Chapter 4: Home Sweet Home
Simon was a 100 year old Imperial gunship that their father had salvaged from the debris field surrounding Laparion 8. Ryal always wondered what it would be like to be fighting on some distant planet and see the sleek, black gunship drop in from low atmo, spitting missiles and projectiles in a rain of death.
She flew the skip into the open cargo bay and docked it. Clara and their target had just arrived in a hijacked imperial shuttle. The blaster strikes and impact marks on the hull were evidence that not all the prison frigate’s weapons had been repurposed.
Clara was communing with Simon, her head pressed up against the nearest bulkhead. Their passenger was writing on another bulkhead. Where had she gotten another ?
Her sister turned to her as she limped up, “What happened to your leg?” making Ryal look down. Even thought the leg under it was mostly healed, the armor itself was a smoking ruin, black and pocked with holes.
She shrugged, “That mage was stronger than you'd expect to find in the navy. Class 6 at least.” The ship trembled slightly, settling into slip space. “At least the rest of the Intel was accurate. Any problems getting your ride?”
They walked out of the cargo bay, trailes by their cargo. “Nope, not unless you count having to fight AND play ticky tack at the same time” Clara smiled, “and I won, didn't I Maggie?”
The middle aged woman stopped, a look of childish outrage on her face, “Nuh uh! You cheated! You can’t throw the ball into anyone's skull! You got brain on it!”
Ryal rolled her eyes. Trust Clara to make a friend and piss them off in such a short time, “well at least now you have someone your age to play with.”
Thet walked onto the bridge as their employer was connecting via hologram. Cicero was an old half elf, his white hair and beard trimmed immaculately, his suit of old cut and make buy very high quality. It was all false, of course, an avatar created by security software to hide his real identity.
He smiled at them, “The Perro Sisters. Dependable as always and Saphira. Lovely to see you again after all this long, long time”
Their passenger squinted up at the projector, then flapped her hand through it. “Maggie knew a Saphira once, cloudy man. She broke into a thousand pieces. Maggie does not think she would be happy if anyone tried to put her back together.”
“Well my dear, maybe it is time. Maybe all those years ago Saphira knew there would be a time, and maybe that time is now.”
“Maybe, perhaps, sorta, kinda, maybe maybe maybe” The woman murmured, then turned abruptly and walked away, still muttering, “sorta maybe, sorta kinda, kinda kinda kinda.”
“Ok well that was very enlightening,” Clara said, “We are always dependable Cicero. And so are you, usually. More dependable than now.”
The hologram’s tone was puzzled, but nothing else, “ Oh, was the ship not where I said it would be? Were the guards not egregiously ill equipped and under staffed?”
“Speaking of staffing,” Ryal lifted her leg up to thump on the holo-table, “You never said anything about a plaking council mage there.”
Cicero was not surprised “Are you mad about a little burn? I’ve seen you walk away with worse.”
“We are not mad Cicero, we are worried about being on the council’s radar. You should have informed us there was a council mage on board masquerading as a Naval Officer,” without living ships or engine systems that ran primarily on Ether, most mages in the modern Navy were healers, the rest were simply too weak to pass the Council tests. This one had definitely not been a healer.
Their employer shrugged, “The mage is of no consequence. What we need to focus on now is the next step of your mission.”
The sisters shared a glance, and in the shared space between thoughts Clara sent
“Next step? We’re delivering this one to Cobalt Station and then you are paying us the rest of our credits. And delivering the information I requested.” Ryal ignored the spike of irritation from Clara at the last sentence.
Cicero smiled a smile that Ryal knew she was not going to like, “Do you recall the exact words of our agreement?”
It was Simon who answered “Retrieve the renowned geneticist Saphria and deliver her to contacts on Cobalt Station. We have achieved the first mission objective. We will now like to proceed with the second.” As a full member of their team and by design the best analytical thinker, Simon was by the one that set up contracts.
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“You spoke with that individual?” Cicero gestured the direction in which Maggie had gone, “Does she strike you as a renowned geneticist?”
Clara cocked an eyebrow, “Do we look like people who would know many famous geneticists?”
“Fair enough,” Cicero studied them for a moment, as if trying to decide how much to tell them, “She's been fractured”.
“She what now?” Clara asked.
Ryal gasped, “Impossible.”
“About as impossible as a member of the Fae species being alive after thousands of years?”
“That's why it's impossible. Fae couldn’t be Fractured,” Ryal shot back “Their connection to the Ether would make it so that any attempt at it would cause immediate retreat into the non-corporeal.”
“I do so love it when you attempt to debate me on Ethereal physics my dear.”
“Hey!” Clara struck the table “Nerds! What the plake is ‘fractured”
“Her mind's been broken, split into several different pieces”
“Anvil, Ryal! Obviously her mind is broken.”
Cicero’s calm voice broke in “At the end of The Dragon War, the alliance between the races was already beginning to fracture. The Elves had taken the home system of the Sol Boras dragons and found the secret to their human genetics program. This allowed them to perfect their Reproductive Technology and improve their birth rates. This made the other races nervous- Elven longevity had always been balanced out by their relatively low population numbers. Dwarves and Fae accelerated their own efforts to duplicate Dragon sciences. The humans, still focused on the liberation of their species and already the unfortunate recipients of Dragon genetics, opted to destroy whatever technology they found.”
Clara’s eyes had already glazed over but Ryal leaned forward. She loved it when Cicero took on a lecturing tone. He was usually so secretive and guarded, but sometimes during moments like these he would let crucial information slip.
“The Elves, on the other hand, jealousy guarded their secrets. As the war came to a close, they looked forward to their intergalactic empire, and began to solidify their dominance. They hunted down scientists and researchers of the newly liberated technology, capturing, torturing, and eventually killing them.”
“In an effort to preserve the knowledge for their people, a small group of Fae used magic to partition off their minds, and then scattered those partitions across the known universe.”
“Wait,” Ryal started, “She did it willingly?”
“Quite ingenious, if you think about it. Fracturing had only ever been done as a method of punishment, or interrogation. And you were correct- Fae were immune to it being done to them. Unless of course they willingly stayed on this plane of existence. Eventually though, the Elves worked out how to hold a Fae on this plane against their will, and that was the end of them as a species, most of them anyway.”
Clara turned to look at Maggie, who had gone back to coloring on the bulkheads, humming to herself. “So even with all that time, they couldn’t break her.” it took a lot to impress Clara.
“I don’t think there was that much to break. Saphira was the last of them to be fractured- she helped do it to the others. My theory is that she saw how much was left in all the different parts that a being left behind, and so when it was her turn she broke herself into so many pieces that if anyone wanted to put her back together, they would need outside help.”
Clara turned, “and you want that to be us? Why don’t you be her outside help?” Clara hated being played and however much he tried to downplay it, Cicero had played them. Ryal and Simon were not that crazy about it either.
“You should know us better than to only give us part of the story, Cicero,” Ryal shook her head, “You know we put a premium on trust.”
“Oh yes, I know exactly how much you value trust. That is why Simon is still trying to break my encryption and trace my signal.” For his part Cicero seemed bored, like he knew they were going to end up doing whatever he wanted anyway and this was a waste of everyone’s time. Ryal couldn’t help but feel like a trap was set and he was just waiting for them to walk into it.
Clara shrugged, “There is trust and then there is blind stupidity. You still haven’t given a good reason for the secrecy. So she’s in a bunch of pieces, so what. Could have just said “I need you to grab this lady and then hunt down the other parts of her brain.”
He shrugged, “In your line of work keeping a low profile is important. Freeing one of the oldest prisoners the empire has ever held is not exactly… discrete”
“Well looks like we finally agree on something,” Clara traded a look with Ryal, “We’re out. We’ll deliver her to Cobalt station, as agreed. And then it's probably a good idea if we don’t work for you for a while.” Ryal nodded and Simon voiced his agreement via their link. Clara reached to terminate the link.
“There is one other thing,” Cicero said, and Ryal heard the ‘click’ of a trap being stepped on in her mind, “In addition to finding out she was alive, my associates and I also discovered that Saphira was the leading expert on the founders and early leaders of the Human resistance. Those humans with exceptional powers given to them by their golden runes. Runeling, I believe the elves called them.” and there it was.
This changed quite a few things, NOBODY knew about them, outside their adopted family. They couldn’t. Golden Runed humans were the bane of the universe, and everyone was obligated to kill them. The fact that Cicero knew about them- had known BEFORE Ryal had revealed their identity to an Imperial officer and endangered their lives- raised several questions.
Outwardly Ryal scoffed “Runelings, that is the second time I have heard that term today.”
“Let’s dispense with the upcoming threats and posturing. I know what you are. No, I have not told anyone, and I have ensured that your secret is safe. Look, I have other pressing matters to attend, can we get to the part where you agree to fulfill your part of the contract. This woman is exactly what you have been searching for.”
Even behind the anger and the hurt, Ryal felt something else from her sister. Resignation. She knew Ryal was going to say yes. Clara had racing, building ships, and Simon. Ryal had nothing but the driving, relentless desire to answer one question. What the plake was she?
“What’s next?” She asked as Clara stormed out of the room.
