Starbreaker: Volume 4 - Chapter 18

“Digging through the ruins of dead civilizations is the prerogative of those species that have survived, and nowhere is that truer than in the case of the Aions, from whom so much of our modern understanding of the universe has come from. In the remains of most dead civilizations do we often find one or two sparks of enlightenment from which we might some day ignite some small flame, but from the Aions, there are infernos ablaze in every place we look. From them, the codification of all magic. From them, interplanetary travel. From them, the groundwork for all that we now live in was laid. No matter how small the find, every discovery of what the Aions left behind is a fresh enlightenment that can entirely reshape our understanding of all things. Revelations are discovered in the footprints that they have left upon the shifting sands of time.”

—On Aion Remnants, Glain Jasperbrook

“What did he mean when he said they were coming in cold?” Sylvas asked Hector as they secured the ship in preparation for liftoff.

“Ships have temperature control to keep space from freezing us or cooking us, but it’s set up to keep temperatures balanced in solar systems. If you keep a ship hanging around for long enough out in deep space, far away from any heat sources, the temperature starts to tick down. Not enough to be dangerous, but enough for folks to notice if they’re looking. Wherever the Consortium base is, it is out there.”

Malachai called back over his shoulder as he shoved cabinets shut and locked them down, “And amidst an asteroid belt, judging by the hull damage that they noted.”

“Hm. Then that narrows things down considerably.” Sylvas had the map already displayed over his vision, and Mira was rapidly eliminating any planetary sites where the base might have been and focused instead on any deep-space asteroid fields. There were hundreds, of course, just due to how big space was, but it was still a marked improvement over the zero leads that they’d started the day with.

Hector crossed his arms as he entered the cockpit. “My concern is more with the products that they are shilling on the black market. Eidolons should not be sold and transported as if they were cattle.”

That reminded Sylvas about what he’d felt on the planet. “I sensed eidolons out on the planet.”

“Likewise.”

Sylvas hadn’t known that Hector could sense them, but he supposed it made sense if he had one bonded to him, too. “But they aren’t my big worry. I didn’t get the sense that any of the ones they’re transporting are that high tier.”

Kaya looked up at him curiously, “What is your big worry then?”

“My big worry is my bug worry.” Hector ran his hands through his hair, trying to dislodge any of the planetary dust that might still be clinging to it. They’d all be having showers once they were off-world, but hanging around for a bathroom break when the Consortium was probably hunting them down seemed like a tactical error.

Sylvas tried to work out what the man was talking about and failed. “I’m sorry?”

“The shikari are bugs. Big bugs. Well, technically, they’ve got some mammal and reptile traits, too, but we’ve always just called them…eh, bugs. Anyway, they’re a predatory species, ranking third on the old ‘planetary annihilation event’ list right behind eidolon incursions and necromancy.”

He cast an image of one up onto the console screen. Sylvas’ instant impression was one of a lot of teeth. “They eat everything they can find, breed like crazy, and then repeat until they’ve consumed everything alive that isn’t shikari. Then they move on to the next planet and do it again. Just one of them is enough to kill a whole world if they go undetected for long enough.”

Kaya gawked at the screen. “Why would the Consortium be transporting them then?”

Hector gave her a morbid look and sighed. “Sometimes people pay really well for an apocalypse to happen to someone they don’t like.”

She remained gob smacked for a precious moment—the only time Sylvas thought Kaya had ever been left without words.

Hector nodded at her expression. “Sorry to burst your bubble, but for every plucky outlaw miner using the black market to stick it to the man, there are three guys who’d look at a shikari hive as a big payday.”

Kaya recovered enough to roll her eyes. “I’m not that naïve, I know bad people do crime, too.”

The ship lurched the moment that Sylvas stepped into the control circle, his power and his will flowing out into it, his desire to get away becoming reality so quickly he had to deliberately pull back or risk shooting straight up towards the stars beyond the yellow fog. The moment that the ship rose off the ground, it began to be buffeted by the gale-force winds sweeping over the planetary surface, and holding still became a challenge in itself. “Uh, permission to depart.”

“Just try and keep it calm and smooth.” Hector chuckled. “They might be keeping an eye out for us after the punch-up in the bar and seeing us with Saizen’s gang. Try not to draw any attention.”

Sylvas pulled up, letting the wind push them off course as if he didn’t have complete control over the ship, drifting slowly away from the field where they’d touched down and following the flow of air in the lower atmosphere as it headed for the cooler equatorial zone of the planet, still keeping the speed low to avoid any accidental collisions with incoming traffic.

There was less dodging and diving on their ascent from the surface. All of the ships coming down were heading for more or less the same area, whereas now they had the freedom to rise in any direction from the planet. They hadn’t discussed what their next stop was going to be yet, but that was for the same reason that they hadn’t all gone to shower the sulfurous smell off themselves. The important thing wasn’t where they were going. The important thing was to not be here.

As they hit the heavy banks of clouds, Sylvas began to relax. He really shouldn’t have, given that he was now almost entirely blind and potentially headed straight into a descending ship, but with the way his own senses and those of the ship combined, he found it surprisingly easy to get a sense of any movement going on outside.

“Get us clear of Glamrock, and we can find someplace local to touch down and make plans,” Hector told him from his customary perch on the console. There was still a tension lingering as they all waited to see if they could get out of orbit without a fight.

They made a circuitous journey, following the wind and clouds in their swirl around the planet, gaining height so slowly that Sylvas felt like they were standing still at times until finally, as far from the planetary base as they could get, they broke through into the upper atmosphere and caught sight of freedom. At once, his senses expanded, and at once, the Consortium ships in their docile orbit around the planet all suddenly started to move.

“Just what you don’t want to see,” Hector grumbled. “Alright, kids. How good is your ship-to-ship combat?”

Kaya and Malachai looked askance to each other, which was all the answer Hector needed. “Never done it before? Don’t worry, it’s just like killing people face to face, just farther away. You’ll get the hang of it in no time.”

Even at this distance, Sylvas could sense the mounting magical power gathering around the intercepting ships. It wouldn’t matter if they were shooting to kill or simply trying to stop the Folly from escaping; with so many simultaneous offensive spells being cast, their destruction would be pretty much inevitable.

“I can jump us out,” Sylvas called over his shoulder as the others started readying themselves for battle.

“Then what?” Hector rolled his shoulders as if he were about to physically wrestle with the ships chasing them. “They follow, and we have the fight somewhere else?”

“Then I move faster than they can follow. They’re reliant on etherium to make their jumps, and casting takes them time. I can outpace them. Jump us around a few times to lose the tail.”

Hector was looking at him curiously. “You didn’t seem reluctant to bust some heads down on the planet, so what’s changed?”

Sylvas ignored the question, the gathering spells of the enemy on the periphery of his perception sizzling away and ready to cast. “Can I do it?”

“Don’t ask me, kid. You’re the pilot.” He crossed his arms. “Can you do it?”

Sylvas couldn’t help but grin.

They punched through into null-space at the same moment the Consortium spells were cast at them, not along the direct line that they had been headed out of orbit, but sideways, the tear out of reality forming off the starboard side, and Sylvas’ will flinging them sideways into it instead of allowing momentum to guide them forward. Mira frantically searched star-charts to find them a safe, close place to emerge and set up their next jump. As the portal through into null-space snapped shut behind them, there was the briefest flash of light as all the spells cast after them collided and combusted, silent in the vacuum of space.

They burst back through into the universe in the midst of a swirling nebula of electric blue, so dazzling Sylvas had to close his eyes against it. He was already casting again, setting up their next jump but spinning the ship as it emerged to point in a different direction on every axis.

The next jump was longer. A whole thirty seconds in null-space before they emerged halfway back towards Glamrock, albeit a good few light years off their original course. The ship was still in a wild spin, flipping around and around in a way that would have made anyone on board violently sick if they could feel it. Sylvas could feel it, of course, with his nervous system plugged into the ship’s sensory array, but by this point in his career as a gravity mage, having every direction changing up on him constantly was his new normal.

This third and final jump was significantly longer than the previous two, and he pushed for more speed than he had in the others. Up until now, they had maintained some of the original deception that the ship was simply very well made and wasn’t being flown by a gravity affinity mage. Anyone pursuing them would have been surprised at the rapid jumps, but it was still within the realms of possibility. With this final jump that their pursuers would never see, he went far beyond the realms of possibility and pushed himself to the limits of his ability, firing off all the spells bound to the engines while pushing with all his will to maximize their speed, even before casting the final teleportation through null-space. They were moving so fast that there was a thump throughout the entire ship as they left reality, and all the forces working against them disappeared.

“I’m taking us out into deep space for now, picking a random spot. From there, we can start trying to narrow down where the Consortium base is situated.”

Hector nodded at the logic of it while still staring intently at the readouts on his console. “I think your hop, skip, and jump worked. I’m not seeing any sign of pursuit.”

Sylvas didn’t feel any pride in what he’d just done. Not really. “The spellforms degrade pretty fast. If you aren’t right on top of them, the chances of following someone through aren’t good. Besides, all their spells hitting at the same time we left would have made a real mess of the trail.”

Hector had turned now, and the others were sheepishly returning from their battle stations. “What would Plan B have been?”

Sylvas played through the different options in his mind. A gravity shear surrounding the ship, diving into the enemy formation. “I’d probably have done something to disrupt our trail myself.”

Hector’s brows had furrowed. “And if they still followed?”

“I’d have taken us someplace more hostile than a nebula and left them to deal with it.”

There was a long pause in the rapid-fire exchange during which Malachai and Kaya once again found themselves looking sideways at one another.

Hector’s frown persisted. “I thought they trained you as soldiers. Why isn’t fighting your first answer?”

“Because fighting would show our hand.” Sylvas spoke, but it was the carefully selected wording that Mira provided him, whispered in his brain. “It would let everyone know what we were capable of. It might tell the Consortium who we are and that we’re after them.”

Hector stared at him just a moment longer than was necessary, and Sylvas wondered if he’d slipped up, if something in the cadence of his answer hadn’t sounded enough like him. Then the moment passed, and Hector turned away. “It was the right call. No point killing people just for the sake of it.”

That was a close one, darling. You might have had to explain why you actually don’t want to fight.

“One might argue that thinning the ranks of an enemy army was beneficial, actually.” Malachai’s droll tones cut through the tension.

“And it does feel good to kick in some teeth once in a while,” Kaya agreed.

Hector chuckled. “I’m sure there will be plenty of teeth to kick before too long.”

“Particularly if the trade in shikari continues to be brisk.” Malachai called the image of the creatures back up onto the console. “I can’t imagine that we won’t end up having to deal with them eventually.”

Kaya’s face contorted in disgust. “As if eidolons weren’t bad enough.”