3 || The Temple Star Incident

Produc’Cha Imperial Year 926

The Third Timeline

(160 years after the Fall)

Pitirinate Territory, near the Elxis Expanse

Pila Kalid

“You’re sure this is the Aselia’s ship?” I asked, looking around. The bridge of this vessel was small, really small. It seemed entirely too tiny to be the control center of the famed vessel that lead the collective’s first assault at Barlba. There were just five little stations, arranged in a loose circle around the center of the round room, four facing outward and one facing inside the circle. That was it. I’d been on the bridge of the Mokk, a grand Pitirinate battleship. It was so much more complex, so much larger. This space felt inadequate.

I was at the station just to the left of the inward facing command console. My monitor was configured for navigation, which was just as well. There were only two of us on the bridge that could read Pyrinian script. The others were all down in engineering. Serri was the other person with me who could. She was reading something on the command console and didn’t look up as she answered me.

“The computers have been wiped,” she said absently, “but considering the intelligence behind this op, I don’t see how it couldn’t be.”

I looked around again. It certainly looked like a collective ship. Everything was black, the consoles, the walls, the floor, the non-existent chairs. I know I am a Pyrinian, technically, but I’m glad that when the Wokkiar banded together they decided to do away with these damned stand-up stations. If collective genetic engineering was supposed to make me feel at home here, it wasn’t working. My feet hurt and all the damned black everywhere was getting me down. As a Pyrinian by genetics, my skin was as black as everything else in here. That didn’t mean my clothes were all black. My ship wasn’t even black.

Thinking about my ship made me miss my comfy cockpit chair. I wanted to sit down, though I was sure that if I had the opportunity I’d blend in like a chameleon. Joah would probably sit on me by accident or something else stupid would happen. The whole line of thought made me want to yell at someone.

I looked over Joah. He was standing at the station to my left at the station we’d identified as tactical. He was still trying to figure the thing out. I caught his eye and he looked up at me. I guess he noticed my angst, or at least he knew me well enough to be able to read my body language at a glance.

“What?” he asked.

I shook my head. “Damned Pyrinians,” I said. He raised an eyebrow. “Nothing, never mind.”

Joah shrugged and looked back at his station. “Ok then,” he said. “I’m getting ready to detach us from the station. I’m going to send one more warning ping to the folks trying to burn their way back in. I’d like to not murder them when we release from the airlock.”

Joah Boss was very pragmatic. I guess in his line of work he had to be. You don’t hold command of a Meli generational ship like Outflier by being overly sympathetic or patient. He was going to steal this ship and that was that as far as he was concerned. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t give the Wokkiar crewers trying to stop us from detaching from Orol Station a chance to clear the airlock. We weren’t going to give them a chance to get back on the ship either.

I liked Joah’s pragmatism. I liked that he was direct. I liked that he didn’t mess around. When Boss sets his mind to something, it gets done. He’s that way about everything. Decisions, sex, lunch, whatever. I guess that’s what attracted me to him in the first place. I mean, Boss is something of a troll. Ok, he’s not that bad. He’s a lot older than me. Hell, he and my Mom were friends long before she met my Dad. I have no knocks on his personality at all. I mean...he’s a meter shorter than me, but what of it. I’m a Pyrinian, he’s a human. I was bound to be taller. Sure, his hair was already more gray than black and he wasn’t the best looking man I’d ever been with. He did have his upsides. He was stout and could drink anyone under the table. He’s always been able to make me laugh and he has a way...

“Pila,” Serri said, interrupting me. I looked up to see Joah’s older sister looking at me. Her curly salt and pepper hair was pulled up in a rather severe bun, making her look fierce. Like the rest of us, she was wearing a black tactical shirt and pants. It was odd to see Serri not wearing a dress. She hardly ever dressed down like this. It was also odd see the red lights flashing around the circumference of the circular ceiling.

“What?” I said, sounding as lost as I suddenly felt. “Someone trip an alarm or something?”

“Half a scythe of Pyrinian assault ships are inbound,” Serri said calmly. “Joah is detaching us now. Can you bring us around?”

“Oh...half a scythe...that’s...um...what...ten assault ships? You’re going to engage them?” I asked. I could see the airlock was now secured and felt the lurch as the ship suddenly detached from the station. I wondered briefly if the Wokkiar in the airlock had gotten clear. I hoped they had. I knew some of them, or at least I used to know them years ago. I hadn’t been too tight with my people since the Leadership tried to have me killed in order to steal the Trust from me.

“Well as you said Pila,” Joah said, not looking up from his station. “This is the Aselia’s ship. Damn...what is this one again?”

I leaned over to look at his station. I couldn’t see what he was looking at. I put my hand down on his arm and moved it a bit for a better look. He smiled at me for a second before pointing at the display with his free hand. There was a circular red indicator with some tiny horizontally scrolling numbers.

“That’s the range indicator for the assault ship’s vanguard,” I told him. “We’ve got about...hmmm...twenty seconds before they can hit us.” I looked at the display for another second, orientating myself. Wokkiar didn’t build ships like this. I could read the Pyrinian script well enough, but the control configuration was all wrong.

“I think this is indicating we’re already in range,” Joah commented, pointing at another indicator. I glanced at it and saw green numbers.

“Correct,” I said. “I’ll just swing us around and we can go kill them. Yeah, great idea.”

I moved back to my station and glanced at Serri just in time to see her roll her eyes at me. “We didn’t ask the Pyrinians to come and their posture indicates an attack,” she said in that calm voice she used whenever she thought I was being irrational. “They’re also laying our interdiction mines. I’d love to hear your other options for this, Pila.” I loved Serri as much as Joah, but she treated me like a little sister as much as she did Joah a little brother. I hated being handled.

I mumbled something unintelligible back at her and began to turn the ship around. I hadn’t planned on fighting anything today. I hate fighting. I’m fine to sneak or spy or hack, but violent stuff is for someone else. Yes, the ship were we stealing was the Temple Star. Yes, it was a collective battleship in the first timeline. Yes, Ambassador Cambrige swore up and down to Serri that it was the Aselia’s ship, the one the Empress Korasia sent back in time with a Pyrinian crew to prepare the Empire for the collective’s invasion. I didn’t care if it was the flagship of the first Produc’Cha Emperor’s cat. I didn’t want to go blow stuff up with it.

Besides my hesitation to fight, this ship also creeped me out a bit. Though the Aselia and her crew managed to arrive safe and sound on Penden after traveling through time, this ship didn’t. According to the journals in the Trust, the entire crew just appeared on the Produc’Cha sub-capital world. One second they were on this ship; another they were standing on Penden. It was an odd little mystery that didn’t engender trust in Temple Star.

Cambrige gave us the intel to steal this ship from the Wokkiar. He’d been the man to find it and present it to his Outer Command. How it got it got from them into Wokkiar hands was a mystery too, one that worried all of us. That’s why we decided to steal it. Cambrige and Serri went way back and she trusted him not to underestimate the importance of something like this. I’d never met the man, not yet anyway, but I trusted Serri.

“Ok,” I said. I had the ship mostly pointed in the right direction and was throttling up its main drives. “We’re moving towards them.” I looked at my monitor and made a minor course adjustment. “Well more or less. This isn’t exactly a scout shuttle. Doing the best I can here...”

“Its fine, Pila,” Joah said. “I think I’ve got a lock on the three vanguard ships.”

A moment later I heard little pings as Boss engaged his monitor. Those pings were followed by a great roar from somewhere below as the ship’s main forward cannons opened up. Temple Star might have been a super-advanced ship, but it’s weapons were loud as hell. I nearly covered my ears in surprise, which would have made me look foolish at the very least. The only thing that kept me from doing it was fear of the ship dropping off course if I took my hands off its overly sensitive helm controls.

“Didn’t exactly engineer it for comfort,” I said out loud. I was going to make another smart-ass remark, but I stopped when I saw Temple Star’s shots hit home on my board’s tactical overlay. Three shots hit three assault ships and went right through. The ships exploded into bits and pieces of little glowing stars.

I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was. I knew the history of the collective’s first invasion from the Trust. Boss and Serri knew it too. The Trust had been passed down my family line since the formation of the Wokkiar, though I think Mom was the first one to share it with anyone. Even the Leadership didn’t know what was in it, though they knew it existed. Part of the Trust’s contents included tales of the power of the collective’s Pyrinian battleships. Their first strike laid waste to the Imperial fleet stationed at Barlba. The records indicated it was this ship that destroyed Boshlin Barlba’s flagship, killing the Empress Korasia’s half-brother. Ironically it was also the ship that led the eventual insurrection of the Pyrinians against their collective masters at the Battle of Meli.

How that ship ended up here is to this day a mystery, but as Joah continued to fire on the Pyrinian assault ships, I could see the collective armada deserved its reputation. Temple Star was destroying battle-hardened assault ships meant to stand toe-to-toe with Pitirinate behemoths. The display was a little frightening.

“They’re running,” Joah said after the destruction of the seventh ship. “Three left.”

“Pila, give us full speed,” Serri said, making eye contact with me. She knew I wouldn’t want to chase someone who was fleeing. She wasn’t wrong, but I knew she was in charge of this little heist. Until we got back to Outflier she was the boss. She and Joah and their sisters had invited me into their family. I was loyal to them because they’d saved my ass when the Wokkiar Leadership decided I was a liability. I’d be dead without the Boss family coming to my rescue and I knew it. They’d taken me in and given me a new life. I loved Joah, damn him and his sister too. I wouldn’t disobey an order from Serri while she commanded a mission I was part of. No, I didn’t want to chase down and kill these Pyrinians, even though they would have happily done the same to us. I did it anyway.

“Thank you,” Serri said as we picked up speed. I grunted and kept my eyes on my board. Temple Star handled like a bus and keeping it on course required some effort. Well, either that or my translation of the controls wasn’t as spot-on as I believed. I was afraid if I sneezed I’d send us into a barrel roll.

Joah took out two more of the assault ships before the last one managed to get clear and FTL away. We’d taken out nine of their ships without them firing a shot. Someone else probably would have been happy about that.

“Serri,” I said just after we jumped away. “Those ships shouldn’t have been there. How did the Pyrinians know about it?”

“No idea,” she said.

“Would your Ambassador Cambrige possibly have a leak in his organization?”

Serri smiled at that. It was her big sister smile again. “He isn’t mine,” she commented. “If he had a leak in his organization, he’d be dead. The Outer Command can’t afford disloyalty. If they even knew he knew me, that would be enough to warrant his execution. However, it is the Pyrinians found out about Temple Star, it wasn’t through him.”

“And it almost goes without saying they don’t know who was stealing it,” Joah said. “We were very careful in planning this operation. I think it is more likely that their appearance at this time is a coincidence. I’m guessing here, but I imagine they wanted to steal Temple Star too. I think it is more likely there is a relationship with the Wokkiar and Pyrinians than it is a leak on Cambrige’s end.”

I thought about that half a second before responded. The Dominant clan Pyrinians who held former Imperial space and the Wokkiar Pyrinians hated each other. The Wokkiar thought the Dominant’s Pyrinians were tools of the collective, even if they hadn’t had any contact with them since before the fall of the Produc’Cha Empire. Whereas the Wokkiar descended from the collective armada of the first timeline and rebelled against their collective masters, the Alaxal Pyrinians came from the collective’s first expeditionary force, the one the Empire interdicted sixty years prior to the collective’s invasion. The two had been at odds since just after the Fall, when the Aselia’s crew had clashed with the Dominant clan.

“That’s quite a leap to make Joah,” I told him. “You know how the Wokkiar feel about our Pyrinian cousins. There’s no way any sort of relationship would hold together.”

“You don’t know that at all,” Serri said. “Stranger things have happened than two people on opposing sides of a conflict working together for some purpose. It isn’t far-fetched at all.”

I shook my head. “It is to me,” I said. “You guys weren’t part of the Wokkiar. I was. I know how much hate there is between us.”

“Yet the leadership has been acting bizarre,” Joah said. “How did they get this ship from the Quatelldronians’ Outer Command? Why did they try to steal the Trust from you? Why do they want you dead?”

“You know I don’t know,” I told him, “any more than I know how it was my parents’ scout force was tracked and ambushed at Penden. Lots of strange things happen Joah. It doesn’t mean the Wokkiar and Pyrinians are working together.”

“I don’t think they all are,” Joah said. “We’d know for sure if that were the case. Lesser cooperation could be happening. Don’t you think it maybe bears looking into?”

Serri raised an eyebrow when he said that. The gesture caught my attention. “Oh,” I said. “Oh, you two already have something in mind, don’t you? Something in mind for me.”

Serri nodded. “We do,” she said.

“Something important,” Joah echoed his sister. “Something that you are uniquely qualified for as a trained Wokkiar operative.”

“Were you ever going to mention it to me,” I asked, “or just club me on the head and send me on my way?”

“We need a liaison,” Serri said, ignoring my jibe. “Someone in the field. Cambrige had a hell of a time making contact with me. As things begin to move it may be impossible. His operation is small and his assets limited, but his plans are...” Serri trailed off. That really caught my attention. I’d never seen her at a loss for words before.

“Big,” Joah finished for her. He leaned towards me. “His plans are big. He could use some help. We’ve already discussed sending you to him, if you’re willing.”

“What, go to Quatelldron?” I asked. “Joah.” I stopped and put my hands on my waist. “Don’t be an idiot. Have you seen what I look like. I’m over two meters tall with jet black skin. You’d have to be blind and stupid not to realize I’m a Pyrinian. I wouldn’t exactly fit in, to say nothing of the fact that the Quats don’t exactly let any foreigners on the surface.”

“I managed it once upon a time,” Serri said, “when Cambrige needed me to teach his daughter. I think you can manage it.”

I started to raise the obvious unvoiced objection. Serri was human and could easily enough blend in on Quatelldron, as long as she kept her telepathy in check. Meli spent most of their childhood learning to keep their mental noise broadcasts in check. I couldn’t exactly cover up my height or skin color. She raised a hand before I could say so.

“As it happens,” Serri continued, “we have a new little invention that can help with your appearance. It is something we’ve been working on for years, ever since I returned from my time on Quatelldron. We’re building it for Cambrige, actually. He helped me with the initial ideas.”

“Invention?” I asked. “What invention?”

“We’re calling it a Visor,” Joah said. He almost sounded giddy, a tone that didn’t really fit his personality. Joah Boss was never giddy. Still, he was smiling. I liked his smile better than Serri’s.

“It’s really fantastic,” he spurted. “You’ll like it for sure. It is a little bit of Meli telepathic know-how combined with just a little bit of Origin tech.”

“Origin tech?” I asked, an alarm suddenly blaring in my head. “I didn’t know the Nomads of Melios had access to any Origin tech.” I knew the Meli were responsible for defeating the Origin at Produc’Cha in the Origin war. Everyone knew the Meli had taken some Origin tech, though the Meli had always been incredibly tight-lipped about it. What few experiments had come to light hadn’t ended well. The anti-telepathy drug Plyacynth was a particularly bad early example. As far as I knew such things were buried somewhere on Melios before most of the Meli populace decided to leave Alaxal for greener pastures.

Serri glanced at her brother and then me. “We do,” she said, “it’ll make you look like anyone you want to look like. It is the perfect tool for going to most closed-off planet in the entire galaxy. You should be able to get there and...”

We all looked up as the door to the bridge opened. It was on the opposite side of the circle of consoles from my position. We weren’t expecting anyone and the rest of our people were all in the ship’s engineering core monitoring everything up close. We’d been lucky to find the ship’s computers open, even though much of their data had been wiped. Well, we’d thought ourselves lucky anyway. We weren’t sure why, but we’d gone with it.

The individual standing in the doorway suggested a reason for it. He didn’t look familiar to me. He was tall with brown skin and hair and he was holding a Quatelldronian power rifle in a threatening posture.

“Stop!” Serri yelled, though it was too late. Joah was already moving. He’d drawn his sidearm faster than thought, or nearly so. Apparently Serri sensed his reaction even as it happened. Serri and Joah were close enough that even with their Meli disciplines they sometimes leaked strong thoughts at each other.

Joah’s shot hit the individual in the doorway square in the chest. I jumped at the sound of the shot. Joah’s pistol wasn’t particularly loud, but I’ve never reacted well to the sound of weaponry up close. The man holding the rifle went flying backwards into the hall. His rifle discharged a shot that went over my head.

“Damn it Joah,” Serri said. She was already on her way out of the command terminal circle. As she passed me she shot him a look that I was glad wasn’t meant for me. He holstered his weapon and followed. I stopped to check the ship’s status before I left my station, but everything looked fine.

The corpse was against the wall of the corridor outside the bridge. There was a smoking cauterized hole in his chest. I was surprised to see his appearance had changed. I’d only had a moment to note what he looked like before he and Joah exchanged fire, but I saw was now black and I was sure his skin was lighter. His face was frozen in a posture of pain and blood was leaking out of his ear. Joah’s shot had hit the man hard.

“Damn,” Serri said again. Her voice betrayed bottled up anger. Serri didn’t like violence any more than I did, but I detected something else there.

“You knew him?” I asked, guessing from her reaction.

“Delictus,” she answered. “Pahshahov Delictus.”

“His appearance changed,” Joah muttered as he leaned down and started feeling the torso of the body. It only took him a second to find what he was looking for. He reached under the man’s shirt on the left side and I heard a little sucking sound. He pulled out a little gray box. It was smaller than Joah’s hand and had a couple of what looked like mechanical buttons on one surface.

“Who is he?” Boss asked Serri.

“Mr. Delictus is one of Diant Cambrige’s operatives,” Serri said, glancing at me. “His chief operative, actually. I know the man personally from my time with Cambrige on Quatelldron.”

“Hell,” Boss said. “Why is he here and how did he get one of our Visors?”

“I thought you worked with Cambrige on them.” I commented, looking at the dead man and the device Boss was holding. “That’s what you said.”

“Initially yes,” Joah said, “but we haven’t delivered any of them to him yet. There are only a couple of operational models at this point. They’re both in my safe on Outflier and this is definitely not one of them. I assure you the tech hasn’t been reproduced and no one on Outflier has had any opportunity to betray us.”

“You should still check,” I stuttered.

Boss and Serri looked at each other. Both were frowning. “Of course we will,” Serri said, “but I don’t think we were betrayed.”

“You guys...” I started. “You don’t think what I think you’re thinking.” They both looked at me. Joah raised an eyebrow.

“I don’t want to think it, Pila,” he said. He stood up and gave Serri a significant look.

“It wouldn’t be the first time travel incident related to Cambrige,” she said.

Joah laughed, drawing a look from both of us. “I guess it depends on which Cambrige you’re talking about,” he answered, shrugging.

“Hell.” It was the only thing I could think to say.