Where I Live Now (Expedition to the Kathol Rift)

[Ashin Varanin]

Demonsgate
Day 294

Pilgrims come out here for phrik. Force alone knows why they'd waste a year of their lives for it, but I can see the scars as I lift off. There used to be a Moross presence out here, but I see no sign of intelligent life anywhere.

Oh wait -- there it is. Force, it's huge. Easily the size of the 'Alec Aday', and organic-looking. Like a shellfish with smooth spines, and all of it white that's gray and blue at the same time. One moment they're nowhere, the next moment they're here. No hyperspace reversion, just...here. Five of them, and the one on the far left is moving toward me, blinking with red lights. Docking tentacles, perhaps inspired by the construct's tentacles, are unfolding out of the hull. They're reaching for me. I'm going in.

They're pulling my shuttle into a docking bay. I can see them watching me - they look like nothing I have any analogue for, the aliens. Stubby, gray shells, tattoos or engravings, tentacles on their moths. Tentacles must be a symbol of communication to them, if I remember my parents' notes right.

One is wearing pieces of machinery over its mouth-tentacles. A droid voice comes from the components. "Welcome, child of Ree-call-lee. Your scent is known."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Day 294

"Will you approach our minds, child of Ree-call-lee?"

I'm still recording this on my belt unit. I'm leaving the shuttle now. There are metal tentacles all over the hull. I don't have that ability, friends. I can't touch the Force.

"You walk in what you call the Force, in time."

The Force and time are different. Whatever's off about me, all the time mess I've been through, it's not because I have the Force.

"All things are one. You do not need to recognize what you call the Force to be part of it. Your colors are distinct, it is true."

Right, colors. You told my father that the Force isn't split between light and dark, that it's a spectrum.

"A comparison that is also real. You have come far, child of Ree-call-lee."

Call me Alec, or call me what I smell like, I don't know. You're the ones that see with scent.

"An honorable request. We shall call you Engine Grease."

Is that a joke?

"We would not insult so honorable a request: to be addressed as you are perceived, and perceived as you are known. This is a very adult thing to ask, Engine Grease."

Kark.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Day 294

"Why have you come to us, Engine Grease?"

I was asked to come. The man who sent me, Jorus Merrill-

"Merrill?"

You know him? Somehow I'm not surprised.

"We do not know a Jorus Merrill. A human named Rave Merrill did an evil thing."

I'm even less surprised. She's dead, though.

"She is not dead. She erased herself from the Flow by twisting it to suit her. It is an evil thing."

My father used flow-walking for a lot of evil things.

"But your father did not change anything when he went back in the Flow. He could not; we never taught him how, and it cannot be done by one like him. What Rave Merrill did was a transgression against time."

Sure. Look, I don't actually know much about her. All I know is, I'm not her. I'm not here to, what, steal your knowledge and mix it with Sith witchcraft and break time?

"Then we ask again, Engine Grease -- why are you here? In your heart of hearts, over and above what this Jorus Merrill asked of you, why did you agree? Why did you come to Demon's Gate?"

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Day 294

It sure wasn't to learn what you know. I'm basically certain I can't. For the first time in what's probably a very long time, you have a visitor who doesn't give a clart about trying to exploit your trust or your power.

"A presumption. Inari the Reviver is a friend to us, and always has been."

Sure. No offense meant there. Moross god, right?

"Yes."

The one who used to rule the Kathol Sector?

"No, but it would take a very long time to explain, Engine Grease. We ask again: your-"

My reason for agreeing to take this job? Part of it was pride, I guess. When General Merrill looks you in the eye and says 'Rekali, you're the only one who has a decent chance of talking with what's at the end of the road,' you take it seriously. You feel good. Part of it was, I wanted to come out here and do what my parents did, make the sacrifices they made. Both failed me, spectacularly. I couldn't tolerate them being better than me at this when they already had the Forcer superhuman thing to hold over me. That's the dark side of it all. The other side? I wanted to see something new. I wanted to talk to people who might understand what I am and what I'm turning into.

"You are adrift in time. It passes far more quickly for your, or far more slowly, or with strange causality."

You know what's wrong with me?

"There is nothing wrong with you. Think of yourself as a creature of water taking its first steps on land."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294

There's another reason. A new one.

"What is it?"

The Rift is more chaotic than it was. The hallucinations are worse; all the guides say so. It was difficult to come out here, hard on my crew.

"Yet they came."

Sure, because Yvara is the best place in the galaxy for a safehouse, a bolthole. The kind of place where you can hide out to prepare your next move, or put your family or your secrets if they're in even more danger. I'm with the Underground -- think of the Rebel Alliance from history -- and we desperately need refuges like this. And my crew believe in that. They just didn't know what they were getting into.

"The Rift is angry. It is cyclical."

How long until it's less deadly again?

"A matter of several standard years."

Your ships don't travel in hyperspace, do they. They don't even use hyperdrives. They're biotechnological constructs that help groups of you focus your teleportation abilities across very long ranges. Don't bother denying it -- some of you went mind-to-mind with people I'm related to.

"That is accurate in the most limited sense."

Do you have the power to send my ship back across the Rift? The next crew would be better prepared, but this one has suffered enough. Even just to Danoor.

"What you ask is a difficult thing."

My grandfather, Ember Rekali, is prone to telling me that when it comes to telekinesis, mass doesn't matter -- that in a true but difficult-to-acknowledge sense, moving a pebble is the same as moving a starship. I know you can teleport small objects across short distances and starships across long ones. Are they the same?

"In theory."

Under what conditions would you be willing to grant my request?

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294

"That will be discussed. You understand that even if we were able to grant your request, we would not be able to do so for any further ships of your Underground."

I understand you wouldn't be obligated or expected to do that, not by us. This would be a one-time sacrifice, an act of mercy, to honor the sacrifice of the hundred of my crew who have died and the hundred or more who will probably stay to make a peaceful new life. Over half my crew, dead or broken.

"A desire for peace does not imply brokenness."

But brokenness can require peace.

"Valid. Your previous honour you earned by accident, but asking this for your crew, without asking power or knowledge for yourself as all others have -- this is a greater honour, and earned with deliberate action."

So will you agree?

"Respect is not obligation, Engine Grease."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294

You want me to beg? Fine, I'll beg.

"Do not beg. Explain."

What do you want explained?

"Whether you yourself believe you can make the return trip through the Kathol Rift. Whether you know if this request is for you or for them."

I have starfighters and shuttles. Send my people home, just to Danoor even, and I'll fly out alone.

"Two to three of your months, alone in the Kathol Rift? You would not survive."

Taste my mind; it's a thing any Jedi can do. Know that I'm terrified but I'm determined, and I'm being serious. I'll go alone, and I'll endure it. You don't know what we've sacrificed together -- you, who can shrug off the hallucinations and send your ships from place to place in instants. Don't tell me you've grown so advanced, so peaceful, that you've forgotten how much it hurts to really work.

"You grow angry."

Because I firmly believe you have the power to send my people home, I firmly believe you're splitting hairs and beating around the bush, and I firmly believe you're basing your decision for over two hundred souls on some asinine test to do with my worthiness.

"...your idiom translates, I believe."

What do my soul and my fear have to do with whether they've earned your mercy? This thing that would take you seconds to accomplish? Where's your threshold -- how much more do they have to sacrifice? They've come to the edge of the galaxy so many times. Kal'Shebbol, Pembric Two, Dayark, Uukaablis, Exocron, Danoor, Yvara -- every one of them was supposed to be the very last outpost of rationality. Then we went farther and found another one. What will we find if we keep going past Demonsgate?

"Is that a threat?"

It's whatever colour you want it to be.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294

"You are right that people often come to us for knowledge and power. More often, though, they come to us for solutions to their problems. Problems that are often of their own making."

I refuse to believe that you've embraced live and let die. You have aggressively interventionist principles in specific situations. Mind control over innocent intermediaries? Wholesale eradication of slaver fleets on the other side of the Rift? And this one's just a hunch, but...correction of temporal anomalies, maybe? Fixing problems, regardless of origin. I still believe you're willing to grant what I ask, and capable of it, if I give the right answers. And that's fundamentally unfair to my crew.

"We are not gods and you are not a plaything, Engine Grease."

Tell me something I don't karking know. You still haven't answered my question: What would it take for you to agree to this? Or do you have specific criteria at all? Are you just...waiting on your instincts? Listening to the Force?

"Your gesture requires clarification."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294

"We are listening, Engine Grease. We are listening to you so we may know you. You have refused to know us mind-to-mind, as is your right."

It's not a refusal if I can't do it. But listen away, if it helps you make sense of me.

"We have been deceived before."

No fracking way. Seriously?

"Sarcasm is unnecessary."

Then tell me what is. I want one thing: my people, safe, now. It's within your power to grant it. Don't tell me you slaver-killers have less empathy for non-Aing-Tii; I don't believe that. If this is some kind of prophecy thing -- if shaving a couple of months off the return trip would change things unacceptably -- then fething tell me that too, because I'm getting nothing from you. A listener's silence is just as likely to affect what he's listening to as if he'd grabbed the conversation by the neck and squeezed. You can't observe without changing what you observe, and you will definitely get a different impression of me if you act like hu-

"Like what?"

Like sentients with a conscience.

"You were about to say 'if you act like human beings,' yes?"

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294

All right. I think it's time I gave you a taste of your own medicine and just lis-

"Yes?"

...I think it's time I listened.

"You are done?"

I've made my case. I can listen.

"Then listen, Engine Grease, child of Ree-call-lee, and hear, and remember. Just as virtue is not the absence of temptation, but the overcoming of it, our power is not to ignore the terrors of the Rift, but to discipline our minds and endure them. If we were to grant your request, we would deprive you and your crew of the chance to learn something truly valuable about themselves. About their limits, about relying on each other, about the link between stimulus, agency, and action."

Some of them almost killed themselves.

"What we learn about ourselves is not always pleasant, but it is always worth learning. And why did they not kill themselves?"

Because we stopped them.

"How?"

We...talked with them.

"Until they trusted you more than the illusions."

Yes.

"We are not metalworkers, Engine Grease, but I think we still share the allegory of the blacksmith's furnace? The results of heat, pressure, unification?"

Yes. But I want to spare them further pain. They've given so much already. They've given enough.

"And we must ask again...are you asking for them, or for you? Are you speaking of them or of you?"

I don't believe I can separate them, or that I should. All I can do is swear that I am committed to flying home by myself if it'll convince you to do this.

"We remember."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294

"You know something about us, about how we make bargains, yes? Have you been told the magnitude of the sacrifice involved?"

No.

"Have you heard the name Jorj Car'das?"

No.

"Car'das came to us in need, and we filled that need and came to his aid when he called."

And what did you ask in return?

"Listen."

All right.

"He pledged his life, all of it, to learning our ways. Learning to be like us, think like us, perceive like us. He gave up his connections, his power, his future -- for better things. And he could never leave, and he never did. That is the price we ask, the price we have always asked."

Be like you? I told you, I'm not Force-sensitive.

"Neither was Car'das. Not as such things are reckoned. And yet he became what he was meant to be."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294

I have a life. Family. A cause. I can't give them up.

"Because it would be dishonorable, or because you do not want to?"

I pity the woman that wants to be separate from every part of her family. I know you're called monks, but I have a hard time believing you would ask that of yourselves, and if not, how dare you ask it of me.

"We were born to this. Another needs to unmake and remake a life to understand our ways."

I was born to this. I was born in the Rift to a pair of time-walkers, fourteen years ago. I'm twenty-eight. I've mastered the Chiloon Rift's monolith and held the Orb of Passage. I've taken a karking shower in that time-pool on that nameless world in the Maw - I bet you know the one - and I'm still human. I don't want your power; I want you to use your power. My family shouldn't be the price, because your reasoning doesn't apply to me. Sure, I'm a human, not an Aing-Tii - but I am more than one thing.

"All people believe themselves to be exceptions."

Then decide for yourselves whether I'm exceptional.

"Do you think that would change the price we ask? We are not Jedi."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

So I'm less than you think I am, and less than my representation of myself. I'm not in a position to betray my cause for the life you gave Car'das. You said he needed help, and you asked for his life in return. I think what he wanted was life - I think that was what he needed. I think he was dying, and that would make sense of your price. But I am not dying, and going back through the Rift wouldn't kill me. I could endure. Ask a price of help for another, not a price of life. Something you need done, somewhere you can't go.

"Those days are behind us. Those means are no longer necessary."

What if I told you that there are slavers on this side of the Kathol Sector? Far enough in that you would be noticed -- and you've had enough of being noticed, haven't you? What if I told you that they torture and main and alter their captives, trade them like tools?

"We sense you shading the truth."

Not by much.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Demonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294

"I can admit that."

I think your translator's getting better. Either that or you're in my head.

"We are not."

I kind of wish you were. I wouldn't have to convince you of this much.

"You would be surprised at how much thought and resolve are formed by the act of speaking."

We're going in circles. Alternate proposal. You come with me, my crew, and my ship back to Yvara. I leave my ship and those of my crew who want to stay on Yvara, and you give me and the other two hundred of us a ride to anywhere you prefer on the other side of the Rift. I find a new ship to get my people home.

"And what would we get in return for this lesser boon?"

You said that quickly. Maybe you were waiting for me to get there; well, fair enough. Half of you look like you're sprouting spider legs, so I'm doing my best to keep it together. You would get the satisfaction of doing the right thing, and a pledge to do something about the slavers I mentioned.

"Without your ship?"

I'm resourceful. Besides, I have something I can trade for a new ship, if you have a spare cargo hold.

"Yes, we sensed the docking appendages of the Rift construct. Unpleasant to carry, but not impractical. Why did you not do something about the slavers yourself? Your mission, or something more?"

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Dragonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294



You know there was something more. Uukaablis -- the healer planet -- was right in the way of potential retaliation.

"Has that changed?"

It hasn't, but I have. A hundred and thirty days in the Kathol Rift will do that to you. Puts things in perspective. Strips away inhibitions. It's not that I don't care about Uukaablis, gentlemen or ladies or whatever you are -- it's that I don't intend to leave these people the means to retaliate at all. You've dished out enough wholesale slaughter that I know you know what I'm talking about.

"What sort of ship do you expect to find in the Kathol?"

Whatever I can. I might be able to barter for a good one in the Kathol Republic.

"Will they sell to you, and risk implicating themselves as your supporters?"

Maybe not.

"And we cannot take you as far as the place you call Pembric, or beyond the Marcol Void."

Understandable. I doubt most of those people believe you exist.

"So how do you propose to hold up your end of the bargain?"

Are you saying we have a bargain?

"So long as the ship and crew you leave at Yvara have instructions to leave certain regions of the Rift alone, yes. Your compromise is acceptable. If you can prove you have a practical way to do what you have pledged to do."

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Dragonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294

My first hope is the Kathol Republic, as I said. The Sapellans might have a ship to sell, and they're two powers away from the Qektoth -- the slave-takers and torturers. Frankly, I might even be able to strike a deal with the Pimbrellan League -- they're even farther, and they have more ships. They don't have much use for me, but they might give quite a bit to get their hands on the Rift construct's technology. And if push comes to shove, I'm sure I can find something on Pembric or Gandle Ott.

"Those places are weeks away from the enemy you have named. If the Kathol Republic declines, for the reasons you have mentioned, the others are not practical."

Well, Exocron's in crisis and turned me away.

"Exocron will find stability again. But you are correct: it is not a viable option."

Then there's only one place I can go to get a ship capable of taking on the Qektoth and rescuing their prisoners.

"Where?"

You.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Aing-Tii Sanhedrim Ship
Dragonsgate Orbit
Kathol Rift
Day 294

"As you said, visibility is not tenable at this juncture."

I doubt I said it quite like that, but your ships vary in appearance, pretty widely. A good coat of matte paint would go a long way toward disguising your involvement.

"A coat of...paint."

Sure, your travel method's a bit distinctive, but I'm positive I can pick up a bulk freighter hyperdrive on Danoor and strap it in.

"Our weapons are also distinctive."

Only people that see'em are going to be dead.

"What of the slaves?"

Like they give slaves a room with a view.

"You would require months or years to learn to use one of our ships."

Friend, I've flown just about everything. Like I said, I was born to this.

"One moment. A bold play, Engine Grease, but we will not be giving you a Sanhedrim ship, with or without...paint."

Fair enough. It was worth a shot. I suppose I could try and scrounge up something on Danoor. They've got enough university outposts there that it could be a good place to unload the appendages, get enough funds to put together something with teeth. Danoor doesn't have much along those lines, but it's doable. And if it's not, I buy as many weapons as I can find, then finagle my way to an Uukaablian ship. No weapons, but heavy shields, good defensive tech. From there it's a matter of-

"We are satisfied you have thoroughly considered your options and have a true intent to uphold the bargain."

Ah.

"Return to Yvara at the earliest opportunity. Demon's Gate is sacred ground. Already too many have come here seeking the white metal, and many have died for their troubles."

...how many, exactly?

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Peregrine-class armed freighter 'Alec Aday'
Demonsgate System
Kathol Rift
Day 295

The Sanhedrim ships are watching us like hawkbats. Made sure we left, made sure we didn't waste time in ripping the guts out of the mining ships they've destroyed. We've got a good bit of phrik ore and ingots -- nothing earthshaking, but enough to barter along with the tech samples. The Aing-Tii steadfastly refuse to transport ore, so we'll spend three days smelting and casting it over Yvara. Then the 'Alec Aday' will land close to the fort, we'll say our goodbyes, and we'll all make our decisions. Truth be told, I'm gambling. I don't know how many will come back with me, even though the Aing-Tii have promised to take us through the Rift much more quickly than a hyperdrive could manage. This little Underground redoubt, this last chance storage spot, will be alone for a long while, and I don't know if they understand that, the ones we'll be leaving behind. My gut says there'll be more than enough for a skeleton crew, which doesn't leave me an awful lot to work with once we reach Danoor. The Aing-Tii have decided they don't want to enter Kathol Republic space. Fair enough.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Shipless
City of Eror Zeen
Danoor, Nah'Malis System (pop. 2.2 million)
Day 299

They flat-out teleported us into the middle of the city. Right there in a market square with a few dozen tons of alien biotech tentacles and crude phrik ingots. So much for visibility -- but I suppose nobody cares about Danoor.

Through our comm relays, I've verified that the Kathol Republic is not in a position to supply us with a warship to attack the Qektoth Confederacy. This isn't especially surprising. What does surprise me is that I have a good two hundred fifty men and women, including the Sebiri scouts and the Yvarema. Two hundred fifty solid crew, plus the proceeds from the phrik ingots and the tentacles -- the former sold at local cost to prospectors who would rather not risk the Rift, and the latter sold to various eager university outposts. That's enough working capital to start putting something together. About seventy-five of my crew are locals, and most say they'll be sticking with us, so I've set them and the other locals to work mining their contacts for a ship worth having.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Shipless
City of Eror Zeen
Danoor, Nah'Malis System (pop. 2.2 million)
Day 299

Top two priorities here: armor and cap drains. The Qektoth weapons either do disproportionate damage against shields or ignore them entirely, so we're going for an armor tank fit, plus enough cap drains to negate their disabling weapons. That's a tall order, and beggers can't be choosers, but it is what it is.

The Exocron unrest has turned out to be a bit of a blessing. Former Moross Crusade ships are around -- some very much operational and very much wanted by their current owners, others less so. There's a run-down Ithari Swarm Frigate I've got my eye on, but even a skeleton crew is a hundred fifty bodies I don't have. Half-tempted to dig some rusted hulks out of the ground or strap saddles to the dragons at Shatuun. Selection isn't great here, but I don't want to try and arrange passage for two hundred fifty to take our chances with the pacifist Uukaablians. Besides, the Uukaablians shield tank.

I miss the Peregrine. I miss it a lot.