Where I Live Now (Expedition to the Kathol Rift)

[Ashin Varanin]

Shipless
City of Eror Zeen
Danoor, Nah'Malis System (pop. 2.2 million)
Day 301

I couldn't put it off any longer. Gave a full report via comm relay, had a talk with Merrill -- past plenty of static and lag -- and he's left the decisions in my hands. That could have gone much worse. The Underground has a decent small-scale foothold and support network in the Kathol Republic, but not remotely enough to get a warship. Enough to get my crew out to Pembric or Kal'Shebbol, maybe, but the bulk of them are in this for the long haul. They know the Aing-Tii saved them another trip through the Rift, and they agreed to the deal too. Plus they've seen the data from Qu'mock -- they know what the Qektoth do with their prisoners. Medical experimentation is the most sanitized way of talking about atrocity I've ever...

Well, bottom line, they're motivated and I'm keeping them in pay. See, I could pay for an extra couple hundred crew, enough to get an old Ithari running at skeleton levels, but then I couldn't pay for the Ithari. And I'm not about to steal it. I've made enough poor opinions of me in this sector already, and that could bite us in the collective rear at just the wrong moment.

I can buy a ship or I can hire more crew. What I can't do is find a decent ship that can be run by the crew I currently have. And what I really can't do is wait until attrition saps our funds. At least there's plenty of armor plate available, and we've found cap drains.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Shipless
City of Eror Zeen
Danoor, Nah'Malis System (pop. 2.2 million)
Day 302

Another candidate -- a corvette. Ambassador-class, the Nexu knockoffs the Republic uses; Moross had some of them too, it seems. Between optimal crew and passenger space, I could fit about eighty of my people aboard. Faster hyperdrive than that big old Moross ship, though. Might be worthwhile if I can find another two or three ships about the same size.

I'm starting to get the distinct feeling I may have to do something desperate.


Day 303

I've found us a ship. It doesn't belong to us, it's not for sale, it's fully armed and operational, and it's as close to perfect as we're going to get. It's a Guillotine escort frigate, the kind the old Imperial Remnant used to make about ten years back, crew requirement perfect for us. The Atrisian Empire started making them, then I think the Fringe picked them up -- bottom line, it's a little surprising but not all that much. Defunct governments' ships get spread pretty far afield, and nobody cares much about one escort frigate.

Except the man who owns it.

I get one chance at this. This ship is emphatically not for sale. It's not exactly his pride and joy, but I wouldn't be surprised if it ranked right up there. Force, I'm nervous. It's a goal thing: no matter what, I'm not coming out of that estate without the deed and the keys. I'm going to keep audio recording, in case of blackmail material -- I'll switch to a low-profile pendant recorder, the kind the Underground uses.

We'll see how it goes.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Shipless
City of Eror Zeen
Danoor, Nah'Malis System (pop. 2.2 million)
Day 304

"All right, she's clear. You can go in now, miss."

Captain. Captain Alexa Rekali.

"As you say, ma'am. Mr. Videk is in his study."

*door opening and closing*

"Captain Rekali, a pleasure."

Call me Alec, Mr. Videk. Please.

"Alec, then. My friends call me Voldimyr. Please -- have a seat. Can I get you anything?"

Whatever you're having.

*glasses clink*

*murmured formality*

*coughing*

I haven't had a starchaser that sharp since Point Nadir. Lovely stuff.

"Oh, you've visited Point Nadir? One of my favorite ports of call. The docks there never sleep. Starships in and out from every corner of the galaxy."

I was one of them; maybe we met.

"I would remember, Alec."

I do aim for memorable. Then again, nothing makes you forget like a shadowport.

"True enough, true enough. Another?"

Yes, thank you.

"You seem on edge. Trouble, yes?"

You're well-informed. I'm sure you heard how my crew and I arrived.

"Memorable is the word."

I'm not likely to forget striking a bargain with the Aing-Tii.

"Just as I'm not likely to forget the mountain of phrik and xenotech that appeared beside you."

All liquidated now, of course. Not exactly something I can carry in my purse. If I'd known you then, I might have come to you.

"Who can change the past?"

*glasses clinking*

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Shipless
City of Eror Zeen
Danoor, Nah'Malis System (pop. 2.2 million)
Day 304

"I understand you are looking for a ship. This bargain you struck must not have been very advantageous if your ship was left at the other end of the Rift."

With a good portion of my crew, too. A loss all around. The more I bargained, the worse it got. But yes, Voldimyr, I'm looking for a ship. Something capable, tasteful, requiring a crew of two or three hundred. I had my eye on that Ithari Swarm Frigate that Denine is selling-

"Bah. Pay what he wants and your men will starve."

My thoughts exactly. And I've found a corvette, but it's too small - I would need another three just like it to keep my men employed.

"Is Republic dren anyway. Another?"

Thank you. I'm told you're looking at upgrading from the Machin Shin to something more capable.

"I see. Who told you this?"

Mello Barnan was speculating over drinks, nothing more, but it made sense to me. Especially considering you've got enough leverage on Denine through his ag holdings to make that Ithari a practical buy. Your operations upstream, after all...

"I have captained the Machin Shin into the Kathol Rift four times, Alec. You understand what this means, I think. To sell her would be like cutting off this hand. Another?"

Thank you. I do understand -- I do. So you know that I would never approach you about it unless I was prepared to give you an offer that would mean something to you.

"We've just met, Alec."

Then let's hope I've got the measure of you.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Shipless
City of Eror Zeen
Danoor, Nah'Malis System (pop. 2.2 million)
Day 304

*glass clinking*

*murmurs*

"This offer you mention. I hope you would never center it on anything as crass as money."

Only what might help offset the cost of that Moross cruiser, Voldimyr, if it sparks your fancy. Like you've guessed, the heart of the offer is something else entirely.

"And what is that, Alec?"

Three parts. Four, counting the cash. You do business with the Uukaablians; you even trade as far as Sebiris, judging by the totem on your bodyman's collar. You've been doing business a long time; you're well-established in this sector. My guess, my strong guess, is that you've had pain along the way. Lost ships and crews near Qektoth space from time to time; everyone does. What I do with the Machin Shin is not going to be suicidal or wasteful, but it will cause the Qektoth pain. Extreme pain.

"I see. Another?"

Please. The second part is the nav data I recorded in the Rift. Current to within a matter of weeks, all the way to Dragonsgate.

"You made it so far?"

We did. I believe that would have value for your prospectors, for their safety.

"A worthy and surprising gift."

Then part three is going to blow you away.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
Danoor, Nah'Malis System (pop. 2.2 million)
Day 305

We're broke, but there's gas in the tank, charge in the guns, food pulp in the dispensers, and we're all aboard. Force, I could sleep for a week. Two days should get the extra armor and cap drains installed. The Maelstrom bays are empty, but we've got a full raft of intruder missiles. The Qektoth aren't the only people that can punch through shields. What we don't have, what I want badly, is capital-grade ion cannons. I think the Uukaablians have some -- they like nonlethal weapons -- but whether they'll sell to us is another matter.

We're set; we have a ship again. The trip to Uukaablia will have to be our shakedown cruise, and I'll run drills throughout until we know this ship backwards and forwards.

Force, I karked a crime lord for this ship. I straight-up bartered myself. I'm not one for lines, but that one was asking not to be crossed. But here we are.

Here we are.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
Uukaablis
Day 319

The Uukaablian authorities have somehow or other cleared us to purchase better shield generators -- modulated to work better against Qektoth weapons -- and capital-grade ion cannons. For time's sake, it's a rush job, fitting the cannons into the Maelstrom bays and just swapping out the generators. The whole thing will take a week, and that's pushing my people hard. They still say they haven't seen Qektoth ships, and if they're telling the truth that means the Qektoth have a way past Uukaablis.

Also, we were already pretty much broke. A copy of our nav data, including the Exocron situation, covered a couple of the ions. The rest? Selling the intruder missiles. Turns out the Uukaablis really like weapons that just break shield generators, and frankly, they might not have been all that great against the Qektoth. Not with that cyclical flanking mess going on. Qektoth shield technology is terrible; they just don't prioritize shields, since they can punch through most of them. No, what makes the difference will be the ions, both in combat and in terms of diversifying our assets. Qektoth ships aren't that good, but outfitted with Uukaablian shields they might be worth quite a bit. I don't just aim to take a chunk out of the Qektoth with this ship (though we haven't told the Uukaablians we're headed in). I aim to turn their ships and their test subjects against them, if at all possible.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
Qu'mock Outer System, Qektoth Confederacy
Day 322

We're about two hundred AU from the system primary, taking passive speed-of-light scans of the system. That's a fifty-five-hour delay, but more than enough to get a handle on major movements and patrol patterns. I'm counting on Qektoth technology being insufficient to picking up a reversion that far outsystem, detecting our approach in hyperspace, or being able to calculate a microjump. That's educated guesswork based on intel from the Uukaablians, who've been next door to the Qektoth for centuries.

Keeping shields up and weapons charged. Could be very wrong.

The other purpose of this distance is to monitor movements in the fifty-five hours before any possible alert changed their patterns. We're discerning jump points and vectors to other Qektoth worlds, and making educated guesses based on brute-force astrography. With luck, we'll be able to guess where their evacuations will go, where their reinforcements will arrive, and what's on the other side, all before we get into battle.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
Qu'mock Outer System, Qektoth Confederacy
Day 324

Tense two and a half days, but nothing. We appear to be far enough outsystem that their sensors can't detect us, or else they've decided not to get baited away from their stations. We have a firm picture of their patrol setup and their jump points. Now, if they can detect us and if they have any kind of a brain between them, they know we know. They have the option to change everything but the jump points and vectors, so they'll fortify those as well as the research stations. But they don't have the ships to fortify both, so they'll have called for reinforcements by now.

We've been navigating the Kathol Rift for months together. Unlike them, we are capable of a microjump.

This one's about ten light-hours. It should put us on the other side of the system, directly on one of their exit vectors to a secondary world, but too far to intercept. We've plotted an approximate course to the only system it can be -- four light-years out. Hit-and-run, and the only place we can run is farther on. There's a good chance Qu'mock is about to get unpleasant, if it isn't already.

We'll pulse the active FTL sensors before microjump. It'll give away our position, confirm our guesses about their current patterns, and maybe draw them away from where they are.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
System unknown, designation Q2
Qektoth Confederacy
Day 326

We made it to the next system safely. They'd fortified the jump points and the stations, but we weren't followed to the system we've labelled Q2. Our guess is that they're guessing two things: that our ship is bait to lead them out of position to handle a larger force, and that their other systems' defenses can rally to catch and kill us. The problem with that is that they don't appear to have Class One hyperdrives, and we do.

They'd rallied two cruisers, like the ones we encountered near Shatuun. Very small number of very powerful guns. Once again, our shields didn't do much -- but between the extra armor and the cap drains, we acquitted ourselves pretty well. We destroyed one outright and disabled the better of them, then cleaned out the crew the hard way and stripped out the weapons. Didn't take long: your average Qektoth cruiser appears to have only four weapons emplacements. Turreted. Someone explain that one to me.

We detonated the hulk and we're making for a system we've labelled Q3. A pair of ships scrambled through a jump, and we think we've nailed down the system they're bound for. Main sequence star, three light-years away. We're going to leave a probe with FTL sensors as a rear warning.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
System unknown, designation Q4
Qektoth Confederacy
Day 329

That was too close. It was a good trap, I'll give them that. Q3 turns out to be a defensive hub; its main world has planetary shields. All the way out here, planetary shields. Also about a thousand years' worth of junked, recycled, repaired and new orbital defenses. That was the anvil; the cruisers and starfighters tried to be the hammer. We had to blitz outsystem at flank speed, shoot two wings of starfighters off our backs, and estimate a jump based on local astrography and customs station orientations. Under the planetary shield, there was something...wrong with the world. We're still analyzing our sensor data, but the biomass involved is...look, I swear you can see the planet's surface trying to move.

Casualty report: fourteen dead, ten injured. No serious systems damage, but we'll need to patch up our armor sooner rather than later. We disabled a cruiser out here in Q4 and stripped the stranger bits of tech. There's all kinds of compatibility problems to overcome, but we're still in business.

Got a relay signal from our people in the Kathol Republic. All normal. The witch envoy finally made it back into the fold; her report is interesting reading. She's brought more witches, and they're doing something with...well, frankly, I can't make heads or tails of it, and my whole family is witches.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
System unknown, designation Q4
Qektoth Confederacy
Day 330

We're now reasonably sure that these four systems comprise the entire Qektoth Confederacy. That would fit the local scale for power -- that's all the Pimbrellans have been able to carve out of the Outback, and the Kathol Republic isn't all that much larger, really. One order of magnitude, no more. We think we have a straight shot at Qu'mock, and we're between it and the capital at Q3. Both of which have flotillas that could kill us.

They haven't hit us yet, and that means they're wary of our microjump capability...or that there's a third route out of this system, and they think we may have discovered it. We're combing astrographic data and sensor intercepts from when we first got here. Maybe we missed something. Or maybe they just don't want to be drawn out of position. There's something else going on out here; I can feel it.

The doctors have reported some success with the prisoners we rescued from the two disabled Qektoth ships. Medical test subjects laced with biotech implants. Not pretty stuff, but it gives us some insight into how the Qektoth technology works at a micro level. If we get back to Uukaablis, our hope is that they'll be able to explain some of our dilemmas.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
Uukaablis
Day 339

A lot of summarizing to be done. A flotilla came through Q4, but we weren't the primary target -- they were on their way to Qu'mock, and apparently meant to sweep us up along the way. We made a jump to Qu'mock, the only way we could go, and we found out what the Qektoth were fortifying against.

The Aing-Tii showed up after all.

Five Sanhedrim ships and the Machin Shin against thirty Qektoth cruisers, and they never even breached our hull. Aing-Tii weapons really are distinctive -- the monk was understating things. Flowers of energy that just shredded ships, tore them apart. I'm willing to bet serious money that prisoners were vanishing from those ships as they were destroyed. The research stations decreased in biomass and life signs by an awful lot too, and the ships never laid a hand on them. No wonder they didn't want to give me a Sanhedrim ship. Force, those things are absolutely terrifying.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
Uukaablis
Day 339

And what did the monks do with all those test subjects? Well, most, anyway. Who knows what deals the others made, or what lives some of them chose. We're back at Uukaablis now, coordinating salvage efforts to strip out the hulks from the Qu'mock system. Our wounded and the rescued test subjects -- thousands of them -- are undergoing treatment here; Uukaablian doctors really are second to none. I've hired on several of them, or rather they approached me. Not all of them are constrained by their civilization's pacifism. It was never innate, either, just a reaction to a bad mutual-assured-destruction scare and a bioweapons plague. Some of them want to see the galaxy; some like us enough to support our cause. That is, however, a very tiny minority.

In a very real sense, the mission is done. We have relay points, bolt-holes, resources and local allies from Kal'Shebbol to Demonsgate. Our obligation to the Aing-Tii is discharged, or at least that's how I interpret them leaving without a word. I wish I knew why they changed their minds. Maybe the one I spoke with didn't have as much authority as he pretended, or maybe popular opinion grew once I told them the Qektoth were up to their old atrocities again. Or maybe this was just another test.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
Uukaablis
Day 349

Repairs and refits complete. Our crew complement is at full strength again -- four hundred fifty, only a hundred fifty of which were on the Alec Aay when we left Kal'Shebbol. A lot of faces I'll never see again. I try to remember them. Went through all their pictures once; never doing that again.

So. Refits. Some of these Qektoth weapons are crude but decent. Others are just plain terrifying. I'd heard Santhe/Sienar has plasma cannons that can circumvent deflector shields, and these Qektoth guns are the same but capital-scale. Our ship doesn't have the power generation problems of their technology, even if it's just a standard solar ionization reactor. The Qektoth had one good thing and a lot of bad.

We've got Uukaablian shields, too, on top of the armor. This ship is something else. It started out ridiculously fast, and the added mass and power requirements have dropped our acceleration capacity, but we hit hard, we take a punch, and then we take the next hundred punches too. Almost makes me forget what I did to get here.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
Dayark
Kathol Republic
Day 366

We passed the year mark on the road from Uukaablis. Had a little party, but deferred most of it a week or so with the promise of shore leave on Dayark. Uukaablis is nice enough, but we only took perfunctory rest. Too much to do, and too alien for most of us to be terribly comfortable. At least not as comfortable as we would have liked.

But Dayark...this place is halfway to perfect. I've set up rotating shore leave, and plenty of it. Two weeks; we've earned two weeks. Sold some of the Qektoth tech to the Kathol Republic leadership, and everyone got a bonus. In two weeks, there'll be a lot of rich sabacc dealers, dancers, chefs and gun shop owners on Dayark. I've even arranged short-range interplanetary travel for folks who want to visit the other Kathol Republic worlds. This drizzly, dull, beautiful city is what I need, but who am I to say what the rest of us need? Our Uukaablian doctors and Danoor spacers are especially interested. 'To think this was all just a couple of weeks away.' That kind of thing. Just wait until they see Kal'Shebbol...or Coruscant.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Guillotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
Dayark
Kathol Republic
Day 380

I don't want to go.

I mean, have I broken myself? I still want to go fight and steal and all the rest; I still like the Underground and the Exchange. But the thought of trekking back to Kal'Shebbol, then down the Rimma, fills me with something like disgust or dread. It makes me tired. Two weeks of shore leave wasn't long enough. I've made...local friends. Gambled, drank, fought, made money. I've been me again for two weeks, generally far away from my crew. I've slept past noon, gained five pounds, bought a lot of clothes. Taken naps.

Tonight I'm sending out the word. We're leaving in two more days, and we're not coming back. Not as one ship, anyway. Not together.

We talk with the people we left on Yvara, via the Lifeline network. They've started farming. No troubles with the Aing-Tii, and some of them are even taking shuttles out into the Rift to confront their fears and see what else there is to see. I can tell some of them regret staying, feel like cowards, but I can't really do anything to fix that. I wish I could make time work for me. Maybe I should have dragged them out.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Gullotine-class escort frigate Machin Shin
Sapella
Day 398

Stopped off at Sapella, not that we need supplies, but just to shore up contacts and do a little maintenance on the relays. The Sapellans were glad to see us. No trouble on the Pimbrellan League front; word has preceded us, see. The Sapellans and Pimbrellans know that we tackled the Qektoth to the ground. They only have rumors about Aing-Tii involvement, which I've confirmed in confidence.

And the best part? We don't have to go anywhere near the Pimbrellan league. We can just take the Galtea Run.


Pembric II
Day 420

Now we're getting back into proper galaxy-edge shadowport territory. Stocked up on consumables, let the kids out to play a little, mostly to link up with the networks of contacts we established over a year ago. Our people are solid, really solid. Not a lot else to say. We're getting more news from the outside; the fight's going well, and my people are anxious to join in.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Kal'Shebbol
Day 435

It's done.

We've lost...well, we've lost a lot. How to count them, though? The dead? The few who deserted? The ones who stayed behind as scouts or local recruiters or at the Yvara fort? The injured that will never be healed all the way? We're already forgetting them, and that's terrible. And who do we count as us -- the Danoori, the Sebiri, the Yvarema, the Uukaablians, the Qektoth prisoners who came with us? Have we forged our own culture here, out of people who'll likely never see their homes again? We stopped by Sebiris -- it was the least we could do -- but what a hollow gesture. Really. Our Sebiri crewers in their uniforms with their fluent Basic and their sidearms, meeting their tribes again...maybe there was more joy in it than I could see, but I can't help feeling I've broken something to build something.

But in the end, it's done, and i have to believe that's all that matters.

 

[Ashin Varanin]

Karideph
Minos Cluster
Rimma Trade Route
The Galaxy Proper
Day 453

Setting course down the Rimma Trade Route. We'll make the long loop down the straightaway, then head out to the Underground's Silk contacts to deliver the tech. And the ship, most likely -- there's an awful lot of things the Underground engineers are curious about. We're heading over to the Mara Corridor to the Drogheda yards for analysis. At least they're not asking us to go all the way to Rebellion Actual, in the Unknown Regions, on the other side of the galaxy.

Things have changed since we first hit Kal'Shebbol. This Vitae Alliance has sprung up; the Rebel Alliance has territory now. I wonder if Corruck Kazen is still running their intel department. I remember teaching him basic tradecraft. Maybe I should shoot him a call; the man had excellent hair. Then there's ACA territory, and then there's the Red Ravens incursion. The maps aren't what they used to be. Not remotely. The galaxy seems like a strange place after sixteen months gone. It's not central anymore, and the Kathol Outback isn't peripheral anymore. There's a very decent chance that, for all its flaws, it's home now. Even if we'll never see home again.