Many people assume that life on the frontier – away from the Coalition – is lawless and brutal. Nothing could be further from the truth. While some places are dens of criminal activity, even those have standards and procedures that they live by. Collectively, the various worlds do speak to one another and negotiate terms and treaties. These are ephemeral and oft-broken compared to the agreements backed by the Coalition… but they do serve to give these supposedly ‘lawless’ places some stability, and many spend their entire lives there without incident.
– A History of the Coalition: The Modern Era
Things had already been moving fast when Pan boarded the ship. That had been a moment, for the young gobling… setting foot onto the cool metal of the floor, feeling the faint shift in gravity thanks to the artificial gravity beneath. He’d picked up a little knowledge about how these things worked just from keeping his ears open in the bar when he worked evenings, but experiencing it was completely different.
The idea that he was finally leaving behind the home he’d known for his entire life, merely because he’d witnessed a brutal murder by ideological zealots, was a lot to process. The zealotry didn’t worry him too much now – after all, Sallus had said it plainly. He had maybe six months before he died, and there’s not much he could do in that time. If some weird cult needed him to work in their galley during that time, it was better than rotting alive while trying to avoid being cuffed by a half-drunken barkeep.
At least, he hoped that was the case.
Sallus had not bothered to hide her irritation when she strode off further into the ship, leaving Pan with the rest of the cultists. The whole situation had been very confusing, but he’d been shuffled into a medical bay before anything else, where he’d sat and waited… while his stomach did a flip.
Pan felt the motion start before the inertial compensation kicked in, a brief moment of vertigo threatening to make him lose his lunch. He clapped a hand to his mouth, ears wilting as the uneasy feeling lingered well past the actual motion. If anything, the lurch in direction followed by sudden stability had made it worse.
“That feeling will pass. It’s always worst at the start.”
The voice came from a slender male elf, a pair of thin spectacles perched on his nose. He was dressed like the rest of the cultists, in casual but durable clothes that looked hand-stitched. Pan had always imagined starship crews looking more sleek and wearing uniforms, or some kind of synthetic. Then again, maybe the elf hadn’t had time to change?
“Uh…” Pan wasn’t sure what to say. He’d briefly seen this man when the cultists rendezvoused with the rest of their number, but had no idea why he was here in the medical bay. He thumped his heels on the side of the bed he was sitting on and tilted his head. “Hello.”
A light smile passed over the elf’s face. “You must be the new cook. I’m Filo, the ship’s doctor. Relax, I’m just going to do a quick physical and see if I can find a good treatment for you.”
This was surreal for Pan. He’d never had anyone actually try to help him, and it seemed strange, to him, that they’d bother with his comfort when he was just a random goblin-elf hybrid orphan. Did they need a galley cook that badly? He wasn’t even a professional chef or anything. “Why?”
Filo was already examining him much like Sallus had, tilting Pan’s head to the side and checking the color of his ears, while taking pulse and other simple metrics. The elf pauses and raised an eyebrow. “Why… what?”
Pan sat back and held out his arm, still watching the elf. “Why are you treating me? I’m not even a part of your cult.”
“Mm, I’m not a member of the cult, either.” Filo paused and frowned at something he found, then continued his examination. “Why I’m here is a bit of a long story, but Sallus keeps her tools in working condition.”
The gobling’s ears lowered again when the elf said that. “You know she just shot a crew member dead, right?” He vividly remembered the warmth from the backflash of the shot that had killed Therna. He suppressed a shiver and tried to change the topic. “I’m not sure anything can be done.”
“I heard, yes,” Filo confirmed with a sigh. “If that bothers you, she will let you go. Though I believe we are already well underway.” The elf frowned again as he straightened up. “As for your condition… very little research has been done on prenatal effects of these drugs. Anything I do try would be a guess, at best.. Given your leakage, controlled dosage of diluted quintessence might fight off the symptoms. What symptoms are you having?”
Pan blinked, “We’ve already left? Is that what that lurch was?” His stomach did another flip, but he fought it down. No going back now, he told himself. “Ah… when I do too much my joints and muscles start to burn, and I’m too weak to do anything for days after. Healing takes a lot longer for me, too. I have to be really careful about infections.”
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“Adding more mana will alleviate the symptoms, but you will only die faster.”
The voice was a low, rumbling, throaty voice, and Pan jerked upright when he heard it, glancing around even though he knew it came from the intercom.
Filo was less surprised, but Pan thought he saw the elf twitch at the voice. He addressed the air calmly. “Interesting. And what grounds do you have to make that statement? I was under the impression you were uninterested in the physiology of us.”
“I am not interested. Halfbreeds like this one were left to die in my time. I do know mana circuits and flow, and that is sufficient. Providing him with extra mana will alleviate the problem of his reduced flow, but the leakage will cause long-term damage to his body. He will be active, but die faster.”
“Hmm. That does make sense.” Filo rubbed his chin. “I suppose the best thing will be to avoid any strenuous activity, for now.”
Pan looked around again. “Um… thank you, I guess?” He wasn’t sure how to take the comment about being left to die. He’d heard it said before, but never with such straightforward lack of malice, especially followed by advice that kept him from dying. “Can you tell me how long I have left?”
“No.”
Filo put a hand on the gobling’s shoulder. “Until it progresses further, I will not know either. Perhaps a year, if you do not strain yourself.” He sighed, “Do not mind Apex. He believes he is a dragon and pays us little attention. Somehow, Sallus has put his mind into this ship.”
“I am shaped like a dragon, perhaps you should drop this fiction that I am not.”
The grumpy tone made Pan squeak and shrink down slightly. “Eheh… he has a point, Doctor Filo…”
That comment made Filo pause, and then chuckle. “I suppose that is true. Well, young man. Shall we get you to your cabin?”
“We need to talk.”
The words from Sallus cut into Apex’s thoughts, pulling him out of his pondering.
Sallus had cleared the bridge of everyone but herself, and stood patiently with arms crossed. Irritation rose up in the dragon’s thoughts, but he suppressed it for now. He also had questions.
“You are angry about the docks.” Apex didn’t bother to guess, as it was the only thing that made sense.
He saw her jaw clench, but she controlled her anger well, relaxing into her more basic, cold statement after a moment. “Yes. You are a Great Dragon, and I foolishly assumed you would be able to handle a simple instruction like staying still long enough for us to get what we needed. It’s fortunate that we found Pan, and he had information that lead us to the routes. You could have ruined the whole plan.”
She twisted her lips into a smirk. “Though I liked how you handled the shakedown. I would have preferred that you speak to me first before doing that, but I really can’t blame you on that one.”
A digitized sigh escaped Apex. “I dislike hiding myself. The universe should fear my return…” He paused after trailing off. “But I understand it. I am weak now, and need time to learn this body and the ways of this time. My momentary movement was due to the Soul Processor restarting. It left me disoriented.”
The explanation immediately changed Sallus’s composure. “It restarted? Is it damaged? That part cannot be replaced, if it is malfunctioning we need to find the problem now.”
“You may relax,” Apex rumbled. “I overstressed it. I have examined the processor and it is undamaged, although it raises more questions than I would like. How did you come by such an artifact? Its design is far different from the rest of my body, and the techniques are unfortunately unfamiliar to me.”
Sallus dropped herself into a seat and took a breath, calming herself. “That is a very long story. I myself have only a little experience with necromancy, that is why it is impossible to replace. The original architect is… not available. But it is based on the texts and designs from a book that I acquired.”
She looked at the camera. “I do not have the book right now, it is in a safe place. I have some suspicions about it, but I think it best not to voice them until I am sure.”
As ominous as that was, Apex had his own questions that were more immediate. “I see you have fed coordinates for an Etherspace jump. What exactly is the plan for this? You have resurrected me with the intention of helping you kill your own heroes, which is strange but I can shrug off. Then you brought on board some cultists who do not even believe in your cult, and a small halfbreed that is as good as dead.”
The elf tensed again, her eyes narrowed. “Don’t call him a halfbreed. Hybrid, if you must.” The low voice had a sudden venom in it, for that moment, but when she continued the tone was absent. “I’m not completely heartless, Apex, even if this task I have forces me to set aside my empathy most of the time. I’d have felt guilty killing him when he’d done nothing wrong. He’s a victim of the very system I intend to tear down.”
She twirled her finger in the air. “Also, he is useful to me. Aside from being able to cook – which the entire crew wants – he has a terminal disease brought upon by the very drugs that one of the thirteen heroes is involved in. We are keeping you hidden for now, but when the news breaks, what will the galaxy think when they hear that one of the most dismissed pieces of trash in their society helped bring about the death of a hero? That the ancient dragon is back, and has taken the side of the discarded and worthless?”
Apex growled deeply. “So he is useful as a symbol. I suppose that makes his death mean something. I know many of the Lesser Folk place great emphasis on that.”
He did not point out that she’d been perfectly fine with the damage he’d done to the docks. Hypocrisy was a well-known trait amongst elves.
“Exactly,” Sallus replied. “As for the plan, we have some routes. We know where some of these supplies are going, and where they’re coming from. Your job is to tear things apart. I will handle finding the hero. It has to be you that kills him.”
The dragon’s rumble reverberated through the room. “Your obsession with killing the thirteen heroes is useful, but you still have not told me why you hate them so. I do not believe for one moment that it is due to some idealogical goal you have. You are a woman of focus, Sallus. Moreso than I have seen in a long while.”
“The answer to that,” she replied with a scowl, “Takes only five words.”
Sallus sat up and turned her attention to the console before answering.
“Mind your own damn business.”
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Chapter 16: Renegade
Chapter 16: Renegade