[ Watashi ]

[ Tomodachi ]

[ Saint Seiya ]

[ Clamp ]

[ Fanfiction ]

A resounding gasp echoed on the bridge, coming from the co-pilot’s seat, as we burst into being on the hyperspace shore--as we came into existence in a shower of photons that splashed over Hamal’s hull like early morning rain. Dragging in a breath, I gathered my cosmo around me in a mantle of light, and I reached out to the weak fire that was Gamma Draconis.

Too weak.

Cursing under my breath, I stood up and stepped over to the only other seat in the main deck. It was hard to refuse the trembling in my legs, but I did so and leant the palm of my right hand upon Theirn’s shoulder. Gently. “Focus,” I murmured. Beneath my fingers, the young man’s muscles were taut, too much so. “Theirn,” I called his name, and felt his heartbeats speed up.

“I’m--“ again he gasped, “I’m here,” he managed in a faint whisper even as he shifted in his seat to face me. The blue eyes were bright with pain and a hint of chaos that was hyperspace’s usual parting gift. The tension in the line of his jaw was unmistakable, as was the wonder that was slowly replacing the pain in his gaze. Even now, he was groping his way back to a universe limited to four dimensions, to a space-time continuum bereft of the enrapturing embrace of hyperspace’s tides. “Goddess,” he exhaled a shuddering sigh, ”that was--“ he gave a shake of his head, “incredible. Wondrous.” He blinked. “I never thought it could be like this. Feel like this.”

I gave his shoulder a slight squeeze, then released him. “It was your first long jump,” I explained, “your first true chance to experience the real, terrifying magic of the sea of chaos.”

“It was well named.” Insanity had now completely left my apprentice’s eyes, and I allowed myself the smallest of sighs. “it’s so beautiful,” he smiled, than he cocked his head to the side. “No wonder the Marinas of Poseidon took to roaming it and making it their home, while the Sanctuary stood back and grimaced in disgust.”

“Old instincts are hard to conquer,” I nodded, then I went back to my seat. As I reached it, I asked in a light, unconcerned voice, “Have you overcome yours?”

Laughter, young and warm embraced the deck. “What is there to overcome?” Theirn retorted, “What, except for the longing to jump down those waves again?”

“Nothing,” I smiled at the controls displayed before me and at the stellar map spreading on the main viewscreen. “Nothing but that. Hamal will bear you through streams and storms, to stars and worlds and glinting space stations.” A deep vibration coursed the jumpship’s hull, like a purr or a nod of agreement.

“One day,” Theirn bowed his head. Calm, composed. “I’m in no hurry.”

“Neither am I!” I chuckled, and checked Hamal’s trajectory, setting my mind on our reason for being here. “All right. From now on, observe. This should be interesting, but it could also get ugly.” We were diving down Gamma Draconis’ gravity well, never shedding velocity as we hurtled past small, dead worlds and their colored rings of frozen methane and basaltic dust.

There was just one inhabitable planet in the whole system, close to the weak red star--old, old star whose agony would last at least another billion years. It was home to one of the bizarre portions of humanity, a group of people who weren’t exactly very good at socializing with others.

“Garden to alien ship, acknowledge,” came the toneless voice, almost free of static and disturbing the peaceful silence on my deck without even a by-your-leave. There had been no communication establishment request, no blue dot flashing on the board before me.

“As charming as Murali told me they’d be.” I clucked my tongue. And for the link quality to be so good, it meant that those people had wasted a lot of money and resources to establish relays on those dead planets we had rushed past.

Early warning system. Great.

“Garden,” I replied in my best diplomatic voice, “this is the jumpship Hamal, reporting at the request of your government.”

There was a short silence, then: “Hamal, your presence in the Gamma Draconis system is in direct violation of Purity Decree number thirteen C. You are ordered to turn back and leave. Failure to comply will result into the cleansing of our space and your immediate eradication.”

As if a spaceship could simply “turn back” when it was falling down a star’s gravity well. The maneuver would tear the hull apart and break it like a mere child’s toy. But Hamal was a jumpship, and together we could accomplish much more fancy tricks than a U-turn in while still at a velocity close to lightspeed. Taking a look at our position on the map, I decided we had reached the right stop--and I brought Hamal to a perfect standstill with a thought.

“Hamal, you no longer register on--“ the male voice had lost some of its flat quality. There was now a hint of incomprehension in it.

“Garden”, I cut the man off sweetly, “we have temporarily disappeared from your screens because I stopped right at the outer edge of your asteroid belt. Auto-adjustment of your instruments should show our exact location in about a minute. While you wait, I’m transmitting you the credentials transferred to us by the authorities of Pillar.”

There was no reply. No comment on the physically impossible maneuver I had just operated. This is Halo Side, I thought at Theirn, whose eyes were shining in spite of his best efforts to appear bored. Anything can happen. It’s the domain of uncertainty, of ghosts and will o’ the wisps, and things magical. Order’s hold on this region of the galaxy is weak, and the veil separating the space-time continuum from hyperspace is thin--much thinner than in the Core Side systems.

“You shouldn’t be here.” The man on the other side of the void had at last decided he had to respect the authorizations granted to Hamal, and that he couldn’t get away with blasting us out of his sky--cleansing his space, as he had put it. “The Patriarchs expected Ligea and the Lord Sorento. This is highly irregular,” he continued in a sullen tone. “And to have a female mediator--“

I had to laugh. Damn Murali, but his data hadn’t included the information that I’d be dealing with chauvinist pigs on top of it all. “Get over yourself, Garden,” I retorted, still laughing. “I’m all you’ll have, and,” I added, nodding to myself as I touched great shadows on the other side of the hyperspace veil, “you’ve just run out of time.”

Gliding through the wild streams unerringly.

Silent.

Vast.

Before me, Theirn abruptly rose from his seat, eyes wide. So, you’ve felt them, I sent his way.

It seemed to happen all at once: behind us, a myriad of spaceships detached themselves from the shadows of the asteroids that had dissimulated them until now--hundreds of small bees and five command class vessels. Military ships, all of them, armed and ready. Eager to unlock the fire locked in their cannons.

Eager to kill.

Theirn never turned their way. Motionless, he stared at the air before him, at the wall of the main deck and beyond, at the vast darkness of space. At the delicate, fragile veil that shielded our side of the universe from an impossible place where all the laws of physics were insane and invalid. The army deploying in our back and assuming battle formation was nothing to Theirn, an insignificant detail in a much bigger tableau. It was an honest mistake on his part and I should tell him so, but the ways of mediation weren’t the object of today’s lesson. Besides, those were the province of Marine Shoguns. Hamal was only here due to a whim of Murali. I had no official business Halo Side, and no authority either, unless expressly granted by Pillar’s authorities.

Before us, in the empty space between the asteroid belt and a dull, lifeless grey world, the darkness rippled. From every direction at once, photons rushed in, in a myriad of clusters, of tiny dots of light--little fireflies dancing, gathering and bringing life to a place that belonged to slumber and death.

Gigantic spears piercing through the hyperspace curtain, they came into being in the mid-section of the Gamma Draconis system.

Long and sleek, with intricate patterns of silver and sand, and terre-de-sienne figures pulsing and swirling on their flanks in slow, seemingly random motions.

Immense, and so massive they seemed to cast a shadow over space itself.

“Garden to alien intruders!” The angry, furious exclamation dissolved into Hamal’s hull, unheard and unheeded. Switching the main screen to full forward view, I watched in silence while great sail-like fins unfolded on the backs, bellies and flanks of the score of newcomers. Instantly their velocity dropped, a feat only a jumpship could accomplish. In the darkness, the fins glowed softly as swarms of photons converged toward them. “You have entered the territory of the Holy Garden. Your presence is neither desired, nor welcome. Retreat to the abyss you came from, or face the consequences!”

Again, the harsh voice’s command triggered no reaction from the great beings that had stepped to this side of the universe. Instead, a delicate tendril of thought, wavering with uncertainty, weariness and hunger reached out to Hamal. Hush, I sent back along the tenuous link. It’s all right. I’m here. the thoughts themselves were meaningless to the vast shapes now drifting aimlessly less than ten thousand miles away from us. What mattered were the feelings that accompanied them: gentleness and soothing reassurance. Take what time you need to rest. Diverting a small fraction of my awareness toward Theirn, I nodded toward the screen and told him, “Behold, the Narvals.”

“They’re magnificent,” he whispered back, awe hushing his voice. “Alive,” he blinked, “and so tired right now, they--“ At a loss for words, the young man shook his head and went silent. Magnificent, they were. As magnificent as unlikely and impossible to explain. Human beings had named them after whales found in Earth’s Arctic ocean. Like them, the great beings had a spear-like appendage at the edge of their muzzles. Like whales, they had a roughly cylindrical shape, fins and they swam the currents of hyperspace in groups of twenty to thirty individuals. But the wonder of their existence didn’t stop there.

“Voyageur to mediator ship, do you read?”

While Theirn gaped at the comm unit, I acknowledged the link and secured it. “Confirmed, Voyageur,” I replied, accepting video transmission as well as audio. “I’m Aries Fiammetta,” I gave the image of a tall man with stark blue eyes, jet black hair and an even blacker beard a short bow, “captain of the jumpship Hamal. Ligea sends its regrets, but it couldn’t be present and gave me mandate to deal with the issue.”

Relief washed over the man’s wrinkled and sun-tanned face. “The only thing that matters is that someone is here to keep those madmen at bay,” he spat, clearly referring to the small swarm of warships now deployed and ready behind Hamal. “I am Theodoros Popescu, head of this Voyageur clan. We thank you for your presence, Lady Aries.” He bowed.

Low.

Pursing my lips, I made a mental note to remind Thomas that he had to push the Graad Foundation to change space transport laws in the Core Side worlds, so our people were granted proper respect. If the Solo family could get that here, there was no reason for us not to have it as well on our side of the fence. Then, bowing back, I asked the man, “What are your needs, Voyageur?”

“Time,” came the immediate reply, “just time, for the Narvals to bathe in starlight and replenish their energy. No longer than a solar day.”

That much. With an inaudible sigh, I turned my mind toward the armada poised on the edge of the asteroid belt, and considered this tricky equation. The Voyageur were a nomadic group of people, clusters of families which roamed the Halo Side regions and sailed the streams of hyperspace by hitching rides with the gentle, peaceful and semi-sentient Narvals. Alone among all the ethnicities of humanity, they could travel free of the constraints of jumpgates. They went where the great beings bore them, in endless cycles of migration that brought them close to the galactic Rim and then back to stars as close to Earth as bright Sirius. The relationship between the nomads and the Narvals had something symbiotic to it, as well as something parasitic.

Parasitic, because the human beings had brought nothing solid to the giant space whales beyond the dwellings they tied to the Narvals’ flanks and backs, hidden in the folds behind the sail-like fins. Symbiotic because, had it not been for the people traveling with them, the Narvals would likely have been labeled as threats and a hazard to navigation in the Core Side stations and many of the Halo Side worlds--and eradicated. Sun-leeches was what farmers called them, because they attracted and assimilated photons like magnets, ruining human harvests and profit in the process.

“All right,” I nodded at last. “How about your clan? Do you need supplies? Water?”

A bitter smile twisted the man’s mouth. “Water is always needed,” he shrugged, “but I doubt our friends there have any for sale today.”

“They might,” I retorted, “if it meant you left their star system earlier than what you told me.”

On the screen, Theodoros Popescu’s expression darkened. “That simply won’t be possible.” Which might, or might not be the truth.

“I hear you, Voyageur. Stand by.” With that, I put the link on hold and proceeded to open another channel toward one of the big five command ships.

In front of Hamal, the smallest of the Narvals moved. Freezing in mid-motion, I watched and felt the great shadow glide to nadir, slowly at first, then gathering momentum as it went. “Voyageur!” I yelled, punching on the comm station, and in the same time a shrill sound filled the bridge.

Energy spike.

Weapons build-up, and-- “Garden to alien intruders! You are violating sanctified space. Retreat immediately, or we will open fire and cleanse your filth ourselves. I repeat, retreat immediately!”

Deaf to human paranoia and bigotry, the Narval glided further nadirward, cleaving through space--following a trail of starlight, I realized all of a sudden. It was simply adjusting to the dominant stellar wind, unaware that in doing so it was breaching an imaginary plane people called a spatial border. “Voyageur!” I called again, focusing on the nomads’ head of clan, and willing the man to answer.

“--young!” came Theodoros Popescu’s frantic exclamation. “Please, they’re no threat to your ships!” He was transmitting on all frequencies, foolishly hoping he could reason with the warships that were now spreading around the Narvals in a web formation.

“Talk to me, Voyageur,” I snapped, “not them if you value your lives!”

The nomad’s weathered face once again appeared on Hamal’s main screen. “It’s a young one,” the man pleaded, panic poisoning his voice and his mind, “just a young one, born in the grand stream leading to Achernar less than a cycle ago. It doesn’t know! It doesn’t understand!”

No. With a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, I realized Theodoros Popescu was telling me the absolute truth: the smaller Narval was a young one, yet unused to the weird constraints human intrusion in space had put on their existence. Oblivious to the chaos rising all around, it was simply allowing itself to drift so it could better catch the solar breeze in its fins. Feeding. Opening a link toward the closest command warship, I hissed, “Stand down, Garden! I’m moving to put an end to the disturbance. I repeat, stand down!”

Static.

The bastards had cut the communication. “Fine,” I murmured, turning my gaze inward and willing the fire to grow, to burn and to reach out--to touch reality. Crystal Wall, I invoked in a breath, and my cosmo blossomed as I shaped a glowing, insubstantial wall between the warships and the stray Narval. The five command vessels fired as one, but the powerful blasts harmlessly rippled upon the Crystal Wall’s iridescent surface.

“Shaitan!” The snarl resounded on the deck.

“So nice of you to call back,” I smiled at the man in full military regalia who had popped to life on my comm screen, and I held the Crystal Wall steady. “As to being some kind of demon, hardly. Hamal is an unarmed jumpship, and I’m its captain. I’m here with full mediator authority, no more and no less. And you will comply when I tell you to stand down, just as the Voyageur clan will bring the young Narval back in the group when I tell them to,” I said, another link open toward the ops room set at the center of the structure the nomads had built behind the dorsal fin of the oldest Narval. “Do I make myself clear?”

When no red light flashed to warn me of another weapons build-up, I found myself snorting in disappointment. Someone onboard the big warships must have remembered that disobeying a mediator’s direct order could be costly--and freed the mediator from any obligation to maintain a stance of neutrality in whatever dispute he or she was busy arbitrating.

“Very,” was the only, grudging response I got from the warships. In the same time, the smaller fighter ships started breaking their web formation and withdrew, falling back to the edge of the asteroid belt.

On the other side of the Crystal Wall, two of the bigger Narvals drifted away to flank the smaller one, and then bring it back inside the group. “Good,” I sighed, then I pivoted to face the main comm screen, where a very disgruntled and frustrated military person was waiting for my final decision on the matter which had brought me all the way to Gamma Draconis. “the Voyageur clan will keep to their current position,” I told the man, my tone even, “and they won’t approach the asteroid belt or your home planet any further.” Relief relaxed the lines of the man’s face for the time of a heartbeat, before he managed to will himself to appear as stern as ever. “As to you, you will allow them to stay here and to rest for a time no smaller than a full solar day. Your star system is a stop along the Narvals’ migration route. It has been so for millennia, before you claimed it as your holy land, and it will keep on being just that.”

Anger flushed the man’s cheeks. “But the Holy Scriptures warn us that alien pollution will defile and desecrate our Garden! This cannot be tolerated!”

“Sir,” I answered in a deceptively quiet voice, “just be glad you were allowed to steal and claim a lush planet as your own. The laws you edict apply on that world, and nowhere else. Space is the domain of ships, stellar winds and beings like the Narvals which are much older than your coming here. Be glad,” I repeated, “that you’re allowed to fly your ships and transport your goods through space that belongs to the Narvals. You will allow them their stop and rest here, for as long as their migration route will cross your system. That is my final decision.” Even as my last word faded into silence, the link was severed from the other side without the smallest acknowledgment.

“Well,” I hummed, dropping down on my seat, “that was pleasant enough.”

“Your Wall,” Theirn’s eyes were set on me, questioning, “it’s still up.”

“It is,” I confirmed, “and it will stay and shield the Narvals and their human squatters until they leave this misbegotten place.” It wasn’t hard to do so, all it required was a small fraction of my awareness. Theirn didn’t ask me why I didn’t trust the Holy Garden’s authorities.

“You were right,” he said, a smile tugging at his lips, “Halo Side is definitely a far more interesting place than anything I saw Core Side. I think--“ Whatever Theirn had meant to say slipped from his grasp as a hauntingly beautiful music touched both our minds. There wasn’t the slightest sound, not the slightest vibration, and yet it enveloped Hamal, undeniable. On the other side of the Wall, the group of giant space whales was swaying gently, as if rocked by small, peaceful waves. Light was raining upon them, a delicate shower of photons caught in their fully deployed fins.

In the darkness of space, the Narvals had started singing.

“Holy shit!” The sight of the pretty woman spitting out those words was rather comical from where I was standing on Hamal’s main deck. In the great Operations Room of Pillar station, some eight and a half billion miles away, fair Zara shook her head, sending waves through her long, curly golden hair. “Don’t,” she stared at me, her green eyes murky, “don’t tell me you granted the Voyageur clan permanent rights to pause in the Gamma Draconis system!” Her voice was half moan, half whimper.

Resting my chin upon the palm of my left hand, I corrected her, “Not the Voyageur clan, Zara. The Narvals.”

“It makes no difference. We’ll never hear the end of it!” she groaned. “Do you have any idea how good at whining and complaining the Patriarchs of Holy Garden are?”

“That,” I replied with a sweet smile, “is none of my concern. Those religious freaks are yours, Marinas of Poseidon. This is your territory. You tolerate bigots and morons, you deal with them.”

“You pamper and cater to the slavers also known as Multi-Stellar corporations,” Siren Zara shot back.

“Touché!” I chuckled, then waved my laughter aside. “For what it’s worth,” I told her in a quiet voice, “I’m sorry. I suggest you dump all the complains that’ll come from Gamma Draconis on Murali’s shoulders. He should have been the arbiter of that particular dispute. Not me.”

A loud, loud sigh glided through the space vacuum to echo on Hamal’s deck. “Yeah,” Zara nodded, “that one and others. I swear, our Marine Shoguns are worse even than the Sanctuary’s Gold Saints.” A glint of good humor had come back to the green eyes. Beside me, Theirn arched a eyebrow my way, unused to hear even the beginning of criticism directed against the highest order of the Sanctuary from anyone other than me.

“This is Achernar,” I said by way of explanation, “home to Pillar station, the heart and center of operations adopted by the Solo family in the first days of humankind’s bid for the stars.” A hundred lightyears nadir from the galactic disk, the bright white star belonged to the Halo Side section of the Capricorn octant. A shining beacon in a forest of giant reds, brown dwarves and other old, withering suns. Its position a bit less than three hundred lightyears away from Earth ensured it could be reached in a single jumpship dive, and that both Saints of Athena and Marinas of Poseidon could reach one another and gather, should an emergency arise.

The world is changing.

Blinking the haunting memory of the ghostly voices riding the winds over Cape Sounio to the back of my mind, I denied the shiver running up my spine. Everything changed, and kept changing. Nothing was forever, nothing. The universe was constant motion and shifting balances. That was all there was to it. All there was to signs and portents.

“We’ll soon be on our way, Zara.” I made myself focus on the here and now, and I checked Hamal’s main control board. Traffic inbound to Pillar station was incredibly dense, as if Miners, Merchanters and space cruise vessels had all decided to converge today on the closest thing the Halo Side regions had to a capital.

“As you wish.” The young woman pursed her lips. “Won’t you come to dock and re-supply?”

With a shake of the head, I declined the generous offer. “No need, but thanks. I wouldn’t want to give you anymore extra-work, having to make way for an unscheduled jumpship and disturbing priority approach vectors,” I grimaced, “not with the crazy traffic you’ve got on your hands.”

“Oh, that,” she gave a shrug. “Achernar’s great solar flares are forecasted to start tomorrow. Tourists are flooding in to see them, and both Miners and Merchanters are flocking together, running for the safety of Pillar’s shields.”

A stellar eruption.

“We’d best be on our way before it starts,” I mused aloud, not at all in the mood to exert myself and cloak Hamal with the Crystal Wall so that Theirn and I could play ignorant travelers. Orbiting Achernar’s sixth planet as we were, it would take us less than an hour to be sufficiently far away from all inbound or outbound routes to jump and go elsewhere--Beta Carenis, perhaps.

“Pillar’s deepest thanks for settling the Gamma Draconis dispute and coming all the way here to report, Hamal,” the fair-haired woman bowed low. Then she added with a snort, “Although you don’t have mine for giving those blasted Patriarchs yet another reason to make our lives a living hell!”

“Complain to Murali when next you see him!” I burst out laughing, then asked her on a whim, “Where is the bastard?”

Zara’s disenchanted expression vanished from her face in the blink of an eye, and she gave me an even smile. “Pillar hasn’t heard anything from all seven Marine Shoguns in more than a month,” the look in the emerald gaze was unreadable, “since the day they jumped outward, bound for Deneb and beyond.” Hers was a very polite smile, the jumpgate operator smile reserved for impatient ship crews insisting to get a berth as close to Pillar’s central market section as possible--empty smile.

Playing along, I made a show of gracefully bowing to the inevitability of fate. “All right, as soon as I make a final decision on our destination, we’ll be on our way. I estimate one long jump, so I’ll have Hamal dive down Achernar’s gravity well. No lazy spiraling down. If you have skittish pilots or religious zealots flying in to see the flares, you might want to warn them that Hamal isn’t a shooting star heralding the twilight of humanity,” I smirked.

“Roger that,” she nodded. “And about that formal complain that came from Palm and relayed by Confluence?” There was the slightest hint of amusement in her tone.

“Oh,” I yawned, “that thing?” Pouting, I pretended to consider for a few seconds. Then I said, “Tell them to stick it up their asses.” On the screen, Zara rolled her eyes heavenward, but I ignored her. “This is it, Pillar. Expect me when you see me, and the Goddess’ smile on you all. Hamal, out.”

Once I had severed the comm link, I sat back in my seat and brought both forefingers to my lips. “Now, where to?” I hummed. It had been almost eight weeks since Hamal had left Earth and since Theirn had discovered space. Eight weeks, it was a rather long time already, and Theirn had been able to see much--perhaps not enough to win him over for good. I needed him to take to space and to love sailing the wild streams of the sea of chaos. Along with Tau’s Nemea, Hamal was the only Earth-registered jumpship to roam space. Leo and Aries, two out of twelve. It wasn’t enough, and it had to be preserved. Tau and I had to win over Sanctuary-ingrained dislike and mistrust for the ocean of night, over millennia-old prejudice in the midst of which our apprentices had grown--blind foolishness which had shaped them in part.

“Where would you go?” I abruptly pivoted to face Theirn.

For a moment, he just stared at me, then a slow smile crawled up his lips. “Halo Side,” he said. “Mediating was actually fun. I’d see more Narvals, if there’s any way for us to find them.”

“Narvals, hey?” Considering, I called up several stellar maps on both main and secondary viewscreens. The great space whales would gather around Polaris, the end point of their migration route. The timing of that moment was almost impossible to predict, but maybe--

Sparks.

Shivers along the hyperspace curtain.

Sleek ghosts riding the waves.

Diving down the currents.

Tensing, I reached out with unseen arms, and felt laughter bubble up inside me. In the same time, Hamal’s powerful engines came online, and the great jumpship abruptly broke its orbit around the gas giant.

“What’s going on?” Theirn’s startled question echoed on the bridge.

“Buckle up!” I told him, unable to keep the laughter from my voice. “The Narvals are too far away, but there’s a school of sardines coming our way, and I’m taking you see them!”

“Wha--“ The rest of Theirn’s sentence went unheard, covered by a loud clang and a resounding thud as he lost his balance and fell in his seat, flailing his arms wildly and knocking aside a fortunately empty can of synthesized orange juice in the process. Reaching out in thought, I had bidden Aries’ flames rise and embrace Hamal’s engines, and I had pushed the jumpship away from Achernar.

Refusing the white star’s awfully strong pull on us.

On my left, the comm unit flashed blue. An inquiry from Pillar, for sure, wondering what the hell we were doing, gliding outward in a straight line and cutting across a good half of the normal in-drop routes from the local jumpgate. Intent on the elusive feeling of the slim fishes surfing upon the waves splashing the ethereal curtain wrapped around our reality, I ignored the signal. In the quarter of an hour it took Hamal to reach its destination, we didn’t raise a single proximity alert. Blind, deaf and unaware, a dozen Miner ships and two cruisers spiraled down past us, distorted comm chatter in their wake.

There.

Gently I released my hold on Hamal’s engines and willed them silent, bade them go to sleep. Then I waited, onboard a jumpship hanging dead in space, close to Achernar’s system fringe. Bewildered, Theirn stood up from his seat, and I touched the tip of my right forefinger to my lips. Patience, I mouthed the three syllables. Even as he scowled, a bright silver glint shone upon Hamal’s main screen, which I had reconfigured so it would show us our immediate forward vicinity. A bright silver glint, where there hadn’t been anything at all less than a moment before.

A shadow fell in front of us.

All around Hamal, ripples broke the surface of normal space, and arrow-shaped ships dropped out of hyperspace, their noses parting the curtain with such mastery that the echo of their coming to this side of the universe didn’t even reach the jumpgate. Nobody in Pillar would feel their arrival, no ship would pick up the shallow, almost imperceptible ripples their system entry had triggered. It seemed to take an eternity for the great sharks to completely glide out of hyperspace and overtake Hamal.

No pausing.

No braking.

Plunging down.

“Not so fast,” I told them softly, and I opened a comm channel. “What news from the Rim, Marinas of Poseidon?” I challenged them in a ringing voice.

As one, the seven jumpships veered off-course, discarding the pull of Achernar as if it didn’t even exist, never slowing. In perfect synch. Theirn’s gaze was riveted on Hamal’s main viewer, the blue eyes very, very wide. From where I was sitting, I could feel his heart thunder in his chest and the blood rush in his veins.

“Who--“

I closed my eyes and sparked my cosmo, and willed Hamal--here. Right under the vulnerable belly of the jumpship directly on our nadir. “A far better pilot than you are, Efraïm,” I replied genially. An inarticulate growl was all proud Scylla Efraïm could muster in response. I had him, and at least he had the intelligence to know it.

Abruptly our view of the outside was replaced by that of a deck not unlike Hamal’s. A slim, tall man was standing in its center, his charcoal eyes set on whatever was before him--on Hamal and Theirn, and I. “Back from Gamma Draconis already?” Sorento Murali beamed at us.

“Yeah,” I nodded at the far too beautiful to be true Marine Shogun, moving out from under Efraïm’s jumpship in the same time.

“Fuck you, Aries!” resounded on Hamal’s deck, shouted from a secondary channel, on a built-in frequency that granted automatic acceptance of comm requests and hadn’t been designed so sore losers could vent frustration.

“Unlike you, I don’t deem religious fanatics and their stupidity to be worth my time,” I told the godlike figure smiling on the screen--a smile that still had to touch his eyes. Even though born in Scotland, Murali was of Hindu origin, and he had inherited the elegance of his ancestors. Perhaps it was the dark brown skin or the jet black hair, or the charcoal eyes, or everything at once which made him a striking figure that attracted the gazes of many and broke even more hearts.

“How about the Narvals?” he countered.

Staring back at him, I crossed my arms over my chest and lightly tapped my left forefinger against my arm. “What news from the Rim, my Lord Sorento?” I repeated my original question in a soft, soft voice.

This was no random chance. No random meeting. It had been Murali’s request which had sent us all the way to Gamma Draconis, and our coming to Achernar afterward.... “Rumors,” he murmured, then: “We’re docking at Pillar.”

“Murali!” It was the high-pitched voice of Sachiko. Sea Dragon Sachiko, and well-named she was. No further sound or word came from Ligea, and the jumpship veered away, rising zenithward and turning, adjusting with Achernar’s gravity well and again flinging itself down, gathering in a moment the acceleration it took a spaceship long hours to build. On its tail, the six other Marine Shoguns followed suit, in perfect unison. For a fraction of a second, I watched my dead comm unit in silence.

Whatever Murali’s game was, the others didn’t want Hamal here. They didn’t want a Sanctuary jumpship docking with them at Pillar. Recalling the absence of smile in the charcoal eyes, I drew in a breath.

Rumors.

Rumors, and patterns, and movements on the chessboard.

“Pillar,” I called, opening up a priority link, “find me a suitable berth. Hamal will be docking at station within the hour, ahead of the sardines heading your way. I’m taking you up on that re-supply offer.” With that, I brought Hamal’s engines back online, and dived down toward Achernar, drawing on the last traces of the ethereal meerschaum that had won through the curtain in the moment of the seven jumpships’ reentry into normal space.

Stealing a bit of chaos to cheat with Einstein’s laws, I flung Hamal down the white star’s gravity well, so that we’d reach Pillar’s docks before the Marine shoguns could pull rank and all available berths were abruptly reassigned, or sealed due to an unfortunate incident that would prevent Hamal from stopping at station.

The Meltemi was a relatively small bar on the outskirts of Pillar’s commercial section. Set between two stops of the main mono-rail line, it could be reached only on foot. That meant a good fifteen minutes’ walk from the heart of Pillar’s famous marketplace, but less than five from Pillar’s great operations room. The establishment was the direct property of the Solo family, and it was the domain of Poseidon’s Marinas, the place where exhausted men and women flocked to so they could relax after a long work shift spent guiding spaceships, in and out of Achernar system--of settling endless disputes over priority routes and berth assignments between Merchanter clans.

Once Hamal was safely moored at Pillar’s docks, the place hadn’t been hard to find. Every station Halo Side had such a tavern, a spot anyone with even a shred of cosmo could find with his or her eyes closed. Theirn and I were taking our time getting there, stopping to browse through the wonders one could stumble upon in a Halo Side market: encased fragments of a dead star, or basalt blossoms born from the colliding of the Milky Way with the Sagittarius galaxy. Even though Pillar was the greatest and richest station Halo Side, it had a strange atmosphere of familiarity about it, a feeling of overall humanity with its many colored stores and the echoes of peddlers calling out to customers in a dozen different languages. It lacked the lifeless cleanliness of the immaculate buildings of naked steel and glass that were the norm on Core Side stations. Pillar’s hallways and corridors were too full of people, of kids running and spaceship crews prowling the markets during their shore leave.

Core Side stations were places of meticulous order, where silence and absolute dedication to work were the norm. The domain of multi-stellar corporations, Core Side stations belonged to the high and mighty. Workers and Miner families rarely set foot on them--not because access was restricted, of course. Economical segregation worked in much subtler ways than through written laws. Docking fees did the job perfectly--and living space costs.

“The Marinas of Poseidon are lucky,” Theirn said in a wistful tone, holding up a strange, cone-shaped fruit at the level of his eyes before sniffing it with wary curiosity. “Here,” he nodded at the shopkeeper, as he fished out some coins from the left pocket of his jacket to pay for the alien good. “We should just rebuild all the Core Side stations and make them like Pillar. People would be much happier.”

“Probably,” I agreed, “but you forget that we hold no power over what people choose to do with their lives.”

“Choose?!” Theirn fired back, his clear blue eyes glinting. “An overwhelming majority doesn’t choose anything at all, but spend their lives struggling to stay afloat, unable to fight the currents that pull them ever forward and down. Whatever notion they entertain about being free is a delusion. A lie they’re bred and taught to nurture.”

“True,” I heaved out a sigh, “and irrelevant. Are you tasting that fruit or not?”

Hissing air through clenched teeth, Theirn brought the cone-shaped food to his mouth in a brusque movement and bit into it--and spat it out immediately with a series of coughs. Through watering eyes, he stared at the fruit and grimaced. “It’s raw chili!”

On our left, a group of teenagers paused, glancing toward Theirn who didn’t notice anything, and then went on their way, laughing up their sleeves. “Interesting,” I mused, taking the fruit before Theirn could throw it away in the nearest garbage bin. “We can always use more cooking ingredients.”

“I’m not cooking again!” Theirn exclaimed at once, indignant. “I--“ Stopping dead in his tracks, he shot me a baleful glare. “You tricked me!”

“You tricked yourself.” I handed him back the bitten chili. “This conversation would lead us nowhere. I agree with you, Theirn, on the clean ugliness and inhumanity of the Multi-Stellar corporations which rule over the Core Side worlds. I agree, and yet there’s nothing I can do. Nothing any of us can do.”

“But here, the Marinas of Poseidon--“

“Must bear with religious fanatics who stone women if they dare speak up to a man, or who would eradicate marvels like the Narvals because they’re not creatures of whatever deity they worship,” I finished for him, merciless. “Humanity is light and darkness both, in many aspects. We all have our share of those, be it Core Side or Halo Side.” There was more I would have said, and more that Theirn would have argued, but at this moment a sudden hush fell over the great marketplace. When eyes lifted up toward the giant panel set in the very heart of the market to list all the ships currently docked at Pillar, we followed suit.

Griffin, Ligea, Seiryu, Leviathan, Basilisk, Chimaera and Hydra.

The murmur of those seven names rippled through the crowd, echoing in whispering waves. The seven Halo Side jumpships had docked at Pillar, all seven of them at the same time. It had happened only once before in history: on the eve of what would have been the first space war, hadn’t the Solo family and the Graad Foundation shut down all jumpgates at once, forcing all sides to sit down at a negotiations table.

“Well, they sure took their time,” I grinned at Theirn. “Let’s get to the Meltemi,” I nodded at him, and we left the huge marketplace where people were still staring the names flashing on the giant board--wondering in low voices what kind of doom the coming of the jumpships heralded.

When we reached the bar, we found the taproom deserted, but for seven men and women. No head turned to greet us as we stepped to their table and pulled chairs from another one to join them. Not even a glance from Sachiko or Efraïm. With a faint sigh, Theirn rested his forearms on the table, and stretched like a cat. Unbidden, a smile hovered on my lips at the sight of him. The ones sitting in front of us were Marine Shoguns, and their Scales were of a gold as pure as our Cloths’. Proud and tall they appeared, even to the absentminded eye, and the feeling of their presence left a deep imprint in any place they gathered in. There was no denying this now, even though their faces were drawn, and lined with weariness. No other patron would come to the Meltemi during this night-shift, not until the seven figures of legend were done and had left it.

“Ugh,” Theirn heaved out a sigh, breaking the heavy silence, “but the atmosphere in here is even worse than when Thomas organizes his grand meetings in the temple of Athena.” That won him a derisive snort from Efraïm on the other side of the table, and the blackest of looks from Kraken Tania immediately on my left.

“Sore losers.” I gave a nod, and shrugged one shoulder.

Musical laughter answered me, coming from Murali, who waved toward the tavern keeper. “Sacha!” he called out to the man sitting idly behind his bar, “Pharmaco for our guests!”

“Guests!” Sachiko was indeed ecstatic about our presence on Pillar, and Murali-- Watching him, I chewed at my lower lip. Again, no spark of his apparent mirth had reached the charcoal eyes.

Even as two glasses of an unknown plum-colored drink were set before Theirn and I, Murali asked in a casual voice, “How was Confluence this time around?”

Theirn’s gaze met mine, and I bobbed my head in ascent. “Boring,” he said, “until the closing session, when a Halo Side woman somehow convinced the conference committee to evenly split all financing between Core and Halo side.”

“How?” It was Efraïm, and all seven Marine Shoguns’ gazes were focused on Theirn. Waiting.

Movements on the chessboard, indeed.

On my right, the apprentice blinked. “I thought you’d know that better than I,” he replied with perfect innocence, “being the one true power Halo Side and all.”

“You’re good, kid!” Lymnades Felipe chortled, then he sobered up in the time of a heartbeat. “Now, out with it.”

“She gave the attendees a set of data,” I intervened quietly, “and it seemed to convince them. Her name was Lydia Darchamp, a scientist from Aviary.”

“So,” Murali mused, lifting up his glass and staring at the drink in it, “they’ve moved.” He took a slow sip from it, then set the glass back on the table. “Aviary was just the messenger.”

“They call themselves Phoenix,” Sachiko explained, her jaw set. “They’re a group comprised of the most brilliant scientists of the Halo Side fringe. Phoenix, because they believe that Halo Side’s old, withering stars and worlds will revive and somehow be flooded with light once they’ve managed to prove the existence of unlimited supplies of dark matter and dark energy right on their doorstep, as well as found a way to exploit them.”

Silence shrouded the room while those fateful words dissolved in the tavern’s walls. Bringing my own glass to my lips, I drank a long swallow of the overly sweet liquor. The taste of plants and herbs filled my palate, clove strongest among them, and I closed my eyes. “We’ve been watching them for a long time,” Efraïm’s whisper was a subdued one. “We’ve monitored their activities, but their hopes and goals always seemed to be nothing more than lofty, unreachable dreams.”

“Why would the Core Side groups allow them financing that might very well mean those Phoenix people will get everlasting glory they stand no chance of sharing?” It was Theirn. Theirn, who had never stood at the heart of the small temple of Poseidon atop Cape Sounio, where Sea, Earth and Sky touched. Theirn, who had never heard the voices haunting the winds there, who didn’t know what truly lied at the core of the Sanctuary’s dread of the eternal night of space, and whose mind hadn’t frozen at the thought of what the quest of a group of Halo Side scientists entailed. And his question was a very, very good one.

Delays in deliveries.

Patterns emerging from series of glitches in the hydrogen and uranium supply chain.

The slightest miscalculations on the estimated production rates of solar farms orbiting the stars of Orion’s Belt.

“Who knows why the lackeys of the greedy Multi-Stellar corporations do any of the things they do?” Sachiko muttered under her breath.

“Perhaps they need the research.” Murali seemed to be doubting his own words even as he uttered them. He could be right, although I didn’t feel like dwelling on that answer right this moment. There was a tiny ball of ice cold in the pit of my stomach, and I didn’t want to go there now. Human affairs were beyond the Sanctuary’s domain, we had no right to directly intervene or influence events.

Later.

That was just one side of the matter that had brought us to Pillar’s docks. Everything was tied together. There was no chance in the Marine Shoguns’ being interested in Confluence’s Astrophysics and Quantum Mechanics Convention just upon their return from a little trip in the Halo Side fringe. This, I wouldn’t allow to slip from my grasp. “What news from the Rim, Marinas of Poseidon?” I asked softly--for the third time in less than three hours.

“Rumors,” Murali bowed his head then looked up again, his gaze distant. “From all except the two remotest mining clans, a steep decline in ore production. In a growing number of places, small, almost insignificant delays in transitions between jumpgates, mere heartbeats lost to whims of the sea of chaos but which disrupt our already too tight schedules--and rumors,” he repeated in a breath, “of shining sails haunting the abyss beyond the galactic Rim.”

My heart did a painful lurch in my chest, and I sat very still in my chair, unblinking. “Anything?” I met Murali’s gaze and held it with my own. “Did you feel anything at all while you were there?”

There together, all seven of them. Now I understood why. “No,” Murali hissed that word.

The swirling waves of cosmo enfolding our table were troubled, reflections of the unstable mix of anger and worry plaguing us. “No,” Efraïm shook his head, and added, “The Halo Side fringe worlds are spooky places. There have always been ghosts stories, legends of dead spaceships haunting the hyperspace currents, but this time it was different. It felt different, although not in any tangible fashion,” he heaved out an almost imperceptible sigh.

Beside me, Theirn grimaced while drinking from his liquor. “I’m going there,” I stated in a calm voice, “now. And you’re guiding me to those places.” I stared at Murali steadily.

“What makes you think--“ Sachiko was interrupted by a brisk wave of Murali’s right hand.

“Fi is Aries,” he said, “and she’s right.”

“Of course I’m right!” I snorted, blowing air through my nostrils. “Theirn,” I turned toward the young apprentice, and couldn’t suppress a smile when I saw the bright flames lighting his eyes, “you’re going back to Earth.” I added in thought, gently. I need you to tell Thomas, and more importantly I need you to tell Tau. Fire left the blue gaze in an instant, as if blown away by a harsh wind, and Theirn bowed his head.

“Aye.” The whisper was so faint it barely reached my ears.

Tell Tau everything, I insisted. Everything we said here, everything we saw on Confluence. Convince him, and convince Thomas. We need more jumpships sailing the sea of chaos. I need my beloved peers to get their heads out of their asses and to come here, Halo Side. In a slow, reluctant motion, Theirn looked up and met my gaze. I need you to do this. I truly do. I didn’t add that I’d have taken him with me if I could: he would have caught the lie. True as it was that I needed him to bring those news to the Sanctuary, what was even truer was that I wanted him safe Core Side and on Earth. The Rim was no place for an apprentice, no matter how talented and strong.

“All right,” Efraïm hissed through his teeth, nodding at me. “I have business on Vega station. I’ll get him there, and then he can grab passage on a Graad Foundation ship to Earth--that is if that kid of yours is up for a run on a true jumpship,” he sneered. Before the words had time to fade into silence, Efraïm crashed loudly down on the floor, his glass of wine toppled over his head and the golden liquid dripping down his hair and his face.

“I think you’ll find that the kid is up to many things,” Theirn looked down on a very discomfited Efraïm, a sweet smile on his lips. For a moment, the Marine Shogun just stared up at him, a dumbfounded expression written all over his face, then all of a sudden, usually sullen and bad-tempered Scylla burst out laughing.

“It’s sealed then,” he grinned at Theirn. “We’ll see if you feel as cocky when Hydra plunges down the grand stream at the heart of the hyperspace currents.”

“Looks like we’re done here.” Sachiko pushed back her chair and stood up, not in the mood for pleasantries or smiles--well, never in the mood for that. “Let’s be off, we also have reports to make,” she emphasized the words “also” and “reports”. The reports she was talking about would have been made here, but for Theirn’s and my presences.

“More secrets, Sea Dragon?” I called after her even as she walked away. In a rare display of wisdom, she didn’t even look back and continued on her way, refusing to be baited. Go, I gave Theirn a mental nudge, don’t leave Efraïm’s side. That should annoy the lot of them fools to no end. He did so almost at once. Less than a minute later, Murali and I were the only customers left in the Meltemi’s main room.

“How long for Hamal to be re-supplied?” the Marine Shogun turned an inquisitive eye my way, willing the lines of tension away from his face. Murali wasn’t happy about Sachiko’s early leave-taking, not happy at all. But even though Sorento had in all times been an unofficial leader for the Marinas of Poseidon, the rank remained an unofficial one, and arrogant pricks like Sachiko could refuse to heed him so long as he gave no formal order.

“The current night-shift at the most.” I pursed my lips. “That is, provided Pillar’s systems can properly interface with a Sanctuary jumpship.”

Murali’s head tilted back, and a loud sigh resounded between us, coming from him. “Please!” He groaned. In the same time, light steps echoed in the taproom, which had the instantaneous effect of drawing the blasted Marine Shogun’s attention. A group of five young Marinas had entered the Meltemi, and were making their way to a table not too close to ours, but not too far either. One or two furtive glances were thrown my way, but none of them made to come to our table. For the briefest of instants, Murali’s gaze strayed over the lithe shape of a girl who looked to be in her early twenties, then he refocused on me. There was no mistaking the smoldering embers there, no more than the almost imperceptible bow of the young woman’s head and the fluttering of her eyelashes. “At the beginning of the next day-shift, then?” Murali asked me. “That should give us ample time to decide on a route toward the Rim.”

“What route?” I shrugged at him. “Murali, you and Ligea are my guides. Get me to the Rim. You know the way. I’ll follow. No need to waste time, the more so since you’re expected.”

“Expected?”

Something half-chuckle, half-growl escaped me. “Murali, aren’t you old enough to have gotten it through your rotten brains that it doesn’t do to keep a woman waiting?” The tone of my voice was light, unconcerned.

“What?!” He exclaimed with a grin. Spreading his arms wide, he went on, “How could any man even consider leaving the side of a pretty lady such as you?” It was a joke. Harmless banter and fun between old friends. I knew this. I was perfectly aware of this. Murali meant nothing by it, and that--

“Hey!”

Hurt. Unmoving, I watched the Marine Shogun pick himself up from the floor and then retrieve his chair, which had just happened to slip from under him. I stared at the fake wounded expression on his face, and told him amicably, “Fucking moron.”

He opened his mouth to make some kind of funny retort, then closed it. The good-humored smile had frozen on his lips, and that murky look in the charcoal eyes-- Before I could realize his intent, Murali leaned over the table and touched his brow to mine.

I love you, Fi.

My heart iced over, then thawed and started beating again--hard, and sending painful punches through my body. Unable to suppress the stupid reflex, I blinked, then made myself look into Murali’s dark, penetrating gaze. “I know.” The words came out toneless. The mental exercise was a simple one, and it righted the erratic rhythm of my traitorous heart. Breathing in the scent of him, I drew up the corners of my mouth in what I willed to be a smile. “Go,” I told him, barely able to stifle the snarl clawing at my throat. Reaching up, I rested my hands on his shoulders, dug my nails in the fabric of his shirt and shoved him away. The troubled look was still in his eyes, but he was smart enough to obey. “I’ll meet you in ops at shift-change,” I nodded at him, and I found myself watching him go over to the other table.

Beautiful and proud.

Of course Murali loved me. I knew that. With Theirn, Tau and Ezio, he was the only living being to truly dare touch minds with me--with the harsh, demanding flames of Aries.

End of Chapter 2.

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