. "Waaaiit."
The rainbow hues along the man's body came to life. He turned around with mild curiosity. As he raised his hand, Jordahk felt like an insect. The mass of his compy grew exponentially. He felt 10 times his normal weight as the universe tried to crush him into the bracelet. The increase didn't stop until his knees buckled and he fell down completely prostrate. He couldn't breathe as his chest was pressed into the deck.
The man turned away again, but the questions still burned within Jordahk. Where did the Sojourners go? Why did they leave? Why must he and his grandfather bear this burden and fight this war alone?
Insidious powers are rising up! Don't you care?
His strength flared with the will to get answers. He pushed his chest off the floor, almost believing the deck would cave in from the colossal pressure. He struggled to one knee, and when the man turned, he saw Jordahk standing upon trembling legs.
The man cocked his head slightly. The universe became pure pressure, its sole desire to crush Jordahk onto the deck. But sudden thoughts of Gaspar came. Is this what the Rebounders were waiting for? And what about Humberto? An ordinary man who selflessly gave his all, not only for his family's freedom, but in a belief that liberty would come for all in his system. Liberty Jordahk and his grandfather were somehow supposed to bring to pass.
Tethered Worlds: Blue Star Setting Page 48