A Terran in the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire
Hashiyo-Hashiyo 207
In no way did Alan Chandrasekhar actually expect someone to be arrested by the Ctarl-Ctarl government on a charge like that—"participating in a criminal conspiracy during wartime"—right in front of him. He read the papers: the police arrested people for plenty of things, most of them mundane. Hooliganism was a popular charge. Avoidance of military service. Possession of illegal substances was a particular favorite, the state seemed to adamantly crack down on that.
But they always arrested their own. Chandrasekhar hadn't heard of a Terran being arrested by the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire since back when the infiltration circle collapsed in the lead-up to the war, where Gregory should have met his end. Accordingly, he took his job seriously for a change and reported it to his superiors in the Space Forces. The response came back too quickly to not be suspicious.
Current arrest campaign in Imperial space known to HQ. Disregard and follow new orders.
So, what people were being arrested for was something he was not supposed to look into. Chandrasekhar wasn't stupid enough not to suspect this wasn't in connection to PARA●SOL, even if he thought the odds that he'd actually see the results of his secret testimony, in person, were microscopic. But why would Space Forces want him not to look into it? Wasn't it bad enough that it was, in part, his fault that the whole thing happened? Did the unified legislature on Terra fear a public relations debacle? Or was something else going on? He wasn't supposed to know that either.
The new orders were intended to keep him busy, or at least give Space Forces a specific thing to yell at him for not doing if he poked his nose elsewhere: along with a dozen other officers posted throughout the Empire, Chandrasekhar would compose a draft of a new manual to replace the outdated naval manual on the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire. It was actually a very practical assignment, even if he was suspicious of it. Space Forces could have told him to help illiterate children learn how to read, and he would have been suspicious of the legitimacy of the mission.
This was the sort of thing that took months or years of research, not to mention cooperation with academia to even attempt, so he bumbled his way into it with his usual lack of enthusiasm and scribbled down some ideas as a start.
Lady Kalin, who was slowly completing the last tier of her mandated education—which the Ctarl-Ctarl now called 'high school', like Terrans did—expressed an interest. As time passed, Chandrasekhar saw less and less of her, as she was torn between her youth movement, cadets, and public education. He assumed this was normal, but nonetheless, she even dragged him to one of her school's cultural festivals, on the basis of contributing to his research. Chandrasekhar thought it was kind of stupid, but he was both physically weaker than 16-year-old Kalin and didn't have a good excuse. Wearing a visitor's pass and trying to remain inconspicuous, he sat in the corner of the classroom as the 6,000-student public school on the edges of the Imperial City Kalin attended put on its ridiculously elaborate yearly tradition, a cultural festival. Kalin, and three of her friends, had "occupied" one classroom, turning it into a sort of "entertainment hub" where their fellow students, when they weren't running their own events, could play entertaining games and maybe win cheaply made prizes. It was not gambling—gambling was illegal for anyone, much less children—according to the girls. So instead, they stood on top of their desks, with paper bullhorns in their hands, dressed in high heels and bunny girl outfits, encouraging people to spend some pocket money to try to predict a particular random outcome or solve a particular kind of puzzle.
Bunny girl outfits had become a thing. To elaborate, a few months earlier Chandrasekhar had read a magazine article that mentioned the latest in strange fashion imported from Terran space. According to the magazine article, in the same month that he arrived on Home to begin his work with Lord Dawid, so did a Terran expatriat by the name of I. L. Heliosk. Heliosk came to the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire for the same reason 99% of Terrans who immigrated did: to make lots of money in the rich Empire (or try to, anyway). H had a clever idea: all over Terran space, but particularly in the cosmopolitan Tenpa worlds and places like Heifong, "bunny girl restaurants" were a popular fad. Except calling them a fad was incorrect, since they had actually been around since before the Towards Star Era.
Really, the establishments were nothing more than the usual mid-to-high end bars and lounges, usually with karaoke or some musical talent, staffed primarily by young women wearing the very distinctive "bunny girl costume": according to the magazine, a shiny rayon-satin low-cut corset, satin rabbit ears and a cotton tail, a collar, cuffs, black sheer tights and high-heels. Aside from making the person wearing it unable to sit or bend normally, the costume was immediately recognizable and unmistakable, the most valued traits for clothing in the free market. Alan had no idea where it came from originally, nor did the article speculate.
Heliosk's idea was straightforward: he would open a club in one of the capital cities of Home's less crowded provinces, most likely one of the university and academy towns that were dominated by young people not in military service, hiring Ctarl-Ctarl women to wear the outfits and work as staff. This actually made sense, apparently: the magazine article used census data to determine that, of the roughly 52% of the Ctarl-Ctarl population that was female, Heliosk would have hired girls who were within five years of the minimum age of employment (in the last year of required public school attendance). Of that demographic, at least 95% of girls would meet the physical requirements (height, weight, musculature) to wear the formfitting outfits, and of that 95%, about two-thirds would be at least as well-endowed as the chesty Terrans who originally wore the outfits, thanks to typical Ctarl-Ctarl diet and physiology. Provided they had pretty enough faces and could serve drinks, Heliosk could pretty much hire anyone to work at his trendy new club, which would keep costs low.
The idea didn't work. There was no one single reason why it was a flop, but it mostly came down to the fact that Heliosk overestimated the drinking scene among his customer base. Furthermore, the outfits were sexually enticing to Terrans, but struck Ctarl-Ctarl as being more "cute" than anything. Every university had a competition-level women's sword dancing division that was basically naked by comparison, after all. Within weeks of opening the first club, millions of young Ctarl-Ctarl women copied the design, stitched surprisingly well-made reproductions that they couldn't sit in without tearing either, and were wearing them at school culture festivals, sports contests and costume parties. It became the post-adolescent answer to the cute smocks pre-adolescent children wore. Heliosk couldn't hope to keep the trademark with the Imperial patent office, which was a reason for the failure. He started a new cosplay trend, but didn't make a wong for his efforts.
So Kalin, who was already much taller than most of her classmates and had what she her friends dubbed "a dynamite body", joined her athletic friends in standing on top of their desks in second-hand high heels, smacking their bullhorns against their nylon hips and shouted through them enthusiastically. It was probably one of the strangest things Chandrasekhar could recall ever seeing, after he unsuccessful admonished her for going out dressed like that in the first place. They did very well: their event at the cultural festival was among the top ten in popularity, with a high turn-out of male and female students who would stare up at them and then play the games of chance. It wasn't really considered risqué by the students or school—earlier that year, the school also at a sports festival, where all the girls and boys ran around in what basically amounted to gymnastic leotards under T-shirts with the school emblem on it, and all the photographs of the event seemed to suggest a lot of self-contented girls modified their leotards to rise unusually high on their hips. Chandrasekhar was very grateful he'd only had a son.
"He, Mr. Terran Captain, sir, do you want to try your luck!" one of them yelled in his face through a bullhorn, causing his ears to ring.
"No thank you, I've never been a good gambler," he explained, recalling when he'd first started out as an ensign.
"It's NOT gambling sir!"
Even Aisha, who went to a neighboring middle school, got to stop by, admire Kalin's hand-made outfit, and try to beat the odds on a randomly-rolled dice. He didn't bother concealing his disapproval. Kalin, unsurprisingly, was far easier to relate to as a young adult, a characteristic that was only growing—and by proxy, becoming more interested in him—by the year.
Not in a romantic manner.
As Chandrasekhar kept growing older and kept fighting the urge to do something stupid to really mess up his life, in the manner that would make all of his past mistakes seem laughably subtle by comparison, Lady Kalin finished school and, in many respects, closed the book on her childhood once and for all. She applied to, and was accepted into, the Imperial Central Naval Academy's Flight School, a branch of the main institution dedicated specifically to training pilots. Chandrasekhar certainly didn't see it coming—Kalin was taller and top-heavier than most of her peers, neither of which seemed desirable for a pilot. Some research helped: the Ctarl-Ctarl did not make the same widespread use of carriers as Terrans did. Even many Kei Pirate Squadrons had small carriers that ferried a number of lightly-armed fighters into combat, some making use of the new "grappler" technology. The fighters were barely larger than passenger car, and suicidal in his mind.
The Ctarl-Ctarl had a fundamentally different approach. Imperial military theoreticians were more conservative about new technology, whether it was grappler tech or bio-androids. That extended to navy, where dreadnoughts, cruisers, and battleships ruled. Purpose-built carriers weren't popular like they were in Space Forces. Instead, naval doctrine called for conversions made to existing, proven battleship that would enable them to ferry fighters. But some of the most successful cruisers, like the Nipopolas-class, couldn't easily carry a practical number of fighters, along with additional ordinance and support ships. So the navy's space fighters and interceptors had to mount their own Munchausen powerplants along with their conventional drive systems. And so they got even bigger than they already were. That meant their maneuverability, if not their speed, suffered, which demanded more armor protection for the pilot and crucial systems. Then some muscular admiral somewhere got the idea that, since ships were bigger, they might as well carry larger weapons anyway. The end result were fighters, interceptors, and fighter-bombers that were three times as massive as their full-sized Space Forces counterparts, not counting the tiny "midget fighters" that had caught on in some regions.
However, fighter crews didn't get corresponding larger. After the pilot, most Ctarl-Ctarl spacecraft did not make provisions for a navigation officer, or a supplementary gunner. A few of the larger bombers had three-man crews and long-range fighters two-man crews, but these were the exceptions. So pilots were generally selected from the largest, toughest Ctarl-Ctarl they could find, as they would likely have no one else to share either the cockpit with, or the burdens and stresses of high-speed combat.
While the larger-than-average pilot corps were smaller than most Terran soldiers (though not pilots), Kalin was rapidly becoming an exception. When she finally finished her civilian schooling, she was as tall as her uncle Dawid, and nearly as tall as Chandrasekhar. By the time she was qualified as a pilot, she was well past that. Her departure from the Capital Province to the training squadrons around distant worlds did not strike him as particularly odd at the time, so much as the diligence she showed writing him a steady stream of letters. In them, she'd mostly dismiss with the pleasantries and ask about military matters, as though he were a valuable resource for the next great war. He was not—in fact, with each passing day, he suspected he was remembering a little less of the practical military education and experience he actually possessed, only to have it replaced by vague details and very general ideas.
Kalin Clan-Clan was growing up. So was Aisha, of course. And, to a lesser degree, so was his own son. His very early entry into the Space Forces aside, Shekhar still had some growing up to do before he actually entered unquestionable adulthood. Part of that was figuring out to do with Yoko, and an increasing number of other hangers-on that seemed to follow him, all apparently women as well. His posting in the Space Forces was bizarre, a reflection of the turbulent times: he spent his time on a cruiser seized from pirates, of which Chandrasekhar thought Yoko must have had some connection to, joined by some Tenpa nobility, along with two officers of the Terran Interstellar Police. All of them women. What little he heard from Shekhar seemed to convey he wasn't that pleased with the situation either, and regardless of how the others felt, the only one he was actually involved in was Yoko, who sounded more like a pirate with every letter. If he wasn't for his perpetual melancholy, Chandrasekhar probably would have been embarrassed for his son's antics.
All in all, it was a peaceful time for him. Trang Van Minh had made her life with her new husband, which made her even less likely to try and speak to him—a positive in his mind. The lashings from his superiors grew a little more distant and a little more infrequent. This peace was a consequence of him not being privy to certain happenings: the Imperial government's secret retaliation against PARA●SOL, in all of its varying disguises and incarnations, for what happened at Boto Matsuo-Matsuo III. He wouldn't learn about it for years, but the both the Home Ministry and the Imperial Intelligence Bureau had been biding their time. They were not in it to make examples or to terrorize, those were too roundabout for the Ctarl-Ctarl. They simply wanted to take everything they felt they were entitled to, whether it was research information, medical equipment, or justice. Everything was tangible and quantifiable in their mind. While Chandrasekhar sat in the Capital Province, picking his nose and staring at all his notes for the navy, at least ten-thousand Terran and Ctarl-Ctarl businessmen and scientists were arrested, not all of them publicly. None of them, as far as he knew, were ever seen again. Chandrasekhar didn't even think of the whole matter until the reappearance of the rich heiress, Raquel Tsukino, some years later, as the so-called "Crystal Queen" of the Principality of Io not far from Terra, with millions of Terran subjects.
It was very peaceful in the Clan-Clan's estate. After graduating with honors, Aisha left full-time at the age of sixteen and all three of the Clan-Clan children had departed. Even before that, her presence was more and more infrequent. Lord Dawid and Lady Ayesha, like any parents, had to deal with that. As usual, Ayesha was cryptically difficult to read, running around and always preoccupied. Dawid's response was typical: he missed having his children around, and he had no problem admitting that. He spent more time actively participating in the Imperial Navy's committees, but no effort to hide his melancholy.
"I suppose children always grow up, don't they?"
If you're lucky, Chandrasekhar thought. "It means you were a good father."
"Nothing lasts forever. Even the Empire won't."
That struck Chandrasekhar. It seemed like all the Terran Empires sought to be the last great human empire, and there was a very strong streak of apocalypticism and adventism among people. Given how the last few years had unfolded, it was to be expected he supposed, so the best a nation could hope for was to be the last interstellar empire in the history books.
As for Chandrasekhar, he didn't really know for himself. Being alone with the Clan-Clans and their still large household staff left him a lot of time to write, and he was used to the notion that he wasn't really fixing this various problems in life.
"My Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change those things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." Who had said that? A Silgrian, Chandrasekhar thought, many centuries earlier. It seemed like a good place to start for a person hoping to live for himself, though as usual, Chandrasekhar's attempts to understand philosophy hit a brick wall as soon as they began.
While he uselessly pondered the meaning of life, the Pirate Guilds were preoccupied with much more practical pursuits. It was years before he was privy to the detail himself, but his classified testimony against PARA●SOL had set in motion a chain of events so strange and unpredictable that he had trouble understanding them at their most basic. He was not wholly responsible—in the end of the day, he was just a lonely guest in a foreign nation who sat hunched over a small desk tapping words into a computer. But the pieces had been in place, and just one little push was all it took for them to align at that moment in history, this one from an unwilling participant.
PARA●SOL's future was in jeopardy. Even before the Terran investigations were scheduled to begin, the Ctarl-Ctarl prosecuted a bloody, clandestine war against them that was rapidly dismantling large portions of the company at the seams and obliterating some of its top brainpower, irreparable damage to one of the most brilliant, if deranged, groups of thinkers in the universe. Most vulnerable was the company's Bioengineering Research & Development branch, not directly involved in the atrocities in Panaan City like the massive Pharmaceutical and Chemistry branch was, but still a benefactor of the studies done there. After the Ctarl-Ctarl tore the Pharmaceutical branch to pieces, they moved onto Bioengineering. In a reminder that there were still certain things the Space Forces did better than corporations, PARA●SOL barely managed to evacuate their key personnel, research and infrastructure to safety. There was no appeasing the Ctarl-Ctarl, and now Terran governments were beginning to get suspicious about how many car-bombings and nighttime kidnappings of brilliant scientific and business minds they were going to see in the coming months. PARA●SOL did the only thing they could: they sold the entire branch off, lock, stock, and barrel, to the other group that could afford it (if not the one that could best protect it): the Kei Pirate Guild.
With the tacit understanding that if the Ctarl-Ctarl were ever stopped, the branch would return to PARA●SOL's ownership, the Kei Pirates obtained the surviving core body of researchers and most crucial equipment to the most advanced biomechanical and bioengineering industry in the known universe. Multiple-species cloning was an old hat. Cybernetics of the highest quality and reliability. The final frontier, purely artificial, purpose-designed organic life forms, was suddenly within their grasp. Like all pirates, the Kei knew this purchase would only raise the stakes of their unending war with the Ctarl-Ctarl Empire, but that was where their predictability ended: instead of using the research on Ctarl-Ctarl immunity, and the obvious bio-warfare applications that came with it, they mobilized all of their bio-android research. Some research on Ctarl-Ctarl did apply to that, particularly the immortalized cell line. Cells from a now dead Ctarl-Ctarl were being used to make bio-androids for the Kei Pirates, but why bio-androids?
As usual, it was only one side of the coin, one half of the filled-in circle chart. The Kei Pirates wanted one very precisely-manufactured bio-android, serial designation VSD02C, to function as the guidance mechanism on one very precisely-manufactured hybrid grappler ship, the cross between a frigate and a small destroyer, serial designation XGP 15A-II. Only the serial designations were obtainable, with some effort, and for only one reason: the Kei Pirates had supplied the bio-android, but the Space Force's had supplied the ship. The rules of bureaucracy meant everything was recorded, even if only in the vaguest terms possible. It was the first ship supplied to pirates by the Space Forces since the war ended, and the first new ship to be offered to them as well, as part of some sort joint-effort.
Still years later, it was then Chandrasekhar heard that strange word again: "Leyline Project." He barely remembered Professor Nguyen Khan, whom he'd encountered once more than twenty years earlier, and did not at all remember what that strange man had spoken to him about. It might have been a defense mechanism: officers who asked questions, like the extremists in the the U.O.G., would vanish in pirate attacks, and while he remained in Imperial space, it was none of his business. Furthermore, it was years before Chandrasekhar could even begin to put the pieces together of this strange, futuristic story he might have had a hand in starting. Until then, it was just another strange urban legend, like that of Captain Rodger Fortune, who died in orbit around Mars trying to save a princess from the frontier, centuries ago, as much truth as fiction and as indecipherable as what happened beyond the event horizon of a black hole.