Space liners are not meant to fragment into pieces. It’s considered bad form for any sort of space capable vessel to allow its passengers to experience the sensations that come from direct contact to the vacuum of space. That said, it is an unfortunate reality of galactic society that sometimes space ships do not live up to their intended purpose. This was why casters who spent a sufficient amount of time in space frequently earned their environmental certifications.

As an agent of the crown of Abyz, Bo carried certifications for several different hazardous environment. Her training had been undertaken at the personal behest of the Queen who desired that all of her personal guard be able to survive in anywhere she had cause to deploy them. At the time Bo hadn’t seen the point of including “space” as one of those places though. The Royal Guard was rarely called off planet and the coursework for space environmental certification was brutal and time consuming. Quietly, she’d spent weeks coming up with complaint after complaint as to why she should be allowed to skip the pointless certification classes.

Oddly, not one of those complaints surfaced in Bo’s mind as she reflexively cast an instantaneous air shield at the sound of the space liner’s superstructure shearing into pieces. The destruction of the space liner shocked adrenaline into her system, but thanks to the brutal training she’d so wanted to avoid, the magics didn’t waver in the slightest.

That wasn’t particularly surprising of course. She only had to contend with collateral damage after all. There’d been much worse to deal with during training. Usually spaceships failed because someone made them fail after all and if those someones were really vicious they’d make sure any simple personal shields weren’t enough to save the space stranded passengers.

Having secured her own safety, Bo turned to aid the people who were with her, mindful of the dangers a wrecked spaceship was likely to present. Apart from the free floating (and potentially high velocity) debris, there was the presence of the ship’s anima fields to worry about. Freed from their proper conduits, those could be more dangerous to the passengers that the attack that ruined the ship.

With wreckage all around her, it should have been difficult to find the Imperials, Yael and Zyla. The Guardian and her partner though were both glowing like mini-novas. Not twenty feet away, they were bubbled together in a single shield of their own casting, and working furiously.

Zyla was drawing in motes of magic like a galaxy of stars collapsing to a single point in her right hand. The collected power, which had once been the ship’s main anima shields, flared from her and flowed to Yael through their clasped hands.

From the Guardian’s free hand the magics poured forth in a kaleidoscope pattern. There were a thousand sapients on the space liner and in less than two seconds there were a thousand shields to protect them from the ravages of the airless, cold void.

Bo watched as the two casters worked, Zyla bringing in as much of the ship’s scattered magic as she could and Yael connecting the individual shields to allow people to communicate again.

“Can you get the escape pods?” Yael asked over a telepathic link.

“Did they survive?” Bo asked.

“Fortunately, yes,” Zyla said.

Escape pods are built for extra resiliency, but Bo was dubious they would be serviceable after the ship took enough damage to reduce it shattered parts.

Of course, by that argument, people were (generally) less resilient than either escape pods or space liners, so the fact that most, or perhaps all, of the ship’s passengers and crew were still alive seemed to be an even more amazing stroke of luck.

“Thank you,” Bo said to the two fate casters, whom she was fairly certain were responsible for the lucky breaks that allow for her continued good health.

The rescue of the ship’s passengers wasn’t an easy matter. A suitable ship had to be dispatched, and a emergency warp path calculated. Some of the passengers had been injured in the space liner’s destruction and many more were panicked and traumatized by the events that occurred. In the end though, the ship arrived, the injuries were treated and the passengers were calmed.

Most of the passengers.

The Chinuri delegation was united in their agreement that the Empire had failed to protect them. They stormed onto the bridge of the rescue ship while Yael, Zyla and Bo were speaking with its captain.

“We request an immediate return to Nuriana,” the Chinuri lead delegate said.

“We’re closer to the conference site than your homeworld,” Yael said.

“We cannot negotiate with an Empire that does not take our safety seriously,” the delegate said.

“We take the safety of all our citizens and allies seriously,” Yael said.

“How can you claim them when you are not willing to strike against the Red Running Stream still?” the lead delegate said.

“What makes you think we’re not going to strike against them?” Zyla asked.

“You did!” the delegate said. “When we boarded this ship, you said you could not act, that the time wasn’t right.”

“My apologies,” Yael said. “I spoke in a confusing manner there I see. Agent Riverstone, will you brief the Chinuri on the information we have just been discussing?”

Bo looked at the Guardian and then at the Chinuri delegation. Secrecy was a tool the Royal Agent was used to relying on as a standard part of her arsenal. Any information she gave the Chinuri was a potential hole in their plan, and unless she missed her guess, the Red Running Stream would be alerted to those holes minutes after the briefing was concluded.

“Are you sure of this?” she asked Yael via a private telepathic link.

“Completely,” Yael said.

Yael was one of the three principal casters who had rewoven the planet-wide fate spell on Abyz. Zyla was the second. With those credentials, Bo felt willing, if not exactly comfortable, playing along with their plans.

“The Red Running River has been found to be in league with a number of other cults operating within the Empire. As such, Guardian Clearborn has received permission to treat them as an immediate danger to Imperial Citizens,” Bo said.

“We have more than permission though,” Zyla said. Her look of restrained glee was apparent even to the Chinuri.

“Yes,” Bo said. “My investigations have turned up a wide range of connections between the River and a group I was researching. We have a deep list of their personnel, associates and financial holdings.”

The Chinuri delegates were hushed, waiting with discerning expressions for where the tale was leading them.

“So you’ve been supplying our enemies for how long?” the lead delegate asked.

“According to my findings, the River has been the source of many high end spell components for the cult network,” Bo said. “So it would be more accurate to say that the River has been supplying the Empire’s enemies with the tool to cause things like the mayhem we saw today.”

Yael, Zyla and Bo knew that the encounter with the cosmic beast had been only barely related to the Red Running River, but it was still a useful connection to draw on.

“That’s what cleared us to act against them,” Yael said.

“And what action will you take?” the lead delegate asked. “Sanctions and isolation won’t work on them.”

“We have other tools at our disposal,” Yael said. “In an hour, the fast response ship Horizon Breaker will be docking with us.”

“You’re going to launch an assault on them?” the lead delegate asked. “But what of the ones on Nuriana? You cannot assault our homeworld!”

“I think you mean you’d prefer we not assault your homeworld,” Zyla said.

“Your sovereignty will be respected,” Yael said. “The Empire will send no forces to Nuriana. Fortunately for us, the main contingent of the River’s forces are located on the moon of Bleakwater, which is outside of Nuriana controlled space.”

“There are Chinuri scavengers on Bleakwater,” the lead delegate said. “Leftovers from the abandoned colony there.”

“Yes, and a hidden military base, and, on the other side of the planet, the headquarters for the River,” Yael said. “By this time tomorrow, that headquarters will not exist, and everyone found there will be in custody, awaiting trial.”

“I must get a message back to my government,” the lead delegate said. “They might interpret this as the prelude to an attack on Nuriana.”

“You will be given full access to our communication spells both here and on the Horizon Breaker,” Yael said.

“We can arrange for a privacy shielded conference if you wish to discuss this matter amongst yourselves too,” Zyal said.

“Yes, thank you,” the lead delegate said. “This must be properly reviewed.”

The other Chinuri were fanning their hands in agreement with their leader and none of them lingered on the bridge once given the opportunity to escape.

“You know there are spies from the River among them don’t you?” Bo asked after the last of the Chinuri left the bridge.

“At least two if things are going according to plan,” Yael said.

“Two? Well that’s good,” Bo said. “And would you care to share the details of this plan?”

“We can’t,” Zyla said. “We’re working several steps removed from the cores of the problem. The threads we’re weaving are very delicate as it stands and the more people who can see them the greater the load they’ll have to bear.”

Despite growing up on a planet that was nearly strangled by Aether spells, Bo still wasn’t fond of fate magic. It was fantastically useful, but as in the current situation, she couldn’t help but feel like it was perilously close to leaving everything to chance and then claiming victory for whatever parts worked out close to how you wanted them to be.

She held on to that unease like a shield, and greeted the arrival of the Horizon Breaker with trepidation as a result. If things were going to go wrong, it would be one once the Empire proved it was seriously committed to the endeavor. As the Horizon Breaker docked with the rescue ship, Bo knew there was no turning back. The rogue Chinuri would have to act to preserve their forces somehow.

“Welcome aboard,” Mel said, greeting the new arrivals. “Darius will show you to the observation room and we can get underway for Bleakwater.”

Something was wrong.

The Chinuri boarded the ship, seeming eager to be rid of a problem that had plagued them for decades. Some, including the lead delegate were less eager than the others, but that wasn’t what was setting Bo’s nerves on edge.

“The trip will take two hours,” Mel said as the delegates, Yael, Zyla and Bo were seated in a room with a view out from the forward, starboard side of the Horizon Breaker. “Once our forces move in you’ll be able to follow their progress on holo-screens that will be projected at your seats or a composite one projected against this wall.”

Mel turned to leave and Bo followed her.

“You’re looking well,” Bo said.

“I’m keeping busy,” Mel said.

“No, I mean, you’re not showing as much as I would expect,” Bo said.

From the message she’s received, Bo had thought her sister was over eight months pregnant, but she was only barely starting to show signs of being with child.

Bo looked closer and other oddities came to her attention.

Whoever she was talking to, the woman did not move like her sister did. Mel was a martial artist who had trained for decades. As someone with similar training, and who had fought Mel in all-out struggles on several occasions, Bo had an instinctive sense for how her sister carried her weight. The woman standing before her had more weight than Mel was accustomed to carrying but even that didn’t explain the clumsy footwork and body posture that this “Mel” displayed.

“I’m not that far along yet,” the woman said.

“How many months?” Bo asked.

“Five,” the woman said.

Which would mean that when Mel sent Bo a letter announcing her pregnancy six months ago, she would have been writing it one month before the pregnancy actually began.

Something was wrong with her sister.

Zyla lay on her bed and felt a strange and unfamiliar sensation fluttering in her chest. It was contentment, or as near to it as she could ever remember experiencing.

“You doing ok?” Yael asked, rolling over and stretching out a sleepy yawn.

“Mmm,” Zyla said, trying to hold onto the feeling.

“Couldn’t sleep?” Yael asked.

“Didn’t need to,” Zyla said. “Not after we spent all day relaxing at the pool.”

“That was surveillance work,” Yael said.

“We know the Chinuri delegation is safe until at least a week from now,” Zyla said. “We don’t have to guard them this closely.”

“True, but it was a nice day wasn’t it?” Yael asked.

“I want to say that it was too close to home,” Zyla said. “Being on a interstellar liner and being pampered and catered to every moment of the day? It’s very similar to how the elites were treated when I was a child. I want to say I’m not interested in that anymore, but I don’t know that I’d be telling the truth, which probably makes me a terrible person.”

“I think there’s kind of a critical difference or two there,” Yael said. “As a child you were surrounded by slaves. The crew on this ship are well paid and respected as the professionals they are.”

“I suppose that makes it easier to accept,” Zyla said, “But it still strikes me that we could be doing something a little more productive with our time than sipping expensive cocktails and telling sanitized stories of our exploits to the Chinuri.”

“Well,” Yael said, scooting closer to Zyla. “While we know the danger peak for the Chinuri is still a week away, they feel much safer having us nearby before then, and that’s buying the Empire a lot of good will. But since we don’t need to be around them every minute of the day, we could look for other…productive uses of our time?”

Zyla felt a soft kiss on her earlobe and a warm arm wrap around her waist.

Thanks, perhaps, to unconscious manipulations of fate by one or both of them, it wasn’t until late in the morning when they were enjoying a belated breakfast that the calm which surrounded the two women started to unravel.

“Guardian Clearborn?” one of the wait staff asked. “We have a special courier ship requesting docking privileges to meet with you. Shall we clear them for connection?”

Zyla turned her Aetherial senses towards the courier ship and found that it was blank, hidden from her vision in a manner that was disturbingly familiar.

“Yes, please invite them aboard,” Yael said. “And is there an open conference room we could meet them in?”

Zyla shot Yael and uncertain look but waited until they were alone again to speak.

“This is someone we know isn’t it?” she asked.

“That’s my guess,” Yael said. “But I’m as blind here as you are.”

“A trap?” Zyla asked.

“We’ll have to assume so,” Yael said. “Don’t want to get caught again like we did on Abyz.”

Those had been some of the worst days that Zyla could recall. Being alone, on a hostile planet was bad enough. Losing Yael and believing her bound under the dominion of an all-powerful queen had been even worse though.

Zyla didn’t always carry an anima blade anymore, but she made sure to pick one up before meeting with the newcomer. She was deadly without one, but sometimes the obviousness of a glowing blade held inches away from someone’s face sent a much clearer message than anything else could.

“I hope this isn’t an Imperial representative,” Yael said.

“You’d prefer someone more hostile?” Zyla asked.

“No, but if this is an official visit, then it will be for something critical enough to pull us off guard duty on the Chinuri,” Yael said.

“I see. Our delegation will react poorly if we try to abandon them at this stage,” Zyla said.

“I know,” Yael said. “If something sufficiently serious has come up, their reaction may be the least of our worries.”

“Have you caught any glimpses of something that big on the horizon?” Zyla asked.

“No,” Yael said. “But then I didn’t foresee this either.”

“For a moment there I wasn’t sure,” Zyla said. “Do you think anyone else understands how fragmented our view of the future is?”

“Given how often we’re able to get people to make mistakes or play it overly safe?” Yael asked. “I certainly hope not.”

A tall, dark skinned woman in military livery entered the room a moment after Yael and Zyla stopped talking. Zyla blinked and recognized first the uniform, then the woman wearing it.

“Thank you for taking time away from your current assignment to meet with me,” Agent Bo Riverstone of the Abyz Royal Guard said.

Agent Riverstone reached into the satchel she was carrying and Zyla had to struggle to keep her anima blade sheathed. The gesture of restraint proved to be a wise one as the Ayz Royal Guard produced a pair of folders and handed them over for Yael and Zyla to read.

During their ill fated trip to Abyz, Yael and Zyla had run afoul of Agent Riverstone and been stymied in their attempts to fight against her by the magics the planet possessed. On a space liner in the middle of nowhere, Zyla knew she could fight far more effectively, but she still wasn’t sure if she could win a battle if one were to erupt between her and Bo.

“You come with official Imperial orders,” Yael said, looking over the folder,”But you are still part of the Abyz military structure. How did this confluence occur?”

“We have, I believe, some common enemies,” Bo said. “I was tracking a cult that called themselves “The Over Masters”. You’ll find their files sorted into a section in the back labeled ‘Defunct Organizations’.”

Zyla skimmed to the end of the file and pulled up the pages on the Over Masters. It was only summary information but it still filled a dozen sheets with names and associations in very small print.

“It says that the Over Masters were the descendants of a Warlord who once ruled Abyz?” Yael asked.

“Yes, and now that our fate weave has diminished, they decided to attempt a retaking of their claim,” Bo said.

“It doesn’t look like that went well for them,” Zyla said. “Did any of them manage to escape? Or even survive?”

“We took several of them in alive,” Bo said. “But unfortunately quite a few escaped our net.”

“You said they were common enemies?” Yael asked. “How are they connected to us?”

“If you look at the final page of their entry you’ll see a listing for ‘Affiliated Organizations’,” Bo said. “See if the third name on the list sounds familiar.”

“The Red Running Stream?” Yael said.

“The Over Masters are connected with the assassin group that is targeting the Chinuri delegation?” Zyla asked. “How?”

“They share a resource pool,” Bo said. “We’ve seen identical combat artifacts turning up in the armories for both of the cults, and several others as well.”

“They don’t seem to share any ideological connections though?” Yael said.

“No, they don’t,” Bo said. “Which is why I’m here to see you.”

“We’ve been on defensive duty since we were assigned to this case,” Zyla said. “We haven’t been able to research the Red Running Stream at all, apart from interviewing the Chinuri on them.”

“That’s ok,” Bo said. “I have placed my personal team of agents at the disposal of the Empire while we investigate this threat to Abyz. They’re running down leads on the Red Running Stream and the other cults that we’ve discovered.”

“What do you need us for then?” Yael asked.

“We can track down all of the logical trails,” Bo said. “There is another piece of the puzzle that I need an expert opinion on. It’s a prophecy.”

“That sounds like something we can evaluate for you,” Zyla said.

“It’s about my sister,” Bo said.

“Or perhaps not,” Yael said.

“That’s almost exactly what she said you would say,” Bo said. “If it changes things, the prophecy actually involves her daughter-to-be.”

“Mel’s pregnant?” Yael asked.

“Interesting,” Zyla said. “I didn’t think they would be able to have a child.”

“I gather they didn’t either,” Bo said. “But stranger things have happened.”

“I’m not sure that it will matter much for our ability to help you understand the prophecy,” Yael said. “Mel’s daughter is probably obscured by her mother’s powers as far as we’ll be able to see.”

“What is the prophecy?” Zyla asked. “And why do you think it relates to the connected cult issue that you’ve found?”

“It’s intuition,” Bo said. “Nothing more, and I’m concerned that I’m seeing a connection because the events are important to me rather than because there’s any reason for them to be related.”

“That’s possible,” Yael said. “We usually see things from the very limited perspective of ourselves.”

“But if you felt strongly enough about this to seek us out, then it’s worth not dismissing your intuition too lightly either,” Zyla said.

“Thank you,” Bo said. “It feels like with the connection between the cults there must be some well hidden force at work. Their goals are still opaque to me, but the only reason to go to this sort of effort, on this sort of scale, is if you wish to cause a lot of havoc.”

“And the only thing worth directing that level of havoc at is the Empire,” Zyla said. “Which makes this our direct business if so.”

“Yes, but we can’t abandon the Chinuri yet,” Yael said. “Until we find the skein of whatever plan might exist we have to play for the wins that are available to us.”

“I think we have the time to do that,” Bo said. “The prophecy that Mel and Darius talked about spoke of the time when their daughter, or whoever it applies to, takes control of their own powers.”

“Children can start casting at a very young age,” Zyla said.

“But they don’t normally have full control of their magics until their teenage years,” Yael said.

“Since the girl in quest hasn’t even been born yet, I would guess that there is time for us to get ahead of this problem,” Bo said. “And that’s what I’m here to confirm.”

“It’s certainly something that we can look into,” Yael said. “Give us a moment to get ready and then read the full prophecy aloud to us. If we work together we may be able to track its path forward and see the event that it’s referring to.”

Zyla quieted her mind and opened her senses to the Aether. A moment later she felt Yael take her hand and then felt their vision join into one. Together they were far stronger than either of them was apart, but they needed to be exceedingly careful that they didn’t cast themselves so deep into ocean of time that they wound lost in the dreams of what might be.

As though from a great distance away, Zyla heard Bo begin to recite the lines of the prophecy. They were in a very old tongue but thanks to the Galactic Common translation spell everyone in the Empire used, even the ancient words were rendered meaningful. They spoke of a time perilously close, only a heartbeat away, but that was when the event was viewed on a scale far broader than a human life span. The scale of time had to be that wide open though to encompass the size of the threat that the event carried.

In her mind’s eye, Zyla saw all the lights in the galaxy blown out, one after another, until nothing remained, just a hole in the universal fabric with nothing around it save the nearest neighboring galaxies which were next on the menu.

Deep in the depths of time, Zyla felt her hands start to shake at the enormity of what lay in wait them, but the warm grip of the woman she loved helped her to hold on and make it back to the present.

Where the space liner was shaking as though caught in a maelstrom of incredible turbulence.

That was worrisome.

Space is many things, but filled with turbulent winds is not usually one of them.

Looking out the conference room’s wind, Zyla saw something massive blotting out the stars. It had surfaced into their reality, following she and Yael back for unknowable reasons and was diving down once again into the folds of time to await some unspeakable day when it could rise once more.

Though is was thousands of miles away, the shockwaves of its arrival and departure slammed into the star liner, shattering bulkheads and rending apart the frame. Caught in the creature’s wake, the ship disintegrated, leaving Zyla, Yael and Bo adrift in the empty reaches of interstellar space.

Life is surprising. Good, bad, sometimes just plain weird and inexplicable, in more ways that people can account for, life is capable of throwing curveballs that they don’t see coming. When he was young, that fact bothered Darius tremendously. Without predictability, he didn’t see how anything could make sense or have meaning. As he grew older, he was able to look back on his past self and see that his struggles with randomness stemmed not from a philosophical dilemma but from the very real concerns of a young boy whose whole life had been lived in a warzone.

It wasn’t order that he craved, it was safety. Osgood had illustrated the difference between the two for him at one point with a simple pack of cards. Together they had built a carefully constructed house, each piece in near-perfect balance with the ones around it. It was a monument to control and precision and predictability.

Thanks to their engineering prowess and steady reflexes, it expanded from a tiny hut to completely fill the dining room table they constructed it on.

Then a stiff breeze blew in through the window and all of the cards collapsed into a pile of two dimensional rubble.

Darius was young enough at the time that he made no effort to hold back the tears that came at the loss of his great effort. That was when Osgood introduced him to the concept of glue.

Their next card castle was much less regular. Cards were stuck wherever looked good and then affixed in position with a healthy dollop of fast drying adhesive. The result was as chaotic as only a child’s unrestrained artistic workings can be, but the castle managed to survive all of the gusts the open windows could throw at it.

That simple afternoon shaped more of the teenage Darius’ thoughts than he paid conscious attention too. Unlike many of his fellow students, he pursued a rigorous course of personnel development, honing both his natural Mental aptitudes as well as an unforeseen talent at manipulating Energetic anima. Those gifts were the “glue” he looked to for safety, and the strengths that made life on Hellsreach bearable.

Then he met Mel.

On an unsafe world, Darius had learned to take the “smart chances”. He’d learned to fight when he could win and evade when victory was uncertain. He was good at it, but he knew he needed to be a lot better than “good” in order to truly be safe.

In Mel though, he found something he’d never expected he could cherish. She didn’t take smart chances. She didn’t fight when she could win. Instead she fought when she needed to.

She fought when people were in trouble, or when there was something wrong that only she could put right. And she didn’t stop just because the odds looked long, or the path was fraught with pain and loss.

Darius knew people who tried to act like that, but he’d never seen anyone make it work before her. She somehow invested herself in what she did completely enough to bring her full strength to bear on the problem, but managed to maintain enough distance from it to be self-aware and able to adapt in ways highly driven people often couldn’t.

Though she never claimed to be, or appeared to have any understanding of it, Darius saw that as genius in Mel. He suspected if he ever tried to emulate her, even with his fairly well developed Mind skills, he’d fall short. Her brain had to be a maelstrom of activity, parsing and analyzing everything around her.

Or maybe she just listened to the people she knew when they offered improvements on her mad schemes or warned her she was going too far. That was a talent all unto itself, and one Darius knew he needed to work on quite a bit.

Whatever the cause of her success, Mel made Darius feel safe about discarding the need for safety. Or at least she had for the several years they’d been together. All of the old desires for safety had come flooding back in recent months though after a new life entered the picture.

“Not that we’re not delighted to see you, but why are you here?” Hector asked. Darius and his biological father had a strong, solid relationship, which meant that Hector was able to be blunt and straightforward with his son in place of the tact and circumspection his career as a politician demanded of him.

“We’re on the run,” Darius said.

“Then why didn’t you break in through the secret doors like we taught you?” Osgood asked as he waved Darius and Mel into the foyer.

“My fault there,” Mel said. “This barge doesn’t do well with squeezing through narrow spaces.”

“You’re not a barge,” Darius said, the words issuing as a reflex.

“Indeed,” Hector said. “You are quite lovely, and also quite wise. Dusty crawlspaces are unpleasant in the best of times. Now, should we be alerting Imperial command for reinforcements, or are you on the run from the Empire itself?”

Darius smiled at the question. From Hector and Osgood’s expressions, either alternative was acceptable. If they had to take on the galaxy for their son, he doubted either of his fathers would hesitate a moment before drafting their battle strategies.

“Neither actually,” he said. “We’re on unofficial leave for the next few months.”

“Unofficial leave?” Osgood asked. “Is this what we called ‘deserting’ on Hellsreach?”

“Less ‘deserting’, more ‘we talked with my boss and arranged for some dopplegangers to take our place for a little while so that we wouldn’t be targeted by a crazed deathcult’,” Darius said.

“I feel there’s a story here that needs telling, but the foyer isn’t the ideal spot for such things,” Osgood said. “Can we get you anything.”

“A place to sit and directions to the bathroom would be nice,” Mel said. “But not in that order.”

Minutes later, Darius found himself alone with his father’s who were waiting eagerly for the story he had to tell.

“This all started with a festival,” Darius said. “Or kind of a series of them.”

He related the tale of their original departure from the Horizon Breaker after Fari’s trouble with organizing one of the Crystal Empresses Gala celebrations. He told them of the various planets they’d visited to help her get an understanding of what people were really looking for, including the Frog Festival planet where they’d been transformed into amphibians.

“I could see that visiting festivals wasn’t getting at the real problem we faced though,” Darius said. “So I sent us on a random skipping path off a black hole and got us shot to the far side of the galaxy.”

Hector choked on the tea he was drinking.

“He obviously made it back,” Osgood said, patting Hector on the back to help him clear his lungs.

“We did,” Darius said. “Fari’s too good of a navigator for that to have been a long time problem. And I think it worked out well.”

“How so?” Osgood asked.

“We needed a break,” Darius said. “All three of us. We’d become so mission-focused that we kind of forgot how to connect with anyone outside a tactical planning room.”

“It would seem you managed to make some kind of connection with Guardian Watersward,” Hector said.

Darius blushed lightly. He didn’t mind acknowledging his relationship with her, but he wasn’t about to get into the specifics of his love life with his parents.

“That was…complicated,” he said.

“Children usually are,” Osgood said.

“We talked about it, having kids, but it wasn’t something Mel though was even possible for her,” Darius said.

“Why not?” Hector asked.

“She’s a Void anima caster,” Darius said. “It’s powerful stuff, but it causes her problems too, like needing special healing techniques when she’s injured and not being able to receive certain magical enhancements.”

“And not being able to bear children?” Osgood asked.

“She wasn’t sure,” Darius said.

“It seems like something convinced her to try though correct?” Hector asked.

“Three somethings in fact,” Darius said. “First there was Fari who pointed out the obvious thing neither of us had considered and set us on the path to figuring out whether it was possible.”

“And that was.”

“Mel’s mother was a Void caster too. She was so powerful of a Void caster that she sort of out-lived her own death,” Darius said. “And she had more children than just Mel, so it wasn’t a fluke pregnancy or a miracle.”

“I take it talking to Mel’s mother was the second ‘something’ that helped convince her to try?” Osgood asked.

“Yeah,” Darius said. “It wasn’t easy from the other side of the galaxy but between the maternal bond between them and the crystal bond between Fari’s gem and the Ravager gem that Mel’s mother inhabits they were able to talk for a little while.”

“And that’s how Mel discovered how dangerous a pregnancy could be?” Hector asked.

“For herself and for the baby,” Darius said. “It takes nine months of diligence and special trance sleeping to ensure that Void anima she carries is kept in check.”

“And there’s a danger to you as well, isn’t there?” Osgood asked, guessing from his son’s expression and what he knew of Mel’s courage that there was more to the story.

“Only as much as I chose there to be,” Darius said.

“What could happen to you?” Hector asked.

“Mel’s anima levels aren’t easy to keep balanced,” Darius said. “That’s true for a lot of pregnant human women, but in her case it’s a bit trickier since she can’t always be sure if what’s draining her strength is the baby, who needs it, or her own Void anima, which doesn’t.”

“So when she gets too low, you step in and offer her some of your energy,” Osgood said.

“As much as she’ll let me,” Darius said.

“And the danger is that she might take too much?” Hector asked.

“It’s a theoretical issue,” Darius said. “But no matter how much I tell her otherwise, she’s not actually the burden that she thinks she is. If anything she needs to let me help her more.”

“So what was the third thing?” Osgood asked. “And how does a crazed death cult factor into this scene of domestic bliss?”

“Well, despite the fact that we were on vacation, we decided to visit a planet named Kies that was holding an ‘Eternal Harvest Festival’,” Darius said. “As it turned out though it was less a ‘harvest’ festival and more a ‘fertility’ festival.”

“That sounds promising,” Hector said.

“We’d kind of decided to take things slowly and let Mel practice with the trance-sleeping techniques for a while before we made any serious efforts to expand our little family,” Darius said. “But then we went to the ‘Summer Crop Whispers’ room.”

“I’m going to guess that it wasn’t a market with talking lettuce?” Hector said.

“Not exactly,” Darius said. “It was a cavern on the seashore, and inside it we heard our daughter’s voice for the first time.”

“Your daughter?” Osgood asked.

“Oh, yeah, Mel’s pregnant with a girl,” Darius said.

“And you heard her speaking?” Hector asked.

“Kies has some odd Aetherial flows,” Darius said. “The Summer Crop Whisper’s cavern carries voices from the future in the present. Specifically the voices of children who will one day be part of your life.”

“But that would suggest your daughter could have been adopted no?” Osgood asked.

“She could have been,” Darius said. “Except when we got back to our ship, Fari ran a scan and, surprise, Mel was already pregnant!”

“A mystical pregnancy?” Osgood asked.

“No, no.” Darius said. “She was conceived quite naturally. We just didn’t think that would be something that could happen yet. Not without significant effort on both our parts.”

“It’s often easier than you imagine it to be,” Hector said. “It’s all the things that come afterward that require the significant effort.”

“Like the death cults that come after you,” Osgood said.

“You know, I was honestly hoping that would be an experience unique to us,” Darius said.

“I’m afraid not,” Hector said.

“It’s actually how Hector and I met if you recall,” Osgood said. “So it’s becoming something of a family tradition I guess.”

“That was a death cult?” Darius asked. “I thought you just rescued me from a bombing attack?”

“Yes,” Osgood said. “A bombing attack by a group that thought Hellsreach had to be purged of all life to regain its spiritual purity.”

“They managed to get themselves nice and ‘purified’ in the end, thankfully.” Hector said.

“But tell us about your death cult?” Osgood asked.

“Well, we made the mistake of telling people at the festival our joyous news,” Darius said. “And that’s when we learned about the prophecy.”

“Damn Aether casters,” Hector said.

“This one read; ‘A child of darkness will be born into the light, and when she claims her power the heavens will tear and a time of great destruction will be upon the galaxy’,” Darius said. “Which, apparently, some people on Kries took to be a reference to our daughter.”

“So Mel is bearing ‘The Chosen One’?” Osgood asked.

“Not as such. Apparently the Kries Old Keepers, as the cult is called, make it a point to kill any offspring of a Void caster who comes to their planet order to forestall the prophecy,” Darius said.

“And the Empire hasn’t stopped them yet why exactly?” Hector asked.

“Kries is outside the Empire, and the cult itself is slippery as hell,” Darius said. “We tried to help the Kries government track them down but we only managed to catch a few cells before we had to get back on duty.”

“A duty which is now being performed by doppelgangers you said?” Osgood asked.

“Yeah, that’s Fari’s present to us,” Darius said. “In order to give Mel and our daughter the best chance of making it through this we wanted to find a nice calm environment for her. Part of creating that was having Fari play puppet master to two doppelganger bodies of us on the Horizon Breaker. She’ll have them make appearances and be nice juicy targets for the Keepers while we spend a few months here seeing that our daughter makes it safely into this world.”

“About that nice, calm environment…” Hector began to say.

He was cut off by Mel’s return.

“I seem to have find some tiny saboteurs working on a nefarious scheme,” Mel said. On her shoulders she was carrying Quinn and Alendo. “They have taken me over and forcing me to demand both cake and pudding.”

The two children cheered at the notion and urged Mel forward like she was a giant robot they were driving.

“Uh, who would these be?” Darius asked, looking from one father to another in confusion.

“You were away too long,” Osgood said.

“Meet your new brother and sister son!” Hector said.

Life was just full of surprises.

Life in the Pryas household had never been dull. As the household had been established on a world given to constant warfare that wasn’t terribly unusual but even once they had relocated to the far more peaceful environs of Titanus, Hector and Osgood had kept up a busy and demanding schedule. They were used to laboring for long hours each day and getting to see far less of each other than they preferred.
Meals were sometimes eaten on the run and other times skipped all together in the bustle and roil of days that offered little in terms of downtime. It was the price they paid for building their new and (mostly) peaceful home world though. They’d thought a lifetime of such demanding schedules would prepare them for fostering the dozen children assigned to help with Osgood’s recovery. They were, of course, completely wrong in that belief.

“It wasn’t me!” Alendo said, his voice high and loud enough that distinguishing it from his sister’s was possible only because she cursed more.

“Yes, it was! I saw you break the painting! I saw it!” Quinn said. “I’m not letting anyone else get in trouble when you did it!”

Osgood sighed and shook his head. In the two weeks that the children had been with them, the house had become a warzone to rival the most ferocious conflicts on Hellsreach. The children were talented at their crafted, and any one of the might make a great healer someday, providing that they didn’t kill each other long before then.

From what Osgood could see, the children didn’t even dislike each other. The fights usually erupted over nothing and aside from the destruction of priceless relics from Hellsreach, rarely involved any actual damage being done. The only consistent thing about the battles was that the lines were drawn very clearly with Hector and himself as being “Out of Bounds”.

As long as one of the adults in the house was present the children confined their quarrels to cutting remarks against each other which they seemed to believe the adults were incapable of noticing. As outsiders, Hector and Osgood also enjoyed the privilege of being beyond the scope of the children’s ire.

In part that might have stemmed from the reputation that Osgood was developing as “the Ambassador who took on a whole pirate fleet” (the tale of his involvement in rescuing their ship having grown wildly out of proportion with reality). A lifetime of politics had taught Osgood to recognize the motivations that people kept hidden even from themselves though.

For as much as they sparred with each other, this was a vacation (of sorts), and none of the children wished to endanger that.

“We don’t have to tell anyone,” Alendo said, lowering his voice so as not to be heard. It was a strategy which would have worked better if he hadn’t been screaming a moment earlier, and might have had some small chance at success if Osgood didn’t have a listening spell cast so that he could keep an ear on what the youthful destroyers of his house were up to.

“They’re going to notice the painting is ripped in half,” Quinn said.

“I can fix it! They’ll never know!” Alendo said.

Osgood was tempted to speak up then and defuse the argument before it escalated to physical blows. The painting was a one-of-a-kind from Hellsreach, but that didn’t mean it was any good. Hector had a fondness for cheesy artwork. Osgood did not. The painting outside their room was all Hectors and if it was as damaged as the children claimed, Osgood was considering whether a monetary reward and the suggestion of where they could find other painting’s Hector had hung up would send the wrong sign.

“You can’t fix it, you’re a klutz with mending spells,” Quinn said.

“I am not,” Alendo said. “I only failed the last test because it was stupid.”

“You’re just going to make it worse if you try to put it together again.” Quinn said. “And you don’t have time. We’re only here till tomorrow morning.”

“Then I’ll do it tonight!” Alendo said.

Osgood considered whether jinxing the painting would do any real damage to Alendo’s development. Odds are Quinn was right and the boy would mangle the painting beyond all hope of repair on his own but Osgood felt the need to be certain of that. It really was an awful piece of work.

“Fine,” Quinn said. “But if you don’t make it look perfect, I’m telling Mr. Pryas and the Sisters that it was you, and they can leave you here.”

“Fine,” Alendo said. “Maybe I want to be left here!”

“They’re not going to leave you with the Ambassador you know,” Quinn said. “They’ll send you to gem mines cause you’re a kid and they can stuff you in narrow places.”

“That’s stupid,” Alendo said. “They don’t have gem mines here.”

“Of course they do you idiot,” Quinn said. “Didn’t you read anything the Sisters gave us.”

“Why would I?” Alendo asked.

“So that you wouldn’t be dumb,” Quinn said. “The gem mines are what people come here. It’s the big deal for why everyone is coming to this place. The whole planet is one giant gem that they just keep chipping off pieces of.”

Osgood frowned at that. Titanus was not a gem world, although such things did exist. Either Quinn was making things up to mess with Alendo or there were rumors circulating about Titanus that could lead to nothing but trouble in the long run.

From his time on Hellsreach, Osgood concluded that the most likely scenario was that both options were true. What Quinn could make up, many other people could too. For the vast majority of the galactic citizens the idea of moving to a different world was a dream that they would never actually be interested in seeing made true.

New worlds were dangerous, scary and uncomfortable. Titanus in particular had issues of strife above and beyond the usual difficulties encountered by a new planet. For many people who’d led comfortable lives on planets where real peace  had reigned for decades, the idea of bearing the burdens of settling a new colony had to be motivated by something they could understand. Like greed. That was something humans and most other sapients could understand on a primal level.

That was fine so long as the people believing that were content to stay home. Osgood knew that was unlikely to remain true forever though. Whether by force of arms or financial duplicity, people would turn their eyes towards exploiting “the gem planet Titanus”. As Ambassador he was in the position to head that sort of thing off, but he had to balance his efforts so that he didn’t make Titanus look too unattractive or it wouldn’t be able to attract the sort of tourism and trade that was vital to developing a new colony.

That was a problem for another day however and as such it joined a rather towering mountain of similar problems that were stacked on Osgood’s metaphorical desk. So long as he was recovering in bed however all those issues were out of his reach. Instead, he was forced to turn his attention to more immediate matters.

“Hector?” he asked on their telepathic link. “When you have a moment, I’ve got something that I need to talk with about.”

It was always best to broach difficult topics in person, but that was a luxury that they were rarely afforded.

***

Later that night, after the children had, in theory, gone to bed Osgood wove a simple spell and waited. As he expected though, he didn’t need to wait long.

“The workshop was a good choice,” Osgood’s projected image said.

Alendo stopped dead in his tracks and turned to look at the ghostly blue image that Osgood had conjured. Remote presence spells had a wide variety of uses, a fact Osgood had come to appreciate more during his weeks of enforced rest. In this instance however, the very simplest use of the spell would suffice.

“I’m not feeling sleepy?” Alendo said. As excuses went it was weak, and the rising, questioning tone Alendo finished with sapped away what little strength it might have possessed.

“So I can see,” Osgood said, nodding towards the pieces of the painting that Alendo had in his hands.

“Oh, umm,” Alendo said. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“It looks like you’re trying to repair a priceless artifact of pre-relocation Hellsreach art,” Osgood said, smiling at the wheels that he saw turning in Alendo’s mind.

“Priceless?” Alendo asked.

“Technically, yes,” Osgood said. “I mean, honestly, could you imagine anyone buying that hideous thing?”

Alendo’s flush of rising panic turned to a blinking gaze of confusion.

“Wait, so it’s not important?” Alendo asked.

“Art is always important,” Osgood said. “It’s just that some of it shows what not to do when being creative.”

“I…I don’t understand,” Alendo said.

“Don’t worry, it takes a while to see things like that,” Osgood said. “The question is what are you going to do with that, and why?”

Alendo looked around, glancing quickly over the room as though searching for a hole to bolt into or a path of escape. With no options presenting themselves, he sighed and looked down before speaking.

“I’m going to fix it,” he said.

“Why?” Osgood asked.

“Because I broke it, and it’s not right to leave it like that,” Alendo said.

“You’ve broken a number of things here in the last two weeks,” Osgood said.

“Yes,” Alendo said. “I can pay for them. Someday.”

“Is that what’s important?” Osgood asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” Alendo said.

“Why? Because you’ll be punished if you don’t?” Osgood asked.

“No, I’ll get punished no matter what,” Alendo said. “It’s just not right. I mean I didn’t break everything, but you still don’t have all that stuff and someone should make up for it.”

“And why would that be you?” Osgood asked.

“Cause you caught me?” Alendo said.

“So if I hadn’t noticed you would have left without saying anything,” Osgood asked.

“No,” Alendo said. “I don’t know. Maybe? It still wouldn’t be right, but sometimes I do the wrong things. Like breaking paintings. And yelling at people.”

“Would you like to change that?” Osgood asked.

“Yeah, but it’s hard,” Alendo said.

“I know of something that makes it easier,” Osgood said.

“What’s that?” Alendo asked.

“A family.” Osgood said.

“I’ve got a sister and she just makes everything worse,” Alendo said.

“So you wouldn’t mind if she stayed behind here while you left?” Osgood asked.

“What? No! You’re not going to send her to the gem mines are you?” Alendo asked.

“That’s an interesting thought,” Osgood said. “And one I’ve spent a bit of time pondering today.”

“No! You can’t do that!” Alendo said. “She’s not good with tight spaces. She gets really freaked out. Send me there instead. I was the one who broke most of the things.”

“I was thinking we might send you both there,” Osgood said. “I’m afraid there’s not much mining being done these days but the Life Crystals do offer some lovely tours if you get to know them and the trust you.”

“Uh, what?” Alendo asked.

“Yes, we could make it a day trip,” Osgood said. “I’m supposed to be getting up and about again soon and I’ll need to find things to do with my time while I wait to be cleared by my doctors. A short visit with the Life Crystals seems like exactly the thing in this case.”

“But we’re leaving tomorrow?” Alendo said.

“Only if you wish to,” Osgood said.

“What do you mean? We can stay?” Alendo asked.

“The short answer is, yes,” Osgood said. “The long answer involves forms and interviews and evaluations, but I can assure you that if you decide you want to stay with us the answer to all of those will be yes as well.”

“Are you…are you going to adopt us?” Alendo asked.

“That’s up to you,” Osgood said. “I’ve talked it over with Hector and we’re both willing to start the process, but ultimately it will be your choice pending final approval by the adoption review specialist.”

“Oh…that’s…” Alendo said and then fainted mid-sentence.

“Apparently better news that you were hoping for?” Osgood finished for him.

***

Morning found the Pryas’ + 2, seeing the other children back into the care of the Sister’s of Water’s Mercy. Several more would be staying on Titanus as well, having found potential adoptive families during their stay. The rest were set to resume their training as healers under the tutelage of the Sisters and while there were tears at the departure, the promises to stay in touch were heartfelt and followed up on in more than one instance.

Hector wandered over to massage his husband’s shoulders once the mob was gone and Alendo and Quinn were upstairs, taking in their new rooms.

“The house is going to feel a lot more full with those two here,” Osgood said.

“Too full?” Hector asked.

“No, just about right I think,” Osgood said.

“I’m just glad our lives will be able to get back to some semblance of order again,” Hector said just in time for their bell to ring.

With a puzzled expression, Osgood turned to look up at his husband.

“Are we expecting anyone else?” he asked.

“No,” Hector said, frowning in confusion.

“Well, it’s not assassins,” Osgood said. “They never ring the bell.”

“Just in case, how about I get the door?” Hector said.

“Just in case, how about we both answer it together,” Osgood said.

Together they marched to the entrance to the house and, with defensive spells at the ready, threw open the door to reveal…their son.

And the woman he loved.

Who was very clearly pregnant.

“Hi Dads,” Darius said. “I know this is kind of unexpected, but well, surprise you’re going to be grandfathers. And we need a place to hide. But just for a few months.”

The Ambassador’s ship tumbled into the endless dark, fires blossoming within to consume what little breathable air the small fighter could produce and Osgood could only think of one thing to remark on.

“This would be an embarrassing sort of end to come to.”

The fire suppression spells had been dispelled when the ship suffered catastrophic damage at the hands of the Purist’s secondary defense batteries. To the credit of the Imperial spellwrights who crafted the fighter, personal scale craft like the one Osgood was trapped in were rarely capable of standing up to a single barrage from a capital ship much less the half dozen that Osgood’s had weathered. That he wasn’t a fine smear of space dust was a testament to the durability the Empire had always required in its fighting craft.

The advantage to that sort of design philosophy was that while the ship had been reduced to a mismatched collection of metal and wood scraps with less than ten percent of its original spell framework remaining, the pilot within was still capable of action, and in Osgood’s case that meant he wasn’t out of tricks to play yet.

“If my luck was good, I’d still have the primary engine crystals that I could draw on for another spell,” he said into the flight recorder in case someone was curious what an Imperial Ambassador tried to do when he was otherwise adrift in space. There wasn’t anything in the official Ambassadorial playbook for that situation, so Osgood took a few pages from his old “Hellsreach Critical Situations Manual”.

Keep fighting.

That’s what the Hellsreach Critical Situations Manual said. It was pretty much the beginning and end of the manual, and Osgood had never had cause to disagree with it’s wisdom.

“Primary engine crystals jettisoned,” the analysis imp said.

Osgood cursed. Rigging engine crystals to explode on contact with the enemy was an old Hellsreach trick. It had a long and venerable heritage and was, in part, why no one in their right mind stole vehicles on Titanus. The colonists didn’t have a good reason to leave their vehicles as fully primed death traps, but some old habits die hard. Especially ones that produce such wonderfully colorful light displays.

“Secondary crystals?” he asked the imp.

The secondary engines on a fighter couldn’t produce anywhere near as much of a bang as the primaries but they would at least let him control the flight of the craft to a degree.

“Secondary crystals ejected and detonated,” the imp reported. “Fifty percent damage to enemy dreadnaught forward capture array detected.”

So, on the good side, the Purists weren’t going to be able to haul Osgood in. On the bad side, he had few options for getting anywhere useful himself. Normally that wouldn’t have been the case. Real fighter pilots were chosen for their capacity at Physical anima manipulation to ensure that even if the ship lost all of its engine power, the caster onboard would be able to get it home, slowly, with their own magics.

Unlike a real pilot, Osgood had many skills, but a talent for Physical anima casting was not one of them.

“Wonderful,” he said. “We get to do this the hard way then.”

For a Mental anima caster, replicating the effect of physical spells involved playing within the rules of physics and finding a method to outsmart them. This often involves explosions when great amount of force were required. In Osgood’s case though such pyrotechnics were not an option. His own ship was rapidly dwindling to possess as much power as a dim matchstick and the only other ships which had the energy to arrest his flight into the void were all busy trying to blast each other into microscopic particles.

All of them except the colony ship.

“This is Imperial Ambassador Pryas to Colony Ship,” he called out on a wide focus telepathic spell. “I will be within range of your aft capture beam within one minute and thirty seconds. Bring me on board.”

“Ambassador?” a panicked young man replied back. “What are you doing out here?”

“Getting that dreadnaught off you, I hope,” Osgood said.

“You did,” the young man said. “They’re fighting the ships that came from the station and the blocking field around us has dropped.”

“Yes, the Void caster who was channel it is have a nice enchanted nap,” Osgood said. “One minute to capture beam contact.”

“I don’t think we’re going to be able to catch you Ambassador,” the young man said. “I read you as passing just outside out our projection cone.”

“No worries there,” Osgood said. “My ship and I will be separating in fifteen seconds. Just look for me, I’ll be within the beam’s capture radius.”

Exhaling heavily, Osgood activated the environmental shield on his suit, used what little Physical anima prowess his had and the remnants of the ship’s maneuvering jets to position himself properly and then pulled the ejection seat cord.

Ejection seats in a space craft are, generally speaking, not a standard option. At best they can’t impart much velocity to the pilot and de-orbiting in just an ejection seat is something only a very few spellcasters are capable of safely. Osgood had selected one of the fighters that contained an ejection seat though because sometimes you don’t need a lot of power, sometimes you need just a little bit exercised at exactly the right time and in the right manner.

The blast from the ejection seat was significantly weaker than it should have been due to the damaged state of the craft but even so it was enough to send Osgood hurtling into space and towards the colony ship, while the remains of his fighter drifted ever farther away.

Sitting in a depowered chair, with only the analysis imp to keep him company, Osgood stared at the sheer magnitude of the cosmos that surrounded him. Billions of points of light. So much life in so many different varieties and yet the close life forms to him, the Purist dreadnaught, were obsessed with murdering everything that wasn’t life them. Or that sympathized with those not like them.

If he’d possessed the power, Osgood would have crushed their ship like tinfoil and reduced them all to space jelly, and for that he was very glad to be as powerless as he was. It was a flaw in his species, and the Garjarack too, that destruction was wired into their psychology on a primal level.

Destroying things felt good. Destroying things that posed a danger felt better, and it was far too easy to convince oneself that people who were different were a danger.

Far away, little more than a pale dot, though, Osgood saw the light shining off of Titanus. In just a few years it had become his home in a way that Hellsreach never had been. It wasn’t a perfect place by any stretch of the imagination. The Purists they were fighting called it home as well for one thing, and they weren’t the only source of conflict on the planet that played host to three major racial groups and dozens of smaller ones.

Osgood remembered Hellsreach though. For everything that was wrong with Titanus, Hellsreach had been worse. Especially in the early days of the war there that predated his birth by over a century. Titanus wasn’t perfect but it was proof that people could change for the better, which, if anything, placed a heavier burden on them to make sure events like the one unfolding before Osgood never occurred. On Hellsreach this sort of attack was expected, accepted and even (occasionally) applauded. People had the excuse of “being at war” and “not knowing any better”. None of that could be the case on Titanus. There was no reason to expect this kind of violence, no reason to accept it and no excuse for people not knowing how to be better.

That was Osgood’s last thought before the capture beam grabbed ahold of him. If he’d been able to feel the force of the beam, he wouldn’t have been surprised that it was like getting pummeled with a sledgehammer over every square inch of his body. It was meant to capture other ships for docking after all, not tiny things like a single human body. As it was though he was unconscious well before the first blow had any chance to register in his awareness.

A wish for better days was Osgood’s last thought before the capture beam bludgeoned him unconscious and, in a rare case of a wish being granted, his first thought on awakening was how nice it was to see his husband’s smiling face waiting for him. Even if Hector was wrapped up in healing bandages not unlike a mummy.

“This doesn’t count as breakfast in bed,” Osgood said.

“It would if it was breakfast time,” Hector said.

“How long have I been out?” Osgood asked.

“Almost two days,” Hector said. “You looked about as bad as I feel, but they managed to put most of the important bits back where they belong.”

“I should hope so,” Osgood said. “I’m rather attached to my bits.”

“And fortunately for me, they’re still attached to you!” Hector said with a devilish smile.

Osgood tried to smirk in response but even that simple motion hurt. He’d calculated everything about getting into the capture beam correctly, but it occurred to him that he hadn’t run a full set of data on just how good or bad an idea that would be. Given that the alternative was burning up, and then freezing to a popsicle in the far reaches of the solar system though, he guessed that whatever the numbers said he would have been stuck making the same choice.

“It looks like you could use some more pain killers,” a young man, the same one from the colony ship if Osgood was hearing his voice correctly, said.

Looking around Osgood noticed that he wasn’t alone with Hector. There was a small army of children assembled in the recovery room.

“Yes, that would be nice,” he said and then glance at his husband to setup a telepathic link. “And who would all of these little people be?”

“These are the colonists,” Hector said, telepathically, “Some of them at any rate.”

“Why are they all children?” Osgood asked.

“It was the wrong colony ship,” Hector said.

“It was the what?” Osgood asked.

“The wrong ship,” Hector said. “Not, technically, a colony ship at all I suppose, but still big enough to count as one I guess. A small one.”

“Yes, ok, but…children?” Osgood asked.

“The Mist Runner, your ‘colony ship’, was registered to the Sister’s of Water’s Mercy,” Hector said. “It’s an orphanage ship.”

“The Purist’s attacked an orphage? Are you kidding me?” Osgood asked.

“I wish I was,” Hector said. “And so do they. News reports up to a hundred systems out are having a field day with this.”

“Oh…oh no,” Osgood said, envisioning what that meant in one horrible moment of clarity.

“Yes, ‘Hero Ambassador Saves Ship Full of Orphans!’, and since you were acting in an official capacity, they’ve been plastering your name all over every broadcast they can,” Hector said.

“Oh gods, that’s ridiculous though,” Osgood said. “I fired one shot! My squadron did all the real work. Wait, my squadron, how did the battle turn out?”

“Fourteen fighter craft were lost, nine of those pilots are in critical condition still, the rest were healed and returned to duty yesterday,” Hector said.

“And the Purists?” Osgood asked.

“They breeched their warp crystals rather than be taken in,” Hector said. “That explosion is what took out six of your squadron.”

“Did any of them hit the escape pods before that?” Osgood asked.

Hector grimaced and shook his head.

“Damn,” Osgood said. “Still not quite at that better tomorrow then.”

“Maybe not,” Hector said. “But recruitment in Purist movements on both sides are down. We’ve even had some people stepping forward to turn in cells that were planning attacks in the next few weeks.”

“Hopefully that’ll last,” Osgood said.

“It won’t, not all of it, not right away,” Hector said. “But it’s a step in the right direction.”

“And a great big target on my back,” Osgood said.

“You’ve got quite the collection back there,” Hector said. “I’m trying to remember if I ever took my own bullseye off you?”

“You’ve had plenty of opportunities to catch me if you wanted to to,” Osgood said.

“What makes you think I don’t have you right where I want you?” Hector asked and bent over to give his husband a quick kiss.

The children tittered at the display of affection and went back to their original activity which was, apparently, softly humming.

“So, I get that we saved them, but why are they here, in my room?” Osgood asked.

“They’re helping you heal,” Hector said. “The Sister’s train the children that they take in. These are in the early stages of learning to be Clerics. They can’t do much spell casting yet, but they can channel their physical anima, so they’re surrounding you with a dense field of it so that your body has plenty to draw from as it repairs itself. Or at least that’s what the Sister who stopped in earlier explained.”

“That’s very nice of them,” Osgood said. “But what’s going to happen to them next?”

“The Mist Runner is being repaired but it’s going to take a month to get it space worthy again, so they’re going to need a place to stay in the interim,”  Hector said.

“Has a spot been selected yet?” Osgood asked, a dim premonition worming into his mind.

“Well, now that you mention it…” Hector began, and smiled broadly at Osgood.

Between his exposure to the vacuum of space, the damage from the capture beam and the madness of the battle it took Osgood a moment to catch on to what Hector was saying. As he did his eyes widened in shock.

“You’re not really thinking…” he began.

“It’s just for a month,” Hector said. “And you could use the day-to-day care.”

“Gods help me,” Osgood. “An entire house full of kids.Only madness can await us!”

Osgood’s calling was not to be a fighter pilot. His skills lay in planning, and communication, and coordination. Hurtling through the the silent, all-encompassing dark of space though, it was the long forgotten combat flying lessons that he was betting on for not only his life but the lives of every pilot flying with him.

“I’m going to regret every space combat class I ever skipped,” Osgood said aloud, trusting to the vacuum that engulfed his small craft to keep that sentiment private.

“I’ve got links to the guilds forming,” Hector said, his telepathic voice flat and expressionless which only served to warn Osgood of how worried his husband was.

“And the Life Crystals?” Osgood asked, keeping his mental voice similarly neutral. They’d been in desperate situations before but for the last twenty years they’d met them together.

“We need time,” Hector said. “And strong links to send their power through.”

Strong sympathetic links were the key to working magic at interstellar distances. Spells with that sort of range needed connections that were so tightly bound together that the two parts still felt like a single whole even if they were separated by light years.

There were various rituals that could craft objects like that. It was how the Empire had created the warp space ley lines that serviced Titanus and allowed easy transit to other parts of the galaxy. Unfortunately, Osgood had neither the time nor the spellcraft to manufacture a suitable link between the Titanus space fighters and the planetary pool of anima that Hector was putting together for the fighter pilots to draw on.

With meant he was going to have to do things the hard way.

“We’ll buy you as much as we can,” Osgood said. “A lot’s going to depend on how tough that colony ship is though.”

“We’ve got an advanced processing crew on the telemetry that’s coming back,” Hector said. “The colony ship is putting up a fight, but the attack ship is tearing them apart. It’s like the colony ship’s shields aren’t even there.”

“They probably aren’t,” Osgood said. “They’ve got Void casters on the attack ship. I’ll bet you breakfast in bed tomorrow that they’re stripping every bit of anima shielding the colony ship has.”

“How is it still flying then?” Hector asked. “Without any shields, the ship would be like an eggshell before the attacker’s kinetic guns.”

“Colony ships are huge. The inner hulls and framework must be reinforced too,” Osgood said. “That’s not going to do them any good if the attackers can tear a path through to the warp crystals though.”

“With the energy blasts we’re seeing that won’t take long,” Hector said. “How long until your squadron can engage them?”

“We’ll be in weapons lock range in just under a minute,” Osgood said. “How long until the Spell Power Pool comes online?”

“Fifty minutes,” Hector said.

“It’d be really nice if you could make that fifty seconds,” Osgood said. “I don’t think we can hold off that kind of firepower for an hour. Not with the fliers we have and the last generation ships we’ve got here.”

“I’ll make it happen faster,” Hector said.

“Then I’ll get us to the colony ship faster,” Osgood said.

He changed mental channels to the attack squadron’s and sent a notification bell tone for the other pilots to pay attention.

“Accelerate to full attack speed and unlock all weapon systems,” Osgood said.

“What attack formation are we using?” one of the veteran flyers asked.

“Chaos pattern,” Osgood said. “Fly erratically.”

“We won’t be able to cross link our shield sir,” the veteran said.

“Correct,” Osgood said. “Disable shields entirely. All available anima to weapon systems.”

“We’re going to be awfully fragile out there sir,” the veteran said.

“The enemy ship is using artillery-class Void casters. Our shields aren’t going to mean a thing to them,” Osgood said. “We need to get in there and get them off that colony ship.”

The attackers were still outside of Osgood’s visual range when his sensors chirped that they’d achieved a targeting lock.

“Guided kinetic missiles only,” Osgood instructed his fellow pilots. “We can’t risk hitting the colony ship and the Purist Void casters will just absorb any energy blasts we try to hit them with. Fire when ready!”

At his command, millions of tiny projectiles were spat from the guns on the fighter craft, their material forms conjured into being by the anima furnaces that drove the small vessels. Each projectile had its own guidance and propulsion system as well as a warhead primed with conjured explosives. Osgood couldn’t see the attackers, but he was able to make out the bright orange-red fireball of an explosion as the tiny missiles impacted the attacking dreadnaught’s shields.

“Minimal damage detected,” the tiny analysis imp on the control board reported.

“They’ve noticed you,” Hector said. “They’re increasing firepower against the colony ship.”

Osgood swore.

“Maintain speed and full fire volume,” Osgood said to the other pilots.

Full attack speed left the fighter’s able to maneuver and line up accurate shots. With no time left for subtlety, Osgood pushed his ship up to its full transit speed and flashed forward from the rest of the fighter group, foregoing accuracy and maneuverability for raw speed.

“What are you doing?” Hector asked, his voice still rigidly neutral.

“We need to get their attention, and I need to be really close to bring my personal spells to bear.” Osgood said.

“What personal spells?” Hector asked.

“Don’t tell Darius about this,” Osgood said. “I really don’t want him ever trying anything this stupid.”

“You’re going to try to disable their Void caster,” Hector said.

“Just a sleep spell,” Osgood said. “Light and easy to manage at range, but it’ll scare the hell out of them.”

“You’re going to be too close in there,” Hector said. “You need to put some power towards shields or they’ll blast you to pieces.”

As if to demonstrate the truth of Hector’s words, the Purist dreadnaught began targeting Osgood’s incoming fighter with its secondary weapons batteries.

Space is silent and vast and empty. Or at least it’s supposed to be. The dark night around Osgood lit up like a bonfire the moment the dreadnaught’s energy cannons fired. Searing blasts of plasma exploded in overlapping patterns that Osgood wasn’t entirely able to avoid. The explosions rocked his ship like the fury of a tempest and he felt a weird claustrophobia coming on when he saw how small the gaps in the projected explosions were on his targeting screen. Despite that he threw more power into the engines and plunged forward.

“I can’t risk any shields,” he said. “If a Void caster gets a link to my power I’ll never get the sleep spell off.”

“Yes, well, I can’t risk losing you,” Hector said.

On the control board, Osgood saw his shield meter start to climb.

“What are you doing?” Osgood asked, panic slipping into his voice.

“The Terraformer’s guild is fully online,” Hector said. “I’m sending you the power they’re volunteering.”

“We need more than one link for that!” Osgood said. “You’ll burn yourself up.”

“Let me worry about that,” Hector said. “Just start casting the Sleep spell.”

Osgood swore again, but did as Hector said.

Flying a ship while simultaneously casting any sort of spell was challenging. Space fighters, like most combat craft, were linked to their pilots to provide sharper responsiveness. Damage to the craft registered as pain to the crew, but only at very low levels. It would be idiotic to design a ship that crippled its pilot when the fight was turning against them after all. Even that low level of discomfort though could be enough to throw an inexperienced caster’s concentration off, especially when combined with the fearful insanity of live battle.

Osgood had an advantage there however. He had experience. Not battlefield experience, but casting in the midst of a violent political debate had given him some preparation for centering his mind when everyone else was dead set on disrupting his thoughts.

He called on that experience as he wove together the essence of his mind into a weapon. In his mind’s eye, he crafted a spear of shimmering purple light. It wasn’t a normal sleep spell. It couldn’t be or else the Void casters would simply absorb it. To avoid that, he submerged the spear’s form into the cosmic aether that surrounded them. Unless the Void casters were also excellent at manipulating mental anima, they would never see the attack coming. All he had to do was survive and get close enough to actually cast it on them.

A blast hit Osgood’s fighter square on the nose and shattered the shield that Hector had put up.

“Shield source terminated,” the analysis imp said and Osgood’s heart froze.

“We’re…we’re still here, most of us,” Hector said, his voice sounding hollow and stretched out. “Resuming transmission now.”

Shields reformed around Osgood’s shift and he went back to weaving the sleep spell while trying to dodge as much of the incoming fire as he could.

In the space of ten seconds, the incoming barrage stripped the shields away three times and each time Hector reformed them and each time he sounded weaker afterwards.

Ten seconds was all Osgood needed through. With a final burst of speed from the overworked engines, he closed the distance to the dreadnaught and felt the minds within it at last. As he’d hoped they were working with a set of telepathic links similar to the ones he shared with his squadron and Hector. The links were protected and he didn’t have the godlike spellcrafting talent needed to hack into them at range and in the time available but, fortunately, he didn’t need to hear what they were saying. All he needed was to do was match the threads of the links to the minds he could detect and looks for the threads that let to nothing.

One of the problems with being invisible is that the environment will still show signs that something or someone is present. In this case, the Void casters stood out sharply due to the fact that Osgood couldn’t see them via Mental anima sensing.

“We’ve got three Void casters on the enemy ship,” Osgood told the group. “Neutralizing one of them temporarily now.”

With that he loosed the sleep spear and felt it stretch out from his hand to spiral into the ship.

To the attacker’s credit they did have mental shielding in place on the dreadnaught, but with the infrequency of that sort of attack they’d only bought the basic variety that represented the strongest return on investment in terms of protection rating vs. gold expended. Since this was the most typical choice for a combat vessel to make, it was also the most typical thing Osgood had fought against in his years on Hellsreach, so he knew exactly how to bypass that sort of defense.

His sleep spear phased right past the shielding, right through the hull and even right underneath the Void anima shields their casters had in place.

“Be bound in eternal slumber!” Osgood said, his voice carrying to the enemy Void caster and quenching their consciousness like a heavy rain dousing a candle.

Osgood put all his will and all of his power behind the spell. It was easily the most powerful spell of any variety that he’d ever cast, but even so he knew it wouldn’t really induce an endless sleep. The Void caster would need to be disenchanted to wake, but that was going to readily available no matter which side won the battle.

Exhausted from the victorious spell casting, Osgood’s focus on dodging with his ship faltered for a second. Once again his shields shattered only, this time, they didn’t reform.

“Hector?” he called out on their telepathic link.

No answer greeted him, the world was silence and emptiness.

Then fire filled the darkness and Osgood felt his ship buckle and start to sheer apart.

“Ambassador Command to all Imperial ships,” Osgood said as power failed on one component after another on the control board. “We’ve got their attention now. Keep bloodying their noses, whatever it takes. And reach back to Titanus to your loved ones. All Imperial channels are open for your use.”

“What’s the plan sir?” the veteran flyer asked.

“They have us outgunned and outclassed,” Osgood said as sparks turned into open flames in the cockpit. “But there’s a lot more of us than there are of them. Let’s show them what it means when we stand together and how much power we can really bring to bear. Give them hell folks. Osgood out.”

Osgood Pyras, former member of the Hellsreach Common Council and current Imperial ambassador to the colony world of Titanus woke with the gentle laziness that greets one in the early hours of the day. Beside him, his husband Hector lay blissfully unconscious.

Blissful for Hector that is. The moment Osgood dispelled the deafening spell he’d cast on himself, the roar of Hector’s titanic snores filled Osgood’s ears with the familiar melody with which he’d greeted the day for nearly twenty years.

It wasn’t a bad trade-off, Osgood decided. Against twenty years of snoring and sheet stealing and sheer pig-headed stubbornness stood twenty years of kindness, support and shared commitment. Together they’d overseen years of warfare and kept their people safe and whole. They’d brought a new world to life and said goodbye to an old one. And they’d raised a son.

Darius was only biologically related to Hector, but in so many more ways he took after Osgood. The two of them, Osgood and Darius, had been constant companions in Darius’ youth and so it was wound up being even harder on Osgood than Hector that Darius had flown off to the stars to chase dangerous dreams and amazing women.

As he slipped out of bed, trying to suspend his thin frame over the creaky floorboards as much as possible, Osgood thought of his absent son and sighed. It had been too long since Darius’ last letter, which suggested the boy was neck-deep in a world of trouble. Again.

Stepping into the shower, Osgood longed for the days when he could set boundaries on his son’s world. The fencing had never been enough to keep the child safe. No children were ever safe in the warzone that Hellsreach had been, but at least while Darius was nearby, Osgood had been able to perceive the dangers that threatened his child and act against them. With Darius off in whatever dark corner of space he’d disappeared to, he was beyond the reach of anything except Osgood’s prayers, and no matter how many of those Osgood sent, he never felt like it was enough.

Despite his ghost-like attempt at leaving the bedroom without disturbing Hector, Osgood wasn’t surprised when his husband joined him in the shower a few minutes later.

“I had the weirdest dream,” Hector said as he stepped into the tiled area and pulled the glass door closed behind him.

“I warned you about the Calfrey Eel last night,” Osgood said. “If it’s not cooked right, the hallucinogens don’t break down fully.”

“The Eel was cooked wonderfully,” Hector said. “And it wasn’t that kind of weird. It was weirdly vivid and solid, not trippy. Almost like a premonition.”

Despite the warm water pouring over his shoulders and down his back, Osgood felt a chill run through his spine. Both he and Hector were talented with Mental anima. They didn’t have the precognitive abilities that Aetherial casters sometimes did but their subconsciouses could be inhumanely talented at putting together pictures of the future from small clues that their conscious minds missed. A Mental caster’s vivid dreams weren’t guaranteed to become tangible realities but it was dangerous to ignore them.

Osgood had woken thinking about Darius, which mean his own subconscious had worked something out too and any premonitions in direction of their missing son weren’t likely to be good ones Osgood feared.

“What did you see in the dream?” Osgood asked.

“Darius,” Hector said and Osgood’s stomach plummeted down to his feet. “But dozens of him. We’d turned our house into a daycare center and there were more of him running around than we could possibly keep track of.”

That was not the kind of premonition that Osgood had expected to hear. And not the kind that he would have expected Hector to take seriously. Usually premonitions were for dire, life changing sorts of events. Not silly fantasies.

“I don’t believe the local zoning would allow us to run a daycare center out of this house,” Osgood said. “Or will that be the next thing the Terraformers Guild formally requests be added to the Titanus by-laws?”

At one time, the two of them had been members of opposing factions in the Hellsreach Common Council and Osgood had never entirely given up his love of needling Hector over political issues, especially ones that weren’t actually important to either of them.

“I suppose that would depend on the Crystal Empire’s official stance on the matter,” Hector said. A laugh accompanied the words, but Osgood wondered for a moment if his husband was actually joking.

“Local zoning is an area which the Empire does not chose to form an opinion on,” Osgood said, playing along with the surface mood of humor. “Although it will be happy to provide knowledgeable advisors as requested.

That was the official Imperial policy on virtually everything in regards to planetary affairs which made Osgood’s job as Ambassador a particularly easy one. On most days.

“We’ll see what today brings I guess,” Hector said. “Wouldn’t want to bother the advisors if it was just bad Calfrey Eel I suppose.”

The rest of the shower and the breakfast afterward passed with the usual pre-day chatter. There was a void of silence in the house that each filled in as best they could. It wasn’t the painful emptiness of true loss but rather an awareness that a harmony of two voices would never be the same as the blending of three.

“Are you headed up to the station today?” Hector asked as he finished the poached eggs Osgood had prepared.

“Unfortunately,” Osgood said.

“I thought you were supposed to be planet-side all week?” Hector asked. “Did something come up?”

“Distress beacon, very faint though, and but close enough to the line that anyone who warps into the system could possibly pick it up.” Osgood said.

The line in question was one of the celestial ley lines that connected Titanus to the rest of the galaxy. Most ley lines were naturally occurring paths of anima that stretched between the stars. Titanus had one of those but the other dozen or so which led to it were all of Crystal Empire origin, constructed by spell casters gifted in working magic across unfathomable distances.

“Pirates?” Hector asked.

“Not likely,” Osgood said. “The Empire kicked the Dispraxia League out of here pretty hard. Last I heard they were still hunting down the stragglers. No, this is probably homegrown.”

“Purists,” Hector said, fatigue washing over his face. After a lifetime of warfare over inter-species hatred, Hector was done with people who wished to cling to the “old times”. The world was new and changing. Its people needed to be as well.

“Probably,” Osgood said. “Just because we came halfway across known space to get away from Hellsreach doesn’t mean people actually wanted to stop fighting. Not when we have such a clean and wonderful planet here that we can ruin.”

“They’re not that bad,” Hector said. “Most of them.”

“The humans or the Garjarack?” Osgood asked.

“Both.” Hector said. “Most of them want to make a new start of things. We’ve seen that time and again.”

“I know,” Osgood said. “But we’ve also seen that simply transplanting people from one ball of dirt to another doesn’t make all their old wounds go away.”

“I thought our intelligence said that the Purist movements were dying out?” Hector asked. “How can they have enough influence left for something like this?”

“There are always people who can profit off unreasoning hatred, and the fewer of the Purists there are the more virulent they’ll become,” Osgood said.

“So what is the Crystal Empire going to do about this particular pocket?” Hector asked.

“I don’t know yet,” Osgood said. “It’s going to depend on what sort of support I can requisition.”

“Here’s to hoping you get a giant gift box from the Empire then,” Hector said.

Osgood spent the flight up to the orbital station considering exactly what he’d want to find in a giant gift box. His early military training wanted to see a “sun killer” scale fleet show up to make it clear in no uncertain terms that Titanus’ space lanes were not to be interfered with. The Council member he’d once been was quick to point out the numerous ways that kind of show of force could go horribly awry though. Not the least of which being the likely upsurge in recruitment for the various “Purist” groups on both sides of the species divide on Titanus as the fear of the “Empire taking away all our rights” became easier to envision.

By the time he arrived at the station, he had his actual requests in mind. A small set of fast response ships, capable of tracking down the erratic signal and locating its source before the Purists behind it found a target to their liking. He had the requisition drafted and gave instructions for his staff to meet him first thing for a review but by the time he arrived at the station it was already too late.

“What happened? Why are the fighters scrambling?” Osgood asked as the Imperial stations docking bay surged in chaos around him.

“We picked up the distress beacon five minutes ago sir,” one of the station’s seers said.

“Are there any other ships in the area?” Osgood asked, already knowing what the answer had to be.

“Yes sir, a colony ship from Kezzela,” the seer said.

“Have we instructed them not to respond to the distress beacon?” Osgood asked.

“We can reach them Ambassador,” another caster said. “There’s a blocking field around the ship.”

“It activated at the same time as the beacon didn’t it?” Osgood asked.

“Yes sir,” the communications caster said.

“How many pilots do we have on duty?” Osgood asked.

“This was a light shift sir, the colony ship wasn’t due to arrive until tomorrow, so we adjusted our staffing to account for that,” the communications caster said. Which meant someone had set this up.

“Do we have any readings on what’s happening to the colony ship now?” Osgood asked.

“We’re seeing unusually high Energetic anima readings and telemetry is showing its approach speed has increased,” the caster said.

“They’re under attack and trying to make a run for it,” Osgood said. “Can we see what’s attacking it yet?”

“No sir, all we’re seeing is shadows out there.”

“Shadows?” Osgood asked and then figured out what that really meant. “Oh no no no.”

He started running towards the fighter bays and the seer and the comm caster ran with him.

“What is it sir?” the comm caster asked.

“They have Void casters shielding their ships,” Osgood said. “That colony ship is never going to make it here and our fighters are going to get slaughtered.”

“Should I call them back?” the comm caster asked.

“No, but tell them to proceed at three quarters speed and get me every Mental anima caster on the station,” Osgood said. “If they’re not rated for flying then pair them up with someone who is. Or someone who thinks they can fake it. I don’t care. Just get me all of them in space in the next two minutes.”

“I’m flight certified sir,” the seer said. “And I’m a 6th rank Mental caster.”

“Same here sir,” the comm caster said.

“Good, pick out your favorite fighters then. We’ve got a colony ship to save.”

Osgood hadn’t flown a combat mission in over twenty years and even then he’d been nothing more than boy press-ganged into service by an extreme circumstance. As far as he could see that was the only thing that was ever going to get him behind the controls of a fighter craft. As his tiny ship lurched out into the void, he had to wonder if seeking out a job less prone to putting him in extreme circumstance might not be a wise idea.

“The time for wisdom is past,” he said before turning his comm link on, “but perhaps there’s still room for cunning.”

Placing his palm on the the communication panel, he gave the authorization for a special Ambassadorial channel. It would consume a ton of precious concentration from the communication casters but in this case Osgood felt his use of power could be justified.

“Os? What’s up?” Hector asked in response to the Priority Alert message and the long range telepathic link that formed.

“Typical day at the office,” Osgood said. “Our old office.”

“Oh hells,” Hector said. “What can I do?”

“I need you to get in touch with some people for me,” Osgood said.

“Who do you need?” Hector asked.

“Basically, everyone.”

Yael’s contact from the Silver Saucer had the good sense to wait a full week before arranging another meeting with her. Any sooner and he would have looked desperate. Also he wouldn’t have had time to run a myriad of background checks on her to determine that she was indeed connected with an underworld weapons distribution clan. This was fortunate because if he hadn’t run those checks, Yael wouldn’t have been able to corrupt them and secure his near unquestioning acceptance of her entirely falsified position.

The week delay wasn’t without cost though. Yael was forced to stay in one of the most opulent private suites on Uronos in order to maintain her “visiting princess” disguise. Zyla, meanwhile, was stuck with their previous apartment, mice and all, while she developed her cover as an off-world prize fighter. The two prong approach gave them a much wider insight to the nature of the conspiracy but after a week apart, neither had a particularly deep well of patience to draw on for further delays.

“I could sponsor you,” Yael said over her telepathic link to Zyla. “Princesses do that sort of thing all the time.”

They were on opposite sides of the city but it felt like they were on opposite sides of the galaxy and Yael felt a growing hunger to change that state of affairs. Still, she told herself, they’d waited years to be together another day or two would be bearable.

“That would raise dozens of red flags in our targets,” Zyla said. “Which I’d be fine with but you won’t let me take them apart. Metaphorically speaking of course.”

“It’s not that I object to the idea, but it’s sort of a chore putting them back together,” Yael said. “And we still need them until we have the organizations they’re fronting for under control here.”

“After tonight, the weapon suppliers aren’t going to be a problem anymore,” Zyla said.

“You have your part of the fate spell complete?” Yael asked.

“As complete as I’m going to get it,” Zyla said. “I’ve enhanced the long standing flaws in each of our ‘competitors’ designs and set them against each other as strongly as I could without provoking an open war.”

“And they haven’t figured out that they’re being manipulated?” Yael asked.

“They’re well aware that there are Aetherial spells compromising them,” Zyla said. “The vast majority aren’t mine though. Once things started falling apart for the first weapon supplier, they turned on their nearest rivals all on their own. I think I spent less anima pitting them against one another than you did getting clean water for our apartment.”

“You’re amazing, you know that?” Yael said.

“What kind of luck are you having with Sub-Minister Nerill?” Zyla asked, referring to the man Yael had met at the Silver Saucer.

“He finally took the bait,” Yael said. “We have a meeting tonight at 7:00.”

“He’s convinced you can be trusted?” Zyla asked.

“More than the other sovereignties who are vying to supply his movement with a warp capable space armada,” Yael said.

“And they’re not trying to assassinate you why exactly?” Zyla asked.

“As far as Nerill knows, they’re trying very hard to assassinate me,” Yael said. “That none of the assassin’s he knows about have managed to enter the atmosphere much less get within striking range of me adds to the allure I think.”

“And are any of these assassins actually real?” Zyla asked.

“None of the ones he knows about,” Yael said. “I’ve dealt with others more quietly than that. As far as the other armada vendors know, they each think they’re in the lead for the sale.”

“Who are they actually selling to?” Zyla asked.

“I cheated,” Yael said. “I’ve got a team of Auditors working on them already. From what I gather we’re going to buy the ships from them using their own money.”

“That will hurt their bottom line a bit,” Zyla said.

“Yes, I expect heads will roll,” Yael said.

“You probably only mean that figuratively don’t you?” Zyla asked.

“I’m afraid so,” Yael said, tickled by Zyla’s disappointment.

The Warlord’s daughter wasn’t as bloodthirsty as she claimed to be, but the hard exterior was something Zyla had put a lot of energy into developing. It had been required for her survival while growing up, and Yael felt a warm, aching, thrill when she considered that she was the first one Zyla had let see the person underneath that shell.

“Will you need any backup for the meeting tonight?” Zyla asked.

“That would be delightful,” Yael said. “But we’re almost at the end here.”

“All the more reason to be careful,” Zyla said.

“I agreed, but in this case my cover would be in more danger than I am,” Yael said. “From what I can foresee lining up tonight, I’m pretty certain I can take care of myself.”

“Of course you can,” Zyla said. “You’re amazing too.”

There was a mischievous under-current to Zyla’s words that the telepathic link conveyed with perfect clarity. Shared memories came too, but only for a fleeting second, with the notion that Zyla was eager to see them repeat.

“Ok,” Yael said, her breath catching in anticipation, “We’ll wrap this up as soon as we can then right?”

“Right,” Zyla said and signed off from the link.

Yael stalked immediately into the shower to prepare for her meeting with Nerill and set the water to its coldest possible setting. She emerged, shivering and slightly blue but no less determined to end their assignment sooner than later.

Despite the urge to rush through the evening’s engagement though, she gritted her teeth and took the requisite time to assemble her princess costume correctly. The complexities of the garment, and the need to conjure animated servants to help reassemble it around her, gave Yael the opportunity to also reassemble her poise and the bearing she wished to project.

By the time she made it to the table at the floating restaurant Nerill had specified for the meeting, Yael the Crystal Guardian had been replaced by Her Royal Highness of the Court of the Autumn Throne.

Her Royal Higness was patient, calm and calculating. That was why she didn’t throttle Nerill when he arrived a half hour late for their dinner discussion.

“My apologies for being tardy,” the minister said. “Debate on the current appropriations bill went longer than anticipated.”

“So long as you are appropriating the funds to seal our arrangement, I won’t hold that against you,” Yael said.

“There are no worries on that account,” Nerill said. “Funding for what you offer has already been secured.”

“From where?” Yael asked.

“Excuse me?” Nerill asked.

“Where are these funds coming from,” Yael said. “We have demonstrated our capabilities in good faith to you, if we are to proceed we need to know that your funding isn’t going to dry up when it’s most needed.”

“I assure you that it won’t,” Nerill said. “This is an effort which cannot fail.”

“Our apologies then,” Yael said. “But we will have no part in plans which cannot fail, as they always somehow manage too.”

Yael rose to leave but Nerill placed his hand on hers before she could go. With the wary expression of someone who was certain she had no further interest in the proceedings, Yael sat down once again.

“Please, there is no need for such dramatics,” Nerill said. “I believe we are both too invested in this transaction to back out now.”

“It is never too late to back out of a bad deal,” Yael said. “You’ve seen the weapon caches we can supply and the capital ships. All of it Imperial grade merchandise. It’s not immodest to say that our competitors cannot come close to offering comparable materiel.”

“And that is why we are willing to meet your rather ‘premium’ rates,” Nerill said.

“We have concerns whether you will be able to continue to afford those rates,” Yael said. “Your initial order volumes are notably smaller than we calculate you would require for the conquest of Kremkin’s Reach.”

“We will not need to conquer the Kremkin system in order to pay for your products,” Nerill said.

“You are upgrading a local militia to a fully capable military,” Yael said. “The only target within reach which can return that investment is Kremkin’s. Unless you have another source of funding? One perhaps you would care to share with us?”

“What do you know Uronos, Your Highness?” Nerill asked.

“You are an independent world,” Yael said. “One without the friends and allies required to stand as a player on the galactic stage.”

“Yes, and that is a position which we chose over two decades ago,” Nerill said. “Do you know why?”

“We imagine you are about to enlighten us?” Yael said.

“Political dogma,” Nerill said. “The people who ruled Uronos at the time, and the ones who rule it still, would not give up any measure of their power. So they hid behind ancient treatises on philosophy, and political party platforms, and mindless patriotism and anything they could find to convince the sheep of this world that remaining independent was the only option and that joining the Empire meant submitting to the worst sort of tyranny.”

“But you disagree with that assessment?” Yael asked.

“Of course I do,” Nerill said. “As does every other merchant on the planet who would benefit from trading in the galactic markets.”

Yael watched as the lines of fate shifted around Nerill illuminating moments from the future he sought to grasp. There would be fire, and bloodshed. Thousands or perhaps even millions dead but for Nerill those events passed by in the blink of an eye. Those flames and the screams of the dying would bring the stars to Uronos. Literally the Crystal Stars of the Empire. The High Council of the planetary government would be brought up on formal charges for violating the Imperial Peace. Without any meaningful fighting, Uronos would be brought into the Empire and a new government elected by the people. Immigration would become trivial and the population would shift. More importantly to Nerill though, commerce would grow and he and those connected to him would become wealthy far beyond the limits of what they could attain on an isolated and unconnected planet.

“So you wish to be part of the Empire?” Yael asked.

“Yes, and that is why this plan cannot fail,” Nerill said. “If the conquest of Kremkin’s Reach is successful then we will have expanded Uronos’ reach exponentially. In the far more likely case that it fails however, it will be because the Empire has stepped in and once they take an interest in Uronos we will have access to all the resources and connections that two decades of isolationism have denied us.”

“And you think the Empire will treat you kindly when you’re admission offering is a mountain of the dead?” Yael asked.

“We’re purging the radical and unstable elements from society with this move,” Nerill said. “The Empire conquered countless systems and allied itself with thousands of warlords. They will not be so squeamish as to reject us because of a little blood on our hands.”

Yael watched and caught the threads of fate as he spoke. Each time he referred to “we” or “our”, the threads grew more clear until she was able to tag each one so she could follow it later and retrieve the conspirator at the far end of it.

“And what of the dead of Kremkin’s Reach?” Yael asked. “Do you think the Empire will overlook them?”

“I am counting on the fact that they won’t,” Nerill asked. “Without a crime of heinous proportions there would be no need to make the High Council a scapegoat after all.”

“I see you’ve thought of almost everything,” Yael said.

“Not ‘almost’ everything,” Nerill said. “Everything. There is no outcome to this which does not result in historic levels of profit for all involved. Is that enough to satisfy your concerns?”

“Just to be clear,” Yael said. “You plan to indirectly overthrow the existing government by using the Crystal Empire as your catspaw after you arrange for the murder of potentially millions of Uronos and Kremkin’s Reach citizens. And this doesn’t strike you as too audacious of a plan to succeed?”

“Not at all,” Nerill said. “The mere fact that we are able to put it in motion will ensure its success. The Empire cannot overlook an action like this.”

“And if they try to prevent it?” Yael asked.

“By the time they catch wind of it, it will already be too late,” Nerill said.

“Excellent,” Yael said. “I think that’s all I need.”

“Then you’ll move forward with this deliveries as we discussed?” Nerill asked.

“Oh, I wasn’t speaking to you,” Yael said. “I was speaking to them.”

She pointed over Nerill’s shoulder to  a squad of High Council agents who were advancing through the restaurant.

“What have you done?” Nerill asked.

“Broadcast our discussion to the High Council,” Yael said.

“But why? What could you possibly have to gain from this?” Nerill asked, panic racing behind his eyes.

“By my calculations, roughly 3.2 million lives,” Yael said.

“But your home world’s economy will crash without this! And the Empire will confiscate your stolen goods! And your family will hunt you down to torture you for the rest of your life!” Nerill said. “You can’t throw all that away! It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Perhaps I have another buyer?” Yael said.

“Kremkin’s Reach!” Nerill exploded with rage and reached across the table to throttle Yael. Fortunately for his sake, the High Council agents were close enough to them that they caught Nerill before he could lay a hand on Yael. “You’re selling us out to Kremkin’s Reach!”

Yael simply smiled and sipped her wine as Nerill was led away by the High Council agents.

As satisfying as it can be, sometimes it best not to let your opponents know that all of the checks they did were subverted by Imperial Intelligence. Or that the weapon caches they saw were largely generated by illusion spells. Or that the capital ships were on loan from the Imperial Navy.

“But why didn’t we want Uronos to join the Empire?” Zyla asked later as they lay cuddled up and exhausted in bed.

“We do want Uronos to join the Empire,” Yael said, “But not like that.”

“I guess I can see why millions of dead might be a problem,” Zyla said in a teasing tone.

“That and it shouldn’t be through trickery,” Yael said. “Anyone can be part of the Empire, all they have to do is ask.”

“And what if they never chose to ask?” Zyla said.

“They can chose that too,” Yael said. “But there are some decent enticements for joining.”

“Yes, even if takes far too long to see that sometimes,” Zyla said and snuggled closer into Yael’s embrace.

Yael hated princess costumes. The best ones were posh, and ornate and made her look like a dazzling beauty. Not one part of that matched who she felt she was though.

In her mind, Yael wasn’t a broken nosed brawler but neither was she a delicate royal flower. Her Guardian robes were just about the right level of formality for her. Simple, functional and appropriate for a wide variety of situations. Sadly, mingling with the elite of a non-aligned world was not one of those appropriate situations. Especially not when she wanted to keep any hint of Imperial involvement in their affairs a secret.

“Did you hear they were debating closing down the arenas?” said a nearby woman who was drinking from a long stemmed wine glass.

The viewing lounge at the Silver Saucer was packed, as Yael had expected, with various politician and their hanger-ons who were prominent in the local government. It was the sort of establishment where the local elite could enjoy “common recreations” while remaining above and apart from the general rabble. On the floor below the balcony Yael was on, a crowd of the less wealthy were milling about and at the center of it all, behind glass-steel walls, was the fighting pit where the night’s action would take place.

“It’s well past time, but what sort of plan do they have for the displaced fighters?” a woman standing beside the first said.

“A plan? Do they ever think these things through that far?” the first woman asked.

“I suppose not,” the second woman said. “Perhaps I should speak with the Commissioner of Education about allocating some additional funds for our Adult Education programs.”

“That wouldn’t hurt,” the first woman said. “I’ve been looking into a variety of competitive sports leagues they could transfer into, but so far none have shown an interest in developing a franchise here.”

Yael didn’t envy the two women the dilemma that faced them. Uronos had a large number of arena-style combat theaters. The gladiators who fought in them ranged from commoners hoping to score a lucky victory to the seasoned professionals who were minor celebrities in their own right. Transitioning all of them to a different career could involve more bloodshed and pain than the arena fights produced in a year.

Yael leaned back and tuned in to a different conversation. She wasn’t at the Silver Saucer to eavesdrop. At least not on purely local matters. She was hunting for a bigger catch than that, but to lure it in she had to be careful not to give herself away. So she sipped from a suitably exotic beverage, as was expected of an off-world princess, and appeared to be waiting for an official entourage to come and collect her. That she was positioned at the proper spot to overhear a wide variety of conversations throughout the nearby area had nothing whatsoever to do with luck though.

“Is the buyer here yet?” Zyla asked on their telepathic link.

“I believe so,” Yael said. “There’s no contact on the Aether thread leading back to our arms dealer but it’s suspiciously blurred.”

“That’s sloppy,” Zyla said. “Did they even try to tie the thread to someone else?”

“Not from what I can see,” Yael said. “This is pure obfuscation.”

“Not quite pure,” Zyla said. “If they were serious about it, they would have obfuscated the thread back at the corpse, just like they did with the murder site.”

“You raise a good point there,” Yael said. “How are preparations for your Arena bout going?”

“Well enough,” Zyla said. “I’m through the qualifying matches and have a place in the real show.”

“Your opponents are all still breathing I hope?” Yael asked.

“Yes. Unfortunately,” Zyla said. “I may not enjoy the Empire’s strictures against killing but I can control myself, even when my foes so richly deserve a less kind fate.”

“Thank you,” Yael said. “Has the new arms supplier made an appearance yet?”

“They’re here and meeting with the ring manager now,” Zyla said. “They should be calling me in to speak with them in just a few minutes.”

“Which weapon system will they offer you?” Yael asked.

“I’m an off-worlder,” Zyla said, “So I’ve set it up that they’ll sell me one of their competitor’s ‘fine’ products.”

“While  the actually working models are all going to the locals right?” Yael asked.

“Right,” Zyla said. “And I’ve already got a contact lock spell on the sellers. When the deal falls through and they try to inform their home office we’ll have a solid path back to the people who are behind this.”

“On one side anyways,” Yael said. “The local angle here is just as important.”

“Yes, but I’m not the one stuck dealing with people I’m not allowed to punch in the face now am I?” Zyla said. The emotional layer of joy and teasing that underlay her words had no problem coming through on the telepathic link.

“It’s going to be best two out of three next time,” Yael said.

“They’re calling me in to offer me my ‘special advantage’,” Zyla said. “Good luck with the locals.”

Yael sighed. It wasn’t that she particularly enjoyed fighting, but she had to admit that between the two of them, Zyla had nabbed the better job. Frowning, she began delicately knitting out a tiny, almost inconsequential, fate spell.

“Pardon me, but it looks as though you are waiting for someone,” a tall man in plain suit said.

Yael turned to look at him. One of the loops from her tiny spell had snared the man around the shoulders. More incriminating though was the small curl of connection that she saw leading away from him into a quickly blurred haze.

“I am,” Yael said. “Though I have to confess I expected him to be older and more wrinkly.”

“I see, this is your invitation then I take it?” the man asked, gesturing to the micro-fine thread from Yael’s spell.

“I’m impressed that you noticed it,” Yael said and let the spell dissipate into pure Aether again.

“it was a fine piece of workmanship,” the man said. “Did you suppose that no one here would be able to appreciate that?”

“Let’s say instead that I am delighted to find a fellow practitioner of the subtle arts who has spent the time required to master the discipline,” Yael said. She spoke in her “princess voice”, which she was admittedly rusty at using, but given that her training as a Crystal Guardian had included a several month stint where she served as a real princess in the Court of the Autumn Throne, it was a role she was reasonably sure was she could play with some authority.

“I’m sure our schooling here is but a shadow of the royal academy you trained at,” the man said. “Ours focus too long on the practical aspects of magic I am afraid.”

“I’ve always found the practical aspects of the non-tangible fascinating,” Yael said.

“And is that what you’ve come to observe tonight?” the man asked.

“In a sense, yes,” Yael said.

“There may be little to see,” the man said. “Our fighters are not generally gifted in anything but the physical arts.”

“Is it not customary here to augment the combatants?” Yael asked.

“Yes, to a limited extent,” the man said.

“Perhaps there will be less call for my attention to these exhibitions then,” Yael said.

“It would be a mistake to think of these contests as mere exhibitions,” the man said. “These are serious matches intended to try the competitors skills to the utmost.”

“My apologies for misspeaking then,” Yael said. “I was referring to the exhibition of the augmentation gear.”

“You have a keen eye,” the man said.

“Not for all things,” Yael said. “Just those which intersect my areas of interest.”

“Are you an aficionado of material enchanting as well?” the man asked.

“No, my interest is more financial in nature,” Yael said. She watched as the connections began to shift around the man.

He was tied to the government on Uronos, but only indirectly, which was a surprise. Yael had expected him to be one of the minor functionaries doing the bidding of a more empowered master.

There were threads that suggested he had power and obscured backers, but from the direction and resonance of the harmonies on those threads, Yael guessed that the man sitting beside her was more than a minion or a catspaw. To some extent he was the architect and shaper of the plan that was unfolding on Uronos.

“And what sort of concern do you represent?” the man asked.

“At the moment, none, as I have no contracts on Uronos,” Yael said. “I am, at present, merely observing the competition.”

“Are you sure there is an opportunity for competition here?” the man asked. “All of the enchanted material in the area is donated.”

“So I gather,” Yael said. “And I am not interested in charity work at present.”

“It seems a shame that your evening will be wasted then,” the man said.

“Not wasted, at the least my curiosity will be assuaged,” Yael said. “I’ve lost a few opportunities now to less reputable sorts who promise quality they can’t deliver. I am most interested to see how your contestants fare given that you’ve set an even playing field for them to fight on.”

“It seems you won’t have to wait long,” the man said. “The first match is beginning now.”

Yael watched Zyla enter the ring from one side while man at least half again as tall as she was entered from the other direction.

“As you see they both are outfitted with standard quality armor, shields and bolt casters,” the man said.

“And yet, the gear carried by the male contestant has been modified to include a more sleek appearance. It certainly appears to be higher quality than what his opponent is forced to work with,” Yael said.

“I guess that might yield some psychological advantage,” the man said.

“But not a material advantage,” Yael said.

“What do you mean by that?” the man asked.

“Watch how he moves, compared to his opponent. I’ve seen this sort of bait and switch before,” Yael said. “The seller claims that an enchanted piece has all manner of properties, but once it is in the field the thin veneer wears off the actual performance of the object is exposed as woefully inadequate..”

“You will forgive me for believing that you might be a somewhat biased source for those claims?” the man asked.

“Of course, but you needn’t take my word for it,” Yael said. “The proof is in the performance.”

“I fear this performance will not be so telling,” the man said. “This seems like a decidedly uneven match.”

“That is the first sign I would point you towards,” Yael said. “The fight program says that the woman is a first time fighter in this arena. That seems to be a poor match-up with the reigning champion for the past three weeks. The only reason I can see for it would be to show off the shiny new gear the champion is wearing on a stage where the odds are stacked in their favor.”

“There will be other matches,” the man said. “Perhaps they’ve reserved the more interesting line ups for later in the evening.”

“Perhaps, but see how the woman moves?” Yael said. “She’s avoiding all of his blows and she’s not even accelerating much. That’s a classic sign that the targeting enhancement in the fighter’s armor is failing. My competitors always did have problems with that spell. The real thing to watch for however is all of the weak spots the armor displays.”

“Such as?” the man asked.

“The arm for instance,” Yael said. “It looks like a minor blow caused it to seize up. Unless I miss my guess the knees will lock up next, more or less on their own.”

As Yael spoke, Zyla laid a smackdown on her opponent, locking his leg joints with the barest casting of a physical spell, to make it look like she’d disabled him with nothing more than a series of weak strikes.

One final blow from Zyla caused the armor her foes was encased in to shatter into it’s component pieces and drop off him leaving the fighter in little more than a loin cloth.

“It’s nice to see people who test the products they plan to invest in,” Yael said.

“It can certainly prevent troubling surprises later,” the man said.

“If you should know anyone who is in the market for somewhat higher quality merchandise, you’ll know how to contact me,” Yael said and spun a thicker more obvious loop around the man letting it settle on his shoulders like a mantle.

Or a noose that hadn’t yet been contracted.

Yael Clearborn, Guardian of the Crystal Empire and Arch-Mage class Aetherial spell caster glared at the mouse that stood in the grime covered bathroom with her.

“I’m not getting out of this tub until you leave,” she told the non-magical, non-sapient rodent.

It froze in place and twitched it whiskers at her.

Even naked and unarmed, Yael knew she was more than a match for the mouse, but she wasn’t interested in killing the small creature, and her more subtle abilities weren’t worth using on so small an adversary.

If only it saw itself like that.

It wasn’t a question of the mouse being trapped. The tiny creature had plenty of bolt holes to scamper into. The hotel room Yael and Zyla had rented might have earned a one-star rating at some point in the past but it had long ago sold that star and anything else it could pawn. Where the money the hotel took in went was a mystery, with the only clear answer being that none of it was invested in upkeep or accommodations for the guests. The base boards showed that neglect clearer than a building inspector’s condemnation order. Or at least clearer than the order which somehow always wound up buried under a small pile of money before it could be officially served to the hotel owners.

“Seriously, you need to go,” Yael told the mouse and loomed over it, careful to stay on the far side of the tub’s small wall as she did so.

She wasn’t scared of the mouse. She’d wrestled rodents the size of small houses and survived swarms of creatures that covered entire mountain ranges. She just didn’t want to squish the little thing. It was kind of cute. And it probably had a variety of plagues or whatever that would be a hassle to be treated for. And she was finally clean after a week of trudging through slimy streets and meeting with slimier people.

But mostly it was that the little thing was cute. With it’s big black eyes and pale violet fur. It’s little hands rubbed over each other like it was waiting to speak but had to fight crippling shyness to do so. Yael imagined it asking why a giant monster was in it’s home and had to concede that she was more the interloper than the mouse.

“We’re only here for a little while longer,” she said. “Just put up with us and I’ll leave you some food when we go.”

The mouse glanced away, reviewing its exit options, but stayed frozen in place.

At least until Zyla came in a moment later.

Zyla saw her partner standing in tub, below the dripping shower head, with a towel wrapped around her, and a small mouse sitting in the middle of the small bathroom blocking Yael’s escape.

The rodent turned to look at the new arrival and Zyla locked eyes with it.

“Leave,” she said. Her voice held the annoyance of a royal command and just enough heat to unfreeze the mouse. It flinched in surprise and bolted into the nearest hole in the wall boards it could find.

“My hero,” Yael said, stepping out of the bathtub at last.

Zyla shook her head.

“Truly a fearsome beast to have held you at bay.”

Zyla started to undress, being careful to place her clothes on what few surfaces were both off the floor and relatively clean.

“Did you have any luck tracking down the arms merchant or the ship contractor?” Yael asked as she toweled herself dry.

“Yes and no,” Zyla said, adjusting the water to her preferred, near freezing, temperature. Frosty but clean water gushed from the aging faucet into the tub. “The arms dealer was easy to find. He’s in the city morgue, currently occupying collection bins five through thirteen and awaiting processing. Our ship contractor has fled the planet, for perhaps understandable reasons.”

“And just so I can report on this honestly,” Yael said. “The arms merchant was at the morgue before you found him correct?”

“He hadn’t made any threats against you,” Zyla said. “So yes, that’s an accurate guess on your part.”

Yael wrapped her towel around Zyla and drew her in close.

“What would I do without you to protect me?” she said.

“A lot more damage,” Zyla replied and kissed her on the nose. “Let me get clean though. Morgues aren’t nice places to visit and I can feel the preservatives still clinging to my hair.”

Yael breathed in, inhaling the scent of Zyla’s hair. After a second she wrinkled her nose.

“Yeah, that could use a little shampoo,” she said and released Zyla from the towel grapple.

“We’ll want to hit the Silver Saucer tonight,” Zyla said. “There’s a thread leading back there that resonates with both of our revolutionaries.”

“That’s what I expected,” Yael said. “We tracked them this far separately, but there had to be somewhere their paths crossed.”

“Oh, and one other thing,” Zyla said and beckoned Yael closer.

Given that they could fall back on telepathic communication for secure communication, Yael was puzzled over the need to whisper anything. Puzzled until Zyla pulled her in for a kiss that is.

“Thank you for getting the water running,” Zyla said and pulled away to step into the tub. A series of fortunate (read: Aetherial magic sponsored) accidents had occurred which ensured the delivery of nice fresh water to the otherwise dilapidated hotel. This despite the fact that neither Yael nor Zyla could afford to alert anyone that a new Aetherial caster had arrived on the planet. In Aetherial battles it was often the caster who used the least magic who won, but clean showers were worth the risk of detection.

Yael smiled and touched her lips which buzzed with a pleasant energy. Zyla was still reserved, still quiet and shy in her stern and stoic way, but little by little she was starting to trust the commitment they’d made to each other and take advantage of what that meant.

Yael stepped out of the bathroom before she could let herself be lured into the icy blizzard that Zyla called a shower.

By the time she was done with dressing and a simple set of her daily anima exercises, Zyla was out of the shower too and ready to go over the casefile they’d spent the better part of two weeks assembling.

“This is starting to paint the kind of picture we didn’t want to see,” Zyla said, spreading the key documents out over the spare bed in the small apartment.

“It is but something still feels off,” Yael said. “We’ve got proof of not only mass weapon sales but also capital ships being requisitioned and parked out of system.”

“More that out of the system,” Zyla said. “In direct striking range of two of the neighboring systems.”

“We’re missing a ‘why’ though,” Yael said.

“There’s an obvious answer to that,” Zyla said.

“Yeah. Conquest,” Yael said. “But does that feel right?”

“Consider who you’re asking,” Zyla said. “Do you want the answer I’d like to believe, or that one I was trained to believe from birth?”

“Both,” Yael said.

Zyla looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

“I’m serious,” Yael said. “You don’t have to throw your old life away. It gives you a lot of skills I don’t have, and it made you who you are today.”

“In other words someone I’m trying not to be anymore,” Zyla said.

“As in someone amazing, who’s a lot better than she gives herself credit for,” Yael said, laying her hand on Zyla’s.

There was a time when Yael would never dared to speak so intimately with Zyla. There was a time when Zyla would have instinctively jerked her hand away from the gesture. Yael smiled when Zyla didn’t flinch. The old days were fading away, as old days always do, and Yael liked what the new days were bringing.

“A warlord would find being confined to a single world unbearable,” Zyla said. “Having all of your holdings on one world makes them too vulnerable. Conquest was a necessity for a secure reign.”

“But Uronos has been at peace for close to a century,” Yael said. “Well before the Crystal Empire appeared.”

“That’s true,” Zyla said. “But it’s an unaligned world. The Empire’s rules don’t apply here.”

“Not here, but Barstow Sigma is the closest system and that is Imperial territory,” Yael said.

“Which means an attack there would definitely draw an Imperial response,” Zyla said. “So that won’t be their target. The strong do not attack the stronger.”

“Kremkin’s Reach is the next nearest system and that’s unaligned too,” Yael said.

“A viable target then, except Kremkin’s has a defense treaty with the Empire as well,” Zyla said, finding the dossier on the solar system in question. “Could they think the Empire won’t honor the treaty?”

“Maybe, but that’s a large bet to make and Kremkin’s seems like a poor system to make it for,” Yael said.

“Perhaps not,” Zyla said. “A good warlord doesn’t look at a conquest solely for its own sake. They look for the position it can put them in.”

“And what would conquering Kremkin’s get Uronos?” Yael asked.

“By itself very little,” Zyla said. “Some slaves if the civilians survived, some resources too, but Uronos still has plenty of those to mine from the asteroids and planets of its own system. On it’s own there’s not much reason to move against Kremkin’s, or there wasn’t until half a year ago.”

Zyla passed a folder over to Yael. It was one of the documents that Imperial data analysis techs had forwarded to them this morning so the contents were new to the Crystal Guardian.

“What am I looking for here?” she asked.

“A set of celestial ley lines were discovered recently in near orbit to Kremkin’s,” Zyla said. “They’re long routes but they open up dozens of new ‘neighbor’ systems.”

“So Uronos wants to build an empire of their own and now they’ve got the portals to do it with?” Yael asked.

“Maybe,” Zyla said. “It is a possible motive, but I think you’re right. Something feels ‘off’ about that.”

“For Uronos’ sake, I hope the feeling is correct,” Yael said.

“We can’t let them attack anyone can we?” Zyla asked.

“No,” Yael said. “And worse than that, if they do try to attack Kremkin’s, we’ll have to step in and place them under Imperial censure.”

“Or in other words, conquer them,” Zyla said.

“It’s not as simple as that,” Yael said. “Revoking the government of any planet, independent or otherwise, is considered a cataclysm level event. They’ll lose their independence and there’ll be teams of Imperial Auditors and socio-engineers working on the planet for years after that.”

“I thought the Empire revoked millions of governments though when the Empress swept into control of the galaxy?” Zyla asked.

“That’s the ultra-simplified version of the story,” Yael said. “The reality was much more complex than that. The Empress and her forces didn’t ‘conquer’ most of the worlds in the Empire. There were military actions but those were mostly limited to the most aggressive of the Galactic Warlords and their supporters. Peaceful systems like Uronos were approached diplomatically.”

“The Empire took over systems with diplomacy?” Zyla asked.

“In many cases, yes,” Yael said. “The Empresses forces had, and still have, a tremendous amount to offer member worlds. Especially for relatively poor worlds, becoming a member of the Crystal Empire meant receiving celestial infrastructure they could never have afforded on their own and they were given a voice in galactic affairs when otherwise they would have been ignored.”

“And the ones that refused to join?” Zyla asked.

“They stayed unaligned like Uronos,” Yael said. “The Empresses goal wasn’t to unite the galaxy. She just wanted to stop the stellar scale bloodshed that kept knocking planets back into the galactic dark ages.”

“My father claimed she’d overextended herself and had to pull back to delay the Empire crumbling through her fingers,” Zyla said.

“That sounds like the kind of story a defeated warlord would cling to,” Yael said. “You’ve seen the range that we can patrol though. And that’s with spell casting on a human level still.”

“Well, mostly human,” Zyla said. “They’re still worshipping you on Drexden as the Grand Harvest Goddess.”

“That was such a mistake,” Yael said, shaking her head. “My fake divinity aside though, the Empress and the Prime Guardians are on a whole different level than we are.”

“You’re saying they could subjugate the entire galaxy if they wanted to?” Zyla asked.

“Not subjugate,” Yael said. “From what I’ve seen, the Empress does have limits and removing free will from another seems to be definitely beyond her abilities.”

“That’s inconvenient for a ruler,” Zyla said.

“I’m not sure it’s even fair to call her a ruler,” Yael said. “She’s more a living symbol of the Empire, but when you look at who makes the real decisions, that’s all done by the Galactic Parliament.”

“How does that help us here?” Zyla said.

“It doesn’t,” Yael said. “If anything it puts us back to questioning what the motive for the military build up here could be.”

“With how well this was obfuscated by Aetherial anima, I think we’re left with only one option,” Zyla said.

“The Silver Saucer,” Yael agreed.

Zyla reached for her anima blade and flicked it to life. The deadly red brand hummed in her hands and illuminated her face as she spoke.

“So that means we get to fight it out to see who gets to be the visiting princess and who has to brave the gladiator pits.”

Yael called her blade into her hand from across the room, but the fight had already begun.