A/N: Well! It's been a while, yeah? For those of you who have favorited the fic (I am honored and cannot thank you enough), it must seem that I disappeared on you, or gave up on the story. For those of you who are new to it, well, you probably assumed much the same thing and didn't even start reading. I don't at all blame you, and I wanted to spend some keystrokes sort of explaining what's been going on with this thing for the past several months (Over half a year now), and what the deal is with this one-chapter update. See, shortly after making my most recent post, I decided, perhaps foolishly, to reorganize the prologue chapters into one combined short story, finish it, and post it for chapter 1 as a fully written "prologue suite". Seemed like a great idea. A big update, lots of content, etc, but I had no idea of what a massive undertaking this would be. We're talking a 40+ page long story, and my pacing has still been inconsistent. So fast forward to now. I've been working on it, and will continue to do so, but in the meantime, the fic has been sitting, incomplete, for all these months, and you guys, both the ones checking back and the potential new readers, must assume, as I said, that I quit WS, dropped the story, and got on with something else. So, I've decided to post what I have so far. Sort of a "Drop 1", as it were, so you guys know I'm still around and have every intention of continuing and completing this project, and, of course, simply to give you something to enjoy (hopefully) reading. In addition to what I've added, I've also made some updates to what had been written and posted before now as part of the process of pulling it all together, so for the returners, I recommend a fresh read, but I promise this is the final version of this block. I'm going nowhere but forward from here. So as usual, let me know what you think, I value feedback a lot, and finally, thank you for opening up my fic. I sincerely hope you enjoy it, and that you look forward to seeing it develop well into the future.
-Vaelo, formerly CharLore
Dominatus stood staring through pristine glass at the immaculately kept back gardens of House Fayt. Well manicured hands fiddled with the obscenely complex system of fastenings on his formal vest as he surveyed hedges, topiaries, and statues. He tried to let his mind wander, as it normally would, but the imminence of a life changing meeting would not let go of his consciousness. His younger sister Melantris, who stood behind him, working his long, brown hair into a neat ponytail, must have felt him tense, because she gave the tufts in hand an admonishing yank.
"Relax," she said, ignoring his slight wince, "you know what you're doing. You'll be fine."
"I wish I could," Dominatus replied, "but the implications of my findings are monumental, and I doubt the Collegium will take it lightly if I'm wrong". He sighed, slipped on a pair of soft, white gloves, and gave his red overcoat a few final, deliberate tugs. "I'm overthinking it."
"You always do." Melantris said, placing her hands gently on his shoulders to indicate that she had finished.
Dominatus turned to her, and began to say something back, but was interrupted by a tone from his datacron two feet away on the side table. "Thanks," he yielded, and reached over to tap the device's receive icon. "Go ahead, Gaius."
"Lord Fayt, your guests have arrived," an official sounding voice intoned through the datacron's receiver, "shall I show them in?"
"I'll be down to greet them myself in a moment," he replied.
"Very well." The line closed.
Dominatus stowed the datacron in his coat pocket and started toward the library's door, but found himself taken unexpectedly into a tight embrace. He instinctively brought a gloved hand to rest upon the back of his assailant's head. "You'll be okay," he heard Melantris say into his vest. He couldn't help but notice a near-break in her voice, but dismissed it as a result of her words being partially swallowed in fabric. All doubt left him when she pulled away and looked at him with every bit of determination her sky-blue eyes had always shown. Her smile, framed by straight, neatly kept strawberry-blonde hair, calmed him, and he felt her strength sharpen his own resolve. The only person that mattered to him believed in him more than anything else in her world. Wordless, he stepped beyond the threshold into the hallway, then through another doorway into the wide-open foyer of his family's house, and took his time descending one of a mirrored pair of curved staircases into the villa's main antechamber. He tried to calm his nerves, to focus on what was in front of him, but as usual his mind wandered amongst the host of things that had been occupying him on a nearly constant basis ever since -
Scions, it had been nearly two years. Two years had passed since the cold, dead weight of the entire estate of House Fayt had fallen on him. His father had been a war hero, or so they said. Radiant Legion, like every eldest male of the family before him. He had given his life, just as they had, on the field of battle. The only thing other than a handful of service medals that made it back home to Casus was a rusted metal cube with a nicked corner, about a cubic foot in size. It was intended for Dominatus's mother, who served as a researcher for the Royal Collegium, but she had been in the hospital ill. To compound the siblings' grief, she never came home either, and at the age of sixteen, Dominatus, the heir to the estate, had suddenly found himself responsible for the upkeep of the House and its various affairs with the multitudes of other highborne families, not to mention the well being of his sister, now a fellow orphan. He had been a favorite candidate to join the Radiant, familial reputation being what it was, but his interests were always more academic. In this way, he was much more like his mother, he liked to think. Sometimes, the only way he could deal with the stresses of an intensely political lifestyle, was to indulge his curiosities and probe at the cube his father had left, romanticizing over the secrets it doubtless kept locked inside its deceptively dull shell. It had only been a fantasy; a boy's feeble attempt at holding onto his boyhood. That was, of course, until one sleepless night, when something he had done, clueless as to exactly what, made the thing pulse with green light, streaming from veins that formed a strangely geometric pattern upon the cube's surface. It had become immediately evident that the cube held an encoded message. Two years of work, deciphering, decoding, and prodding for more and more lines to decipher and decode, had brought Dominatus to a staggering find. The moment that he had decided of the relative certainty with which he knew that he had discovered a key piece in his people's most ancient of puzzles, he had made the call to the Collegium. Now, the organization's representative was here, at his home, he would present his findings, potentially change the course of Dominion history, and would no doubt be accepted into the most prestigious scholarly organization in the galaxy.
As soon as Dominatus pulled the double front door of his villa open, he understood the gravity of the meeting to have surpassed even his expectations. Before him stood not merely a representative of the Royal Collegium, but the organization's leader, Chancellor Juro Takigurian, himself, accompanied by the unmistakably slim, mechanical chassis of Axis Pheydra. Dominatus caught himself hesitating, and nervously cleared his throat. "Please, come in."
When the pair entered, he tried to remember every rule of hospitality at once. "Is there anything I can get you? Wine, water?"
"That won't be necessary, Lord Fayt," Takigurian said after a brief pause. "We haven't much time, you understand."
"Of course," Dominatus said, taking on a renewed sense of abruptness, "right this way." He led them to the downstairs master hallway and hung a left. "I must admit to a measure of surprise at your personal presence in this matter." It was his best attempt at small talk. "I am, of course, honored."
This time, it was Axis Pheydra who replied. "When we learned of your claim that you had made progress toward finding the location of Planet Nexus, we found it best to see it in person. Nexus is, after all-"
"The greatest quandry of our age." Dominatus interrupted.
"It is far more than that, Lord Fayt," the Mechari said, undaunted by his trespass, "It is the sole barrier standing between the Dominion and its destiny."
The thought wasn't a comforting one, and the final moments of the combined march down the hall passed in silence until the small procession approached the door to Dominatus's personal study. He paused, declared, "Here it is.", and opened the door to show them both-
Nothing. Dominatus was stunned. He couldn't take his eyes off of the table on which the cube and all of his materials had sat merely an hour prior. The tension in the room was made all the worse by the chilling gust of air blowing in through a large jagged hole in the glass window at the back of the room. He felt his two guests slide past him through the doorway. "It's gone," he whispered absently.
"What is the meaning of this?" Juro's voice was ice cold.
"I- I don't understand," Dominatus stammered.
Axis Pheydra scanned the room almost organically, and asked, "Aside from us and the doorman, is there anyone else on the premises currently?"
"No," Dominatus stumbled over to the empty work table, placed his hands on the flat top, and leaned his weight forward onto his palms. "Only my sis- my sister, she-"
While Juro thumbed the edges of the hole in the window, Dominatus reached into his coat pocket, pulled out his datacron, and dialed his only sibling. "Melantris, where are you? There's been a break in." Silence. "Answer me! This isn't a joke!" Nothing. He slammed a fist down onto the table. "Answer me!"
Into a datacron of his own, Juro calmly commanded, "Place the villa on lockdown immediately. Be on the lookout for a young girl, fifteen, suspected of theft of Collegium property."
"She didn't do this!" Dominatus exclaimed.
"This window was broken from the inside," Juro replied delicately, "so unless you expect me to believe a man in his seventies who walks with a limp can kidnap a young girl, steal a metal cube and break his way out through a window, your sister is the only known suspect. I'm sorry, Lord Fayt, but this doesn't look good."
"No." insisted Dominatus, "maybe someone snuck in before and was waiting for an opportunity. Maybe she was kidnapped! The one that did this took her! We have to find them!" He calmed himself down, and nearly pleaded, "I know she wouldn't do this. A day's search will prove it!"
Pheydra and Juro made eye contact for a moment, engaging in unspoken communication that went over Dominatus's head, as was surely intended. "It seems, then," the Mechari suggested, "That you will be coming with us."
Thankful, Dominatus complied, leading his guests back through the halls of the estate to the foyer, and exiting into the front garden, where the group was greeted by a pair of Mechari in ICI uniforms flanking the boarding ramp of a large Dominion transport ship. Both of them regarded Axis Pheydra as she approached with a dutiful gesture. One of them, presumably the higher ranking, spoke, "The grounds are all clear. A small civilian craft did take off just before the lockdown. I dispatched a unit after it."
"Follow them," ordered Pheydra. Both agents nodded their acknowledgement, and climbed into the transport's cockpit.
Dominatus, Juro, and Axis Pheydra boarded the open midsection of the ship, and took their seats as preparations were completed and the craft lifted off. Dominatus sat opposite the other two and stared nervously downward at the metal floor. "You're sure it was her?" The question was aimed at Juro.
"Undoubtedly," the chancellor's reply was level, unmoving, almost cold.
Dominatus offered no attempt to change his mind. There was no point. They were on the trail of what he knew must have been the family hover car, and he was content to wait for the situation to explain itself. He wanted to tell himself that once they caught up to the car and grounded it, there would be an unnamed felon in the diver's seat, who would be arrested or killed, Melantris, the cube, and all of his research would be recovered, and the presentation would commence. Still, he felt in the back of his mind that all of that was far too simple. Something was wrong, and he refused to let himself think more about it for fear of figuring out what. As the transport began its descent, Dominatus mouthed a prayer. It was strange for him to think that he actually hoped that Melantris had been kidnapped. Of course, the thought of someone hurting her infuriated him, but Juro's alternative was simply sickening.
With a lurch and a thud, the transport finally touched down, and the three stepped down the boarding ramp into what appeared to be a wide open field. About fifteen meters from where they had landed, a pair of Dominion fighters stood vigil over a smaller, much less heavily armed vehicle, which even from his distance Dominatus confirmed was his own hover car. Two more ICI agents stood with their weapons trained on a single man who knelt prone on the the grass-covered ground. As they moved ever closer to the scene, Dominatus made out more details about the man. He was elderly, he wore a dirtied white suit, and his silvered hair was messy, where it had obviously once been very well groomed. Dominatus's pace picked up, and his breath nearly left him when he recognized the man as his own servant.
"Gaius?!" Dominatus called out exasperatedly.
"Good evening, my lord," came the servant's routine response, made hoarse by exhaustion.
Dominatus knelt to address Gaius at eye level. "Where is she?" he demanded.
"I can only assume that you mean the young Lady Fayt" the servant replied sorrowfully, "She was adamant, my lord. She begged me to help her; said she feared for her life. Over the past several months I have watched as she's turned from troubled to agitated, to a kind of firm resolution I feel even she has never shown. I could see that she felt beyond a doubt that she was doing the right thing."
Dominatus gripped both of Gaius's shoulders tightly. "Answer the question!" he shouted, "Where is she?! What has she done?!"
Gaius coughed and sputtered a bit before replying feverishly, "Where she, and your things, have gone, I do not know exactly. Only that her wish from me was that I lead you and your guests as far as possible in a different direction." He took a number of haggard breaths, "and to convey to you her hope that some day you will understand." After a stark near-silence, he concluded his thought, voice trembling, "She loves you, Dominatus. Please do not ever cease to believe that."
Dominatus found it impossible to respond to the man before him. Rising to his feet, he addressed the agent to his left. "He's yours," he said through gritted teeth.
"My conscience is clean, my lord," Gaius said as he was lifted to his feet by one of the agents and escorted to the transport Dominatus had arrived in.
Dominatus himself was nearly speechless, but managed to ask the agent still present, "Was there anything else in the car?"
"Just this," the agent replied, handing over a datachron.
"It's hers," Dominatus confirmed, and took the device to inspect it.
"All data has been cleared except for a single file."
Dominatus turned on his sister's datachron and found the only file listed in its memory. Opening it, he was met with an image of Melantris's smiling face. He found there to be a complete lack of condescension in her warm grin. Rather her look was one of deep contentedness and unbridled joy. It was infuriating. Dominatus struggled to understand, but he could not reconcile the image before him, nor his servant's final words to him, with Melantris's betrayal. He had placed the vast majority of his effort into her wellbeing for so long; had loved her and trusted her. She, in return, had taken his proudest work and left him. Breathless, he turned and was surprised to be faced with Juro's sympathetic gaze. Axis Pheydra had already gone behind Gaius, speaking into a communication device as she went. "I guess you were right," Dominatus conceited.
Juro frowned and placed an apologetic hand on Dominatus's left shoulder. "Do try to get some sleep," he advised, "We'll take it from here." He then turned on his heel and strode on behind the others.
It wasn't until then that Dominatus realised how dark it had gotten. He took one more look at his sister's face imprinted on the datachron's screen, shoved an unfathomable mass of anger, grief, and confusion into a dark and distant place in the back of his mind, and silently climbed into the driver's seat of his car to begin the long and quiet drive home.
Sleep, of course, never came, and the earliest hours of the next morning found Dominatus pacing restlessly about his study in orange lamplight. The cube's position on the central table was now occupied by a display monitor and keypad, as well as a half-full glass of Cassian brandy, which had already been emptied and refilled twice. The monitor displayed a written request in Domintus's name to be considered for entry into the Dominion Legions. The letter had been finished and signed, only requiring that it be sent, but it was a difficult thing to do. Dominatus knew the application process, in his case, was a formality. Once it was submitted, it would be accepted without question. It was not what he wanted for himself. It never had been. But lacking anything else to turn to, he accepted that he had no other choice, and reasoned that he might as well embrace the inevitability. After a time, he made his way back around to the monitor and clicked an icon reading send. Exhausted, abandoned, and defeated, he collapsed into his chair, where eventually he fell quietly asleep.
"You'll be okay," Melantris's voice almost broke against her brother's chest. She held Dominatus as closely as she could, burying her face in his vest just below his chin. She felt his gloved hand come to rest upon the back of her head and nearly faltered. For a moment, she was tempted to abandon the plan altogether, to squander the only opportunity she would likely ever have to execute what had taken the better part of a year to plan and prepare for. No, she couldn't turn back now. There was too much at stake, both for her and for Dominatus. She had already accepted the course of action before her as the only rational one, and getting cold feet at the last minute was simply out of the question. She shoved her doubts and hesitations out of her mind and gingerly pulled away from her brother's embrace, regarding him with a warm smile that only she recognized as an unspoken goodbye. Dominatus returned the smile and exited the library to head down and greet the Collegium's representative, marking the beginning of Melantris's departure down a path she knew she would never return from.
She allowed for a brief window of time - as short as possible, but long enough to place her out of earshot - and slipped quickly and quietly through the doorway into the upstairs master hallway. Taking the hall to the right, she went a few doors down and descended one of the mansion's small collection of back stairways to the hall below. There, she was met by just the person she expected to see.
"Gaius," she whispered urgently, "do you have it?"
"Right here," replied the family servant in the same low whisper, presenting Melantris with a large shoulder bag.
Melantris took the bag under one arm and gestured with her head down the hall to the closed door to Dominatus's study. The two of them approached the study swiftly, Melantris keyed the password into the door's lock, and both entered inside. The study itself was a mess of wires and papers all surrounding and converging on the center, wherein stood a small wooden table upon which rested the rusty, metallic cube she had come to steal.
"You are absolutely sure of this," Gaius asked tenderly, as Melantris set the bag down on the center table, unfastened the opening, and began unplugging Dominatus's artifact from who knew what sorts of devices. She pulled from the bag her very own red and gold hoverboard to make room, and shoved the cube in amongst an array of other necessary things, along with all of the papers, which didn't fit quite as neatly and made something of a crumpled wad. The board she kept in hand.
"I've told you, I don't have a choice" she declared, tightly fastening the bag and hoisting it over her shoulder, "I can't hide my thoughts forever. They have ways of knowing what you truly believe, and when they find out, they'll kill me"
Gaius's expression turned dark. "Your mother once confided in me concerns very similar to yours," he confessed, bringing Melantris to a dead halt. "and I am terribly sorry to admit that I did not listen. To think that aiding you now somehow makes up for that would be foolish, I know." Years worth of sorrow and regret played across his face. "But I will not fail you in the same way I failed her."
Melantris was floored. She hadn't heard him mention her mother since her passing, and wanted desperately to know what Gaius had meant, but there just wasn't time. She shook off her hesitations and buried her questions.
Gaius quickly collected himself. "Now then," he said, "let's hurry and get you out of here, yes? I'm afraid you'll have to address the matter of our exit," he gestured toward the study's large back window. "My throwing arm isn't quite what it used to be."
Melantris scanned a nearby shelf, picking out a roughly spherical, ornamented object that somehow passed for art, and tossed it up and down a couple of times to test its weight. She figured it would do the trick. Not wishing to lose any more time, she wound back and launched the object as hard as she could at the fragile pane of solid glass. With a crash that both of them hoped couldn't be heard from down the hallway, a large portion of the window fell outward in shards, leaving an opening large enough for each of them to step through.
Once on the other side, Melantris handed Gaius her datachron. "Take this with you," she said, "Dominatus will likely try to track me using it."
Gaius accepted the datachron. "Live well, Lady Fayt" he said, "but most of all, live." He then turned and made his way toward the landing pad on which was perched Dominatus's car.
The plan had succeeded so far, and Melantris had no interest in slowing down. She thumbed a button on the side of her hoverboard and let it fall in front of her, where it locked into place a foot above the ground, emitting a low hum. Mounting the board, she gave a deliberate one-footed push, and took off toward the north-western edge of the property, placing the mansion between her and the front landing area. She provided another series of pushes to prod the board into faster and faster speeds, and as the high, solid wall marking the edge of the property came into proximity, she braced herself to jump. She focussed in on timing her jump perfectly, and when she felt the time had come, she kicked her back foot forcefully down on the rear of the board and lifted herself up and forward. As she came to the crest of the jump, she reached out and placed a hand on the top of the wall, brought herself up on one side, and vaulted over. The landing wasn't a soft one, but she was able to maintain momentum and quickly regain control, and, beside that, was glad to have made the jump in the first place. Before her was an open clearing of grassland descending toward the edge of a thickly wooded area, and as she approached the forest's edge, she slowed to a near-stop and popped the board upward into her hand to dismount. From behind her, she could hear the pulsing ignition of ship engines, and turned to see a pair of Dominion fighters lift up from the estate's premises and speed off, followed not too long after by a larger transport ship. She knew then that the ploy had worked, and it was now all up to her to see things through to completion.
Melantris knew the wood only extended about a mile, separating her family's home from Eleuria, the nearest city, and was easily traversable on foot. She weaved carefully between trees until she came to a place that was suitably remote and set both the board and the bag on the ground. She unbuttoned her formal pants and swiftly slipped them off and over her shoes, revealing a much less ornate pair underneath. Opening up the bag and reaching in around the cube, she retrieved a loose-fitting jacket of lowborne style and pulled it over and around herself, fitting her arms through the sleeves and zipping it up in the front. For now, she allowed the jacket's hood to lay draped over the back of her neck. Having fully changed into an outfit that had cost her a mere seven silver when she was last in town, she gathered her things and set out for the other end of the forest.
She knew these woods well. She and Dominatus used to get into trouble as kids wandering amongst the trees, where they would have all manner of adventures together. She knew which landmarks to look for, and where they were in relation to each other, and so it didn't take her more than a half hour to make the trek. The thicket began to whittle down until, finally, she came through the other side. Before her sprawled the towering metropolis of Eleuria. There, within the labyrinth of metal and stone, was her ticket off planet. All she needed to do now was get to the freight yard and meet him.
Life beneath Eleuria's gridded network of towers and skylanes was abundant and kinetic. Rivers of lowborne masses flowed along intersecting walkways linking shops, businesses, homes, and other amenities, while ordered lines of cars sailed overhead. Having reached the city's streets, Melantris allowed herself to become rapt into the current of coats and faces, her eyes peering out from beneath her low hood in search of any sign of a taxi kiosk. By then, the bright star around which Casus made its orbit had begun to set, and with a glance through the narrow space between a distant pair of skyscrapers, Melantris caught a fleeting glimpse of the outline and dimly flashing lights of the planet's largest artificial satellite. The Foundry, as it was called, was a massive orbital factory, presumably of Eldan construction, in which the Dominion's current generation of Mechari were continually being built, or born, depending on arguments of semantics. She felt her gaze drift upward, seemingly of its own accord, to a sky that was densely populated with stars whose brightness penetrated the fading pink twilight. Melantris had been taught early on that the sheer volume of celestial bodies in the night sky was a result of Cassus's relative proximity to the galaxy's center, but she had always preferred not to think of it that way. To understand such a grand display strictly by means of its scientific explanation, to her, diminished it's aesthetic value. Put simply, it was selling it short. Her mother had always said that it was in wonder that the beautiful things of the world could best be appreciated, and Melantris had always been inclined to agree. Stargazing, however, was something she found had been far more enjoyable when the sky had been her backdrop; a work of art on a very high ceiling; an abstract idea, far removed from the daily life of a young girl who had never been offworld. Now, the very nature of the path before her gave the universe a depth that terrified her.
Melantris was jarred free of her daydream when a stray arm bumped forcefully past her in the opposite direction. She shook off her delirium, rubbed the pain out of her shoulder, and returned her attention to the world around her. On the far side of the street, a homeless musician plied his trade effortlessly and elegantly, but was largely ignored. A peek down an alley to her right revealed an opening lined with covered counters and booths manned by alien peddlers of otherworldly meats and produce. Distantly, an array of upward-facing spotlights illuminated the grand marble and gold outer walls and towering steeple of the Vigilant Church, sitting in its place on the dividing line between the city proper and her highborne district. Finally, after several blocks of shuffling and bumping, Melantris found what she had been looking for: a small, unassuming circular kiosk with a sign reading Transit. The lot behind the kiosk was lined with grounded hover cars bearing exteriors patterned unmistakably in yellow and black. Luckily for her, the line to secure a taxi wasn't long, and she took her place at the back. When it was her turn, she stepped politely up to the counter.
"Where ya 'eaded?" the man on the other side asked, boredom bleeding through his crude, lowborne-accented voice
"Eleuria Freight Yard," Melantris replied. She reached into a side pocket in her bag and pulled from it a pair of platinum coins and slid them deliberately across the countertop. "Quickly."
The man stared down at the coins for a moment in something resembling awe, then cleared his throat, "Awright 'en, we'll get yeh sorted." He shoved the coins inconspicuously into his own vest pocket and made a series of keystrokes on the pad in front of him. Somewhere near the back of the lot, one of the cars hummed to life, rose up off the ground, and sailed toward them, coming to a suspended halt a few feet in front of Melantris. This close, she could see how dirty and deteriorated the open-topped vehicle was. Patches of rust and caked-on mud could be seen on every facet, and further from that, it seemed the thing was barely holding together. The side door groaned open.
"Old an' not particularly legal," the kiosk manager's voice was barely audible over the car's whirring and humming. "Bloody hard on the eyes, but it's fast. It's very fast."
Melantris swallowed hard, chucked her bag in, and, with one hand placed on part of the vehicle's chassis, kicked herself up and into the passenger seat.
"Best hang on," was the last thing the man said to her before the door squealed shut and the taxi lifted her swiftly into the night sky.
The ascent tore the breath from Melantris's lungs in an instant, and the vehicle gave her no time to regain it at the top of the climb before accelerating rapidly forward! Melantris did her best to hold onto whatever she could within the cab's interior as it streaked through the air, ducking in and out of sky traffic in a flurry of banking curves and abrupt lifts and dips. She hurtled past holographic signs, statues, and advertisements, none of which she could read, as the thin air shearing past her face caused tears to coalesce at the far corners of her eyes and she had reactively forced them shut. Blinded and nearly deafened, Melantris was at the mercy of a very questionable machine, and more than once she was certain she'd be thrown from her seat.
This continued for what felt like ages, until at once she felt the taxi straighten its course and begin a rapid deceleration over a gentle descent. She blinked hard and struggled to catch her breath, relieved that the ride was over. From somewhere on the insane vehicle's dash, a high-pitched, staccato beep resounded over the intense ringing in her ears, followed by a calm and authoritative highborne voice.
"Attention citizens," the voice proclaimed, "All public transportation in Eleuria is being temporarily grounded in compliance with the orders of the Imperial Corps of Investigation."
Fear turned instantly to dread. Melantris knew beyond a doubt that there could be no other reason for an unannounced suspension of transportation but to find her. She cursed under her breath. She had half expected this. She knew that the ICI would do everything in their power to retrieve her once her treachery had been fully realized, and there was a hell of a lot within their power.
"We apologise for the inconvenience."
Still, she had always gone back to the conclusion that uncertainty was better than certain death. She recognized that her only hope was in somehow outrunning them. It was a race, and it now seemed that she had lost.
"Compliance is mandatory. Glory to the-"
Another beep, followed by another voice, this one feminine and digital, "Overridden"
Before Melantris could process her own confusion, the taxi burst forth again, rising with renewed haste! It seemed to be going even faster and more erratically than before, and its passenger was once again plastered to the back of her seat. At this point, she was beginning to feel ill, and likely would have passed out from the rush had the journey lasted much longer than it did. When the mad car finally did reach its destination and slowed to a stop just above the metal floor of the freight yard's drop-off station, she nearly tumbled out of the opening door. "Thank you for your patronage," the same digitized voice chimed far too cheerily as her bag was ejected outward, the door groaned shut behind her, and the taxi descended in delayed obedience toward the ground almost twenty stories below.
Melantris took the bag's shoulder strap in hand and dragged it, staggering, across a ground that refused to stand still until she met with the wall beside the station's open entryway and leaned forcefully into it. the world around her whirled and spun over itself, and despite her stillness, she felt strangely as though she was still moving forward. She breathed slowly and deliberately, trying to ignore the constant pounding in her ears as she waited for the sensation to pass. She was certain that at that moment the streets were being subjected to a blanket scan for her primal pattern, and had it not been for the override, she would be on her way to prison within minutes. It was either luck or the favor of the Scions that she had made it here. Given her offense, she was convinced of the former. Regardless of the blessing's source, she had been given a valuable opportunity, and she wasn't about to squander it.
With a careful push off the wall, Melantris righted herself, swivelling gently to regain her bearings. She brought her bag's strap up to rest once more in its place on her shoulder and started across the threshold of the facility. Inside, above the central atrium, hung a holographic display that read:
5 March, 1658
Current Time: 19:48
Weather: Partly Cloudy
Melantris sighed her relief. She'd made it with plenty of time to spare. There was but one objective remaining before her fate was left to the stars. She bit lightly at her lip as she usually did when deeply focussed, and whispered under her breath, "East wing, hangar bay four." She strode with purpose in every step past hovering palettes, trundling labor bots, and groups of foreign traders and dockworkers, all the while quietly chanting the simple locational directive in rote. "East wing, hangar bay four. East wing. Hangar bay four." She followed holographic signs pointing the way to all of the yard's various ship hangars, cargo lots, and waiting rooms, until she came to a halt a few paces from the mechanical doorway guarding her destination.
She gazed through a small viewing screen, hands cupped tightly around her face, into a massive, rectangular space, surrounded on all sides but one by metal bulkheads veined with pipes and cables. In the center of the space stood a large starship, similar in design to Dominion fighters, but with marked differences, chiefly among them being it's vastly larger size. The far side of the space, beyond the ship, was surfaceless, and instead opened out into the darkness beyond the yard's walls. After a series of awed glances about the chamber, her eyes fell on a tall, thin, Ekose captain standing in front of the ship's descended boarding ramp, issuing orders to robots of different make.
Pulling away from the viewscreen, Melantris moved into the doorway's sensors, prompting the metallic gate to sink into the floor. She stepped inside and timidly approached the Ekose, who had his back to her. Once within earshot, she cleared her throat and called out, "Captain Trellin?"
The startled captain spun around to face her, calling back in an annoyed tone, "I've told you people dozens of times now, I passed through all the-" he cut himself off when Melantris pulled back her hood. "-Oh, it's you," he said, and lowered his voice. "Blessed Navigator, you were serious?"
"I have the money," Melantris responded, skipping over all pleasantries. "I'm ready for passage off-" Trelin cut her off with a hand raised suddenly to her mouth. Caught slightly off guard by his interruption, she could see that his narrowed eyes peered past her. His long, fleshy ears stood straight up, his feline nose twitching anxiously. When she started to turn her head to see what had taken his attention, he clasped her shoulder tight and she stiffened.
"No, Don't look," he commanded, his fringe-accented voice turned grave, "get in the ship. Find cover." When she hesitated, he added a forceful "Now!"
Rather than question the near stranger, Melantris chose to trust in a fringer's experience, and obediently climbed the ramp. Once inside, she made her way to the nearest enclosed room and surveyed unfamiliar surroundings for anything that could shield her from view, a blast, or whatever else the captain feared, ultimately settling on one out of a series of wall-mounted lockers. As quickly as she could, she climbed in with her bag amongst a few hanging jackets, shut the door, and immediately regretted it. The space was cramped, and forced her to contort herself into an unnatural and uncomfortable form. Worst of all, something hard in or on one of the jackets dug relentlessly into her back, while one of the cube's corners took a shot at her ribs from inside of her bag. "Augh," she cried out, but stifled her pain. She used what space she had to raise a hand to her face and bite down hard on her forefinger to keep herself quiet.
After what she could only estimate to be a couple of minutes of intense pain, she heard a low, robotic hum traveling about outside her dark prison. As the continuous sound drew closer, she began to hear another, intermittent sound, higher pitched, steely and digital. Dammit!, she cursed silently, recognizing the sound of a scanbot's scanner. She knew it was here for her. The ICI had tracked her well. Again, she descended into a state of horror, as the bot drew even closer and came to rest levitating right in front of her on the other side of a thin locker door. The walls around her were illuminated a light blue as geometric patterns danced downward, then back up. This is it, she thought, blinking a tear out of her eye, I'm finished. No sooner had the thought crossed her mind, than the humming of the scanbot, to her immediate shock, simply moved on. It scanned the remainder of the room, then, satisfied, levitated back outside. What had happened? Melantris had been certain she was caught, and just like that the thing leaves? For all her questioning, she gratefully accepted the outcome, gave time to ensure that the bot had truly gone, then, longing for relief from the pain of staying in the cramped locker, she released the catch and almost fell out.
She rubbed some of the pain out of her back, set her bag down at her feet, and crept after the bot, hoping to steal a careful glance outside. She took a number of measured steps back through the ship's connecting hallways to the boarding ramp and ducked low. On the floor beyond, she saw Captain Trellin conversing with a pair of ICI agents. The scanbot hovered unthreateningly over their heads. Having seen all she needed to, she spun around to make her way back to the cargo hold, but jumped audibly when she came face to face with a pair of large orb-like eyes bulging out of a very oddly shaped blue face.
"Cookies dearie?" the alien woman asked, her voice sounding somewhat frail and elderly. She offered up a metal tray piled on with a variety of sweet smelling confections.
"No, er, no thanks," Melantris could barely get out, before hard metallic footfalls rang out from the ship's boarding ramp. Captain Trellin could be heard muttering to himself something about Dominion police and their blasted questions when he was already behind schedule, until he came to where Melantris and the Ekose woman stood.
"Are you out of your mind?!" he hissed at Melantris, whose eyes went wide at the sudden aggressive rebuke, "Do you have any idea how close you were to getting us all thrown in prison?" When he got nothing from Melantris but stunned silence, he shook his head disappointedly, and, forcing a measure of calm back into his voice, added, "Now you'd best find yourself a seat and buckle up until we hit warp. I don't plan on sticking around for a search in orbit, so the ride could get rough." He then turned and strode forcefully down the main access hallway, calling back to the woman behind him, "Lorna, let's go. We need to set up and clear out if we're gonna make the first shipment on time."
"I'll be right there, dear!" the woman called after him. To Melantris, she smiled and said, "I'll just leave these here. Please help yourself." She set the cookie tray on a stray crate and gave Melantris a final sympathetic glance before heading off after Trellin.
Panting, and heart racing, Melantris wiped sweat and tears from her face, pushed her tousled hair back and out of her eyes, and gently sucked the blood out of the teeth marks she'd left in her finger. Exhaling, she made her own way down the hallway, keeping far behind the others and taking care not to touch anything for fear of drawing any more of the Ekose captain's ire. She noted as she went, peeking into rooms and down side passages, that the ship seemed far larger inside than it had from the outside. When at last the passageway opened up into the ship's bridge, Melantris couldn't decide which way to look. Multicolored lights flashed and played across a large digital display centered behind a smaller, three-dimensional holo-model of the planet Cassus. From the wide platform holding this display, as well as the captain's rounded chair, a pair of curved ramps led down and out into a larger space a floor below, where an array of screens and instruments projected from stations lining the ground, manned by sleek, cylindrical robots of a sort Melantris had never seen.
"Welcome aboard captain!" One of the bots chimed enthusiastically as Trellin took his seat and began tapping at a keypad mounted to his chair's armrest. Lorna took her own seat beside him. A further glance down at the bridge's bottom floor revealed to Melantris a number of unoccupied seats with mounted shoulder straps bolted to the bulkhead on the starboard side. Striding past both Ekose, she descended the ramp down, picked one of the metal chairs, and slumped into it. She caught herself shaking.
The mind-jostled girl urged herself to calm down while all around her the ship's systems began to growl and hum to life in preparation for takeoff. She could hear Trellin giving commands to the robotic crew, but couldn't make out any details over the roar. Not long after the captain's garbled fiat ended, Melantris felt a shudder, followed by a momentary lapse in the effects of gravity as the gargantuan starship lifted off the ground and began slowly rotating to face out into the night. She braced herself, and a moment later a forceful acceleration sent them all hurtling over the city and into the atmosphere. Even through the odd cloud, the multitude of bright stars burning against black dominated the fore viewport, making it difficult for Melantris to see the ascent. The only clues she had of the ship's increasing altitude were the streaks of cold air and vapor whizzing past the viewport's edges and the increasingly violent quaking of her seat, the eventual ceasing of which, she assumed, indicated their breach of the atmosphere into the vacuum of space. The entire process had taken less than a minute. They cruised for a time, relative quiet pervading the bridge. The bots focused on their duties while Captain Trellin flew the ship, and only the various beeps and chimes of the bridge's instruments pierced the constant low thrum of the engines.
"We're jumping in ten," Trellin called out finally, and this time Melantris heard him clearly. After seconds of the same calm techno-soundscape, he added, "Five." Melantris's knuckles whitened at the intensity of her grip on the seat's armrests. The engines' hum crescendoed. The space outside sparked and crackled. "Warp engaged."
Whether it had been due to stress, exhaustion, or simply her unfamiliarity with faster-than-light travel, the last thing Melantris remembered of her first ever hyperspace jump was the sudden onset of hellacious nausea, lightheadedness, and the curious sensation of melting into her seat. Easing back into consciousness, she found herself not seated at all, but lying flat on something soft and comfortable, covered by what felt like a thin cloth blanket. The air she breathed, although cool, tasted stale, and her mouth felt as if it had been filled with cotton. In fact, she felt altogether like her entire body had been through the wash. Her side and back ached, her neck was stiff, and her heartbeat pounded against her eardrums, exacerbating the mild headache she was already nursing. She couldn't conceive of opening her eyes, much less moving, and so she lay still, hovering between sleep and sleeplessness, for how long she couldn't know. During this time, as the hammering in her head slowly faded, she found she could make out more of the sounds around her: first, a soft and constant buzz she assumed came from a lamp or overhead light; then, a steady, rhythmic ticking, every second, obviously from some sort of time keeping device; and now, voices, at first muffled and garbled, but, drawing closer, becoming recognizable as those of Lorna and Captain Trelin, in conversation beyond the metal bulkhead separating her from the rest of the latter's ship.
"...easy on the poor thing, she doesn't know any better," she heard Lorna's motherly coo, followed by a frustrated grumble from Trelin.
"She doesn't know a damn thing."
Shame warmed her face. He wasn't wrong, afterall. She knew very little of what life in and beyond the fringe was like, and what she did know was heavily romanticized. Reluctantly, she lifted herself to a sitting position and let her head slump. At long last, she allowed her eyes to open and stare into her own lap. Sure, she'd managed to slip off world, a feat in and of itself, but facing the vastness of what her lack of understanding made impossible to plan for left her feeling every bit like the naive little girl Trelin must have thought her to be.
Suddenly, her thoughts were interrupted by a series of metallic knocks. Before she could answer, the door whizzed open, and the captain strode in, face buried in a datachron. At first he didn't notice her, and when he did he seemed shocked.
"Oh," he said, "You're awake."
"Sorry to trouble you," her remark came out a little more bitter than she'd intended.
Trelin frowned, stepping closer and pulling an empty chair up to sit in. "Listen," he sighed, and took his seat straddling the backwards-facing chair, arms folded over the backrest, "we got off on the wrong foot, I think. I'm sorry I snapped at you back there."
Melantris lifted her gaze to study the Ekose's expression, and found it to be surprisingly genuine.
"My ability to trade on Casus is a valuable privilege, y'see, one that not many of us spacers can claim. When those Dominion spooks came along asking questions about a young, noble, girl matching your description, I saw that privilege, and possibly my freedom threatened, and Lorna's too." A second wave of shame forced Melantris's gaze downward as the captain paused to let his words sink in. Satisfied that they had achieved their desired effect, he continued, "Now I could lecture you about recklessly endangering others and toying with authorities until I go hoarse." Here, he rubbed his chin contemplatively, "But, seeing as how you're here, with stolen Dominion property no less, rather than dead or in prison, I have to imagine that either you have some stacked dice, or you have at least some clue of what the blazes you're doing, so even if only for my own curiosity, I'm gonna give you the benefit of the doubt." He relaxed his posture some, and lifted an inviting hand "So, tell me. What's going on?"
Melantris wasn't sure where to begin. Clearly, Trelin already had a decent grasp of her situation, a fact she attributed to a combination of the ICI's indiscretion and the Captain's own propensity for details. After a time, she inhaled deeply, and started where she best knew how. "I'm sorry," she said, ignoring his dismissive gestures, "I'm sorry I got you and Lorna twisted up into this. I'm sorry I used you. I had to get out, and I thought it was the only way. You probably think I'm just a thief and a criminal, stealing from the state and using you for a getaway, but I promise that's… well, I suppose technically partially true." She shook off another wave of self loathing. "Please understand I'm not running because I took the cube, I took it for the same reason that I ran." Now she was afraid she'd started talking in circles.
Despite her concerns, Trelin seemed to be following. "What are you running from?" he asked calmly, "What has you so spooked that you'd skip town in such a hurry?"
"I don't know, maybe I'm just crazy." she rehearsed the doubt she'd been wrestling with for so long, "Maybe I'm paranoid, but I know what they do to anyone they think is out of line. They'd find out eventually what I think."
"You don't believe in that mandated religion o' theirs or something?" Trelin guessed.
"Well, I guess," she admitted, "if the Eldan really had become gods and set out ordering and perfecting the cosmos, you'd expect the galaxy would show for it. Still, that's really only part of it. The Vigilant Church really isn't that strictly mandated, but it's where the Dominion claims the authority to do the things it does that I'm… well I'm not sure are right, even by the Church's own virtues." Seeing that she still had an intent ear from Trelin, and being allowed to safely voice things that had, until now, been locked tight in her mind encouraged her, and she found herself growing more comfortable in her vulnerability. "The way lowborne are treated politically, the pointless war with the Exiles, I mean, honestly, they seem to represent no more of a threat to the Dominion than any other fringe rabble, but they're hunted relentlessly, why? Revenge? Control? There aren't any satisfying answers. The point is, I have doubts, the kind of doubts that get people killed."
"So instead of risking it, you left," Trelin considered, giving his chin another rub, "Even leaving behind family, I take it? You can't be older than sixteen."
"Fifteen," she replied. "Both of my parents are dead. It was only my brother and I. Scions, Dom probably hates me. There's no way he'd understand."
"Hmm," another sympathetic frown from Trelin, then, "So why did you take the… what, you called it a cube? What even is it?"
She sighed, "I don't even know. My father found it on some mission for the church beyond the fringe, and sent it directly to my mom, who's a researcher for the Collegium. I guess he thought she would know what to make of it, but she died of an illness before it got to her."
"I'm sorry."
The ghost of a smile broke her somber face. "It was years ago. The cube fell to my brother, Dominatus. He was so excited to break into it and figure it out. As soon as he found the coded message it held, he became instantly obsessed. He loves things like that. He wants so badly to join the Collegium." Before she could realize it, tears were streaming down her face. "And I took that dream from him. The cube was his best chance, they were at our door, and I stole it."
Trelin placed a hand on Melantris's shoulder. "Calm down. Let's stay focussed, yeah?"
Melantris gave a reluctant nod, blinking tears out of her eyes and wiping her face with the sleeve of her jacket.
"Now. What did he find? What did this 'Collegium' want with it, and why did you take it?"
"What he found, at least as far as he'd tell me, was a set of coordinates, along with a vague reference to homecoming or something like like that. He, and the Collegium both thought it would lead the Dominion to the Eldan's home planet, Nexus."
"And that's a big deal to them," Trelin said, "holy quest and all that."
"You're familiar with the legend of Nexus?" Melantris asked, surprised.
Trelin chuckled, "There are few legends in the galaxy more tired, and I got news for you: the Dominion aren't the only ones looking for it."
"Well of course, there are the Exiles," Melantris dismissed.
"Chiefly," Trelin confirmed. "So that brings us to the here and now, in which I must ask: Now what? What's your plan? Where are you headed?"
Melantris dropped her glance again, wishing she could avoid what was easily the hardest part of this explanation. "Well," she replied weakly, "I was hoping to try to find the Exiles and give them the cube." As soon as the words had left her mouth, she regretted uttering them. She knew it was stupid, hopelessly so, to expect to be welcomed with open arms into the fold of her people's most hated enemy. But it had been said now. The words hung in the air over an otherwise domineering silence. Finally, that silence was sheared when Trelin broke into a hearty laugh. Melantris curled up and made herself as small as possible.
"Oh, I'm sorry," he managed between howls, "I'm not laughing at you, I promise."
"Yes you are," Melantris grumbled.
"Okay, maybe a little," Trelin confessed, "I mean, you don't think they'll just take you in, do you? I mean, sure they'd take the cube, if you told 'em it was a golden arrow pointin' right to Nexus, but who knows what they'd do with you then. Can you even speak in an Exile accent?" Here he shifted into an emulated drawl, "Come on, slick, let's hear it!"
Melantris opened her mouth to speak, but found herself silenced, and simply pouted.
"Oh, that's too good," Trelin gave a few final sniggers before sitting back and clearing his throat. "Okay, listen up" he began, laying jokes aside, but maintaining his jovial mood, "To be perfectly honest, I'm not interested in Dominion politics any more than I am in their religion, at least not beyond the impact either one has on my business. What I am interested in is the situation in front of me, which is a homeless teenager in my ship. That makes you my responsibility, and I'm not leaving you out in the cold, okay?"
Melantris lifted her head and looked, hopeful, into the Ekose's eyes, searching for any hint of insincerity. Again, she found his concern to be encouragingly genuine.
"So you said you've got some money on you?" He asked, "How much?"
"Oh, right!" Melantris remembered and started digging through her jacket pocket, "Three platinum coins. That's what we agreed on."
Trelin raised a halting hand, "Hold onto it. It should stretch, but you'll need it all, I figure. We'll be breaking warp for a small stop tomorrow. We can get you some clothes and pad our food stores. I've got a drop scheduled with the Exile fleet in a little over three weeks, a fact you'll be keeping to yourself, understand? Far as I'm concerned, you can bunk here until then, if you're nice and comfy."
It took Melantris a moment to decide that she was confident this was actually happening. "You're serious?" she hesitated.
"As a funeral," Trelin replied certainly, before finding himself unceremoniously rapt into a cassian bear hug. "Whoah, now. That's enough of that," he protested unenthusiastically.
Melantris gave a series of muffled thank yous before pulling away. "I won't be a burden, I promise."
"I'm not worried about it," Trelin dismissed, "Now come on. Let's get you to a shower, then I'll give you the grand tour."