The Stargazer's War - Chapter 3.1

Chapter 3.1: Into the Suns

Four days from our looming arrival at the Dragon’s Right Eye, I sat atop Lucy’s bridge contemplating impermanence.  My musings weren’t anything special—with all the meditating I do they can’t all be winners—but I found the process peaceful enough to justify the handful of hours I devoted to it each morning.  Lucy, being Lucy, could protect herself from the tiny meteors and bits of space debris that otherwise necessitated vacwelders, but I’d recently been blessed with another excuse to spend time outside.

Free!

A shadow darted through the air in front of me, visible only as a flash of sunslight reflected on black chitin as Ariel stretched their wings.  I grinned.  Free, I mentally agreed, sending the sensation along our familiar’s bond.  I usually preferred to speak to the hatchling void beast rather than sending vague vibes along our link, but for the time being I had a particularly good reason for going back on that preference.

Sound doesn’t travel in a vacuum, after all.

Voidforged iron body or otherwise, I did have to make some concessions to the practicalities space exposure.  I sat facing opposite Lucy’s path of travel, opting not to stare directly at the binary red dwarves that dominated an increasingly vast portion of the forward field of view.  My Vac Suit—the technique, not the polymer weave I hadn’t worn in months—kept the solar radiation at bay, leaving me strangely shadowed atop Lucy’s otherwise white and well-lit outer hull.  Of my normal spacewalking gear, only the mag boots remained on my person.  No amount of hardened skin or empowered muscles would stop me from drifting off into space.

My eyes flicked over to Ariel at the thought.  Micaiah and I had yet to decipher the mechanism behind their flight, though we’d certainly enjoyed bandying theories back and forth.  My money was on some kind of specialized qi-manipulating organ, though upon questioning I had to admit I couldn’t fathom how a biological adaption like that could possibly function with dark qi if inherited from a light qi parent.  As far as any of us could tell, the sigils for the two forms of qi bore practically no resemblance to each other.

A buzz in my left arm interrupted my musings as the haptics in my holopad—another concession to the lack of sound out here—demanded my attention.  I didn’t bother checking it.  I knew what the message would say.

Like clockwork, two sets of talons gently settled atop my left shoulder as Ariel ended their flight.

Hungry!

I smiled and gently stroked the back of their head, taking care to avoid the razor sharp edges of the chitin plates that made up Ariel’s plumage.  They accommodated me, keeping still enough to avoid any mishaps as I rose to my feet and clonked my way back to the airlock.  Only as the outer door sealed behind me and the air pumps pressured the chamber did I cease the flow of qi through my skin, muscle, sense, and lung meridians.

I kept my Vac Suit going, for comfort’s sake more than any practical reason.  I appreciated the extra layer of insulation between me and the qi-rich environment Lucy’s soulspace had been slowly becoming, and the others certainly didn’t complain about the steady flow of light qi my constant use of the technique generated.

My gaze flashed to a poster on the wall as I left the airlock, a familiar piece of bland corporate artwork conveying the symptoms of void-induced psychosis, an ever-present reminder that a consistent source of light qi was no mere convenience.

“If I’d known bonding a familiar would get you to eat lunch every day, I’d have recommended it sooner.”

“Hi, Lucy,” I replied.  “So that’s what I should’ve said to get you on board?  ‘Yes, I know you’re worried Ariel will spark some kind of void beast apocalypse, but they’ll also make sure I come to lunch?’”

“They are growing at an alarming rate,” Lucy said.

“Most animals do that when you give them enough food.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.”

“Sure, but by any reasonable standard I’m growing at an alarming rate.  Threads, so is Charlotte, and after all we’ve been through, I’d be surprised if Xavier’s far behind.”  I shook my head and patted Ariel’s.  “We’re linked.  Their cultivation is tied to mine.  I don’t think they can outpace me.”

“You think,” Lucy argued.  “We don’t know enough about live focuses to say anything definitive, and until we can get in contact with one of the witches in Tirros or someone else with a tradition of the practice, we can’t be sure of anything.”

I didn’t answer.  Truth be told, Ariel was growing incredibly quickly.  I could feel it in the weight on my shoulder.  A scarce few weeks had passed since their hatching and already they’d more than doubled in size, reaching just over a foot from tail to beak.  If their nest mates were anything to go by, they still had a long way to go, and that was assuming they wouldn’t outgrow their light qi kin with access to the infinite sea.

Certain types of void beasts could outgrow planets.

Unlike Lucy, a part of me wanted that for Ariel, to see them grow and excel and cast ripples into the still waters of eternity in stark defiance of their own smallness.  If I didn’t, I doubt we could’ve bonded in the first place.

For the second time that day I found my grandiose musings interrupted by the mundane reality of lunch.  Charlotte and Xavier had already arrived, sitting next to each other at the dining table as they awaited the tardier members of our party.  I greeted them as I took my seat across the table, chatting amiably as Ariel leapt from my shoulder to perch atop the backrest of the chair to my left.  

Moments later, tendrils of pale qi delivered our lunch—a turkey sandwich for me, a turkey sandwich for Charlotte, two turkey sandwiches for Xavier, and what appeared to be the rest of the package of turkey bare on a plate for Ariel.  The meals, of course, prompted the obvious question.

“Is Micaiah not joining us?” Charlotte voiced what we were all thinking.

“I extended the offer,” Lucy replied.  “She appears to be engrossed in her research.”

Charlotte scowled.  “She’s going to have to stop avoiding us eventually.”

“Avoiding you,” I corrected.  “I had breakfast with her this morning.”

“You rescued her from underground and got her to bronze.  Of course she likes you.”

“I also don’t visibly distrust her,” I snapped back.  “She’s not from the sects, Charlotte.  She wasn’t raised to backstab people over a scrap of qi.”

“Oh, don’t get me started on those anti-sect opinions of hers.  The Right Eye operates the way it does for a reason.  Iron sharpens iron.  Any suboptimal politicking would give the Left Eye enough of an edge to fully take over the system.”

“Really?”  I raised an eyebrow at her.  “Anti-sect?  That’s what you’re making this about?”

“Heh,” Xavier chuckled to himself.  “Sects-ism.”

Opting not to dignify that with a response, I kept going.  “We have to trust her eventually.  She’s already seen enough to land us in serious trouble if she went blabbing to the sects.  All that withholding now accomplishes is giving her more reason not to trust us.”

Venom laced Charlotte’s voice.  “Is that what she told you over breakfast this morning?”

I laughed, a short and sharp and sudden thing that cut more than softened.  “Please.  I’d like to think I’ve spent enough time hanging around you to pick up on manipulation that plain.  That you’d accuse me of all people of failing to think objectively just makes it funnier.  The math is simple.  Giving us up would be akin to taking the golden goose out back and shooting it.  The best way to keep Micaiah loyal is to make sure she understands what she has to lose by betraying us.”

I paused, my eyes locked in contact with Charlotte’s as we both withheld the obvious question, both refrained from so much as looking in Xavier’s direction lest we inadvertently communicate the thought we shared.  There was, after all, a way to find out.

Xavier, being Xavier, picked up on it.  He let out a sigh.  “She has a right to know how much danger she’s in.  We may have been her only choice for leaving Ilirian, but she deserves the chance to distance herself from us on the Right Eye if that’s what she wants.”

That was as close to a straight answer as I’d ever gotten from Xavier.  For all that Lucy and I very obviously knew his secret, he refused to admit it to either of us, forcing Charlotte to play the messenger whenever we had questions about Xavier’s foresight.  According to her, his reticence wasn’t because of something he’d seen, leaving trauma as the only explanation.  

I understood well enough.  If I’d spent my entire life hiding a secret that’d get me killed or worse the moment it ever got out, I’d also struggle to openly discuss it.  That he was willing to with Charlotte said something pretty profound about their relationship.  However much they fought, he trusted her at a subconscious level well past the intellectual.  It was sweet.

“Fine,” Charlotte finally gave.  “We tell her the truth.  Your truth.  That’s enough for her to grasp the risks of associating with us, and will at the very least let us give her free reign of the ship.  Lucy, can you—”

“She’s already on her way to the garden,” Lucy cut her off.  “I suggest you meet her there.”

I stood, tossing the remains of my sandwich in the organics recycler and depositing my plate in the dishwasher.  Charlotte, having finished her lunch, made straight for the door.  Xavier brought his second sandwich with him, eating as he walked.  Ariel stayed put, deeming the remaining turkey more important than letting Micaiah in on our galaxy-altering secret.  At least someone had their priorities straight.

“Lucy said you had something to show me?” Micaiah greeted us outside the locked garden door.  “I take it this has to do with Charlotte’s miraculous push to iron?”

Charlotte didn’t react.  Unlike some of us, she lacked the means to disguise her cultivation stage.  Everyone who saw her would know she’d hit iron, and anyone who did the tiniest bit of digging could realize she’d been copper less than a year ago.  Two advancements in a year wasn’t unheard of, but would certainly be considered prodigious for someone with access to the full wealth of the Right Eye, let alone someone hiding out on Ilirian without so much as a focus room.  

With any luck, anyone on the outside would figure Lucy had something to do with it.  Her very presence implied the kinds of resources the local sects couldn’t dream of.  Given the locked room, Micaiah probably assumed something similar.

“Something like that.”  I strode into the garden once Lucy unlocked the door, stepping right up to Nick’s apple tree one of its delicious, pale fruit.  I turned to Micaiah, taking some small pleasure in her befuddled expression.  “It’s easier to show you.  Here.  Try it.”  I handed her the apple.

She cocked an eyebrow at me, at the intertwined trees behind me, then at the apple.  She didn’t bite in right away, taking a moment to turn it over in her hands and examine the fruit.  “It’s like you, isn’t it?”

“Yes, but I’d rather you taste it than me, so…”  I trailed off and gestured with an upturned hand.

She flashed me an unamused look, raised the apple to her mouth, and took a bite.

The apple fell as Micaiah’s hand went limp.  I darted in to catch it, unwilling to let the morsel hit the dirt.  The motion brought me temporarily inside her personal space, but she didn’t react.  Her mind was elsewhere.

Two seconds passed.

Micaiah gasped, taking a deep inhale as her eyelids fluttered and she returned to the here and now.  “Holy shit,” she breathed.  “Holy shit.  Was that…”

“I call it the infinite sea,” I explained.  “While normal cultivators get their qi from gravity wells and focus rooms…”

“By the threads,” she muttered.  “With a source like this… you could unseat the sects!”  Her eyes darted over to Charlotte than back at me.  “Is this how—”

“Not directly,” I cut in.  “My path to accessing it required a number of hard to replicate steps, up to and including my own death.  By certain definitions I’m still dead.  I need to impress upon you that under no circumstances are you to go looking for it.  The boy who created that tree made that mistake.  Brief flashes curtesy of the apples or… other methods seem to be safe, but prolonged exposure leads to VIP.  It may well be the cause of VIP.”

Micaiah blinked.  “That explains the posters.  Message received.”  She paused for a moment, shock and disbelief disrupted by the sudden direness of my warning.  They reestablished themselves as they often do, with a slow exhale and a quiet curse.  “…Fuck.”

Lucy let it slide.

“This is… this is big.”  Micaiah went on.  “If you can convert enough to push a cultivator to iron, you could alter the entire power structure of the Dueling Stars.  Is that how you hurt yourself in the ruins?  Who am I kidding—of course it is.  A bronze channeling that much qi would overload anybody.  Does is scale with your advancement?  How often can you do it?  Are you the reason the qi is so dense here?  That’s why you keep that shadow technique active, isn’t it?”

Leave it to Micaiah to interrupt her own shattering worldview with two thousand questions.  I opened my mouth to answer, but in the time I took to fully parse everything she’d asked, Xavier spoke up.

“You’re thinking too small.”

Micaiah froze, eyes glimmering as she looked to Xavier.  “So it does scale.  Threads, with a source like that and the right resources, you could hit iron within the month.”

“He did that last week.”  There was a venom in Charlotte’s tone that I struggled to place the reason for.  “How did you think he was surviving outside?”

Instead of responding to Charlotte, Micaiah’s gaze turned back to me.  “And you didn’t tell me?  We should’ve celebrated!”  She glanced at Xavier.  “Threads, you were right about thinking too small.  At this pace he could catch up to Sect Master Morris within the cycle.  The tungsten-jade barrier might prove troublesome, but the next Black Maw recruiter to pass through this system is gonna scoop you up in a heartbeat.”

“Not if we can help it,” Charlotte said.  “We’ll need access to their information if we ever want to break through to the gem stages, let alone beyond, but if they get even a whiff of what Cal can do, none of us will be long for this world.”

I nodded.  “Charlotte’s right.  None of the sects will abide a threat to their monopoly on the qi supply.  We’re in for an extremely dangerous ride, and it’s important that you know what you’re getting into by associating with us.  Lucy’s already on ISH’s bad side, and the stronger we get, the more likely it is one of the great powers takes a shot at us.  Nobody would blame you if you wanted to distance yourself once we get to the Right Eye.”

“Are you kidding?  Political upheaval aside, you’ve discovered an entirely new type of qi!  I need to study it.  How do it’s techniques work?  How does it interact with normal qi?  This has the potential to completely revolutionize our understanding of energy dynamics.”  She paused, eyes abruptly widening as an idea visibly struck.  “Is this why your eyes go all starry?  Are they the same pattern every time?  Can I take a scan of them?”

I couldn’t keep the smile from my face at the sheer excitement emanating off her.  “I… don’t know?  I’ve never really paid them that much attention.  Do you think it’s important?”

“Before we get too sidetracked,” Charlotte interrupted Micaiah’s frenzy of curiosity, “now that we have our cards on the table, it’s time we talked about the Right Eye.  The factions there are more complicated than on Fyrion, more entrenched, and even without our various secrets, my return is going to cause some problems.”

“Perhaps it would be best to return to the living room,” Lucy offered.  “There’s no need to have this conversation standing around the garden.”

“Good call,” I agreed, stepping around Micaiah to feed the tree.  “We have a lot to go over.”

Xavier led the way, carefully stepping around the fresh soil where we’d planted the Gardener’s Beraskin Bloom. 

I followed him out, happily munching on the rest of the apple as I walked.  Threads these were good, like everything else I’d ever eaten had been a pale imitation of real food.

Charlotte launched into her tale before we’d even sat down.  “Three major factions compete for resources and influence aboard the Right Eye.  The weakest of which, the Urlitch family, maintains control over nearly a fifth of the total focus room hours on the station.  They’re headed by Darla Urlitch, a peak steel cultivator who’s been pushing for tungsten longer than I’ve been alive.  Her sisters, Cassie and Myra, aren’t far behind, and if Darla plateaus for much longer, there’s a very real chance one of them makes a move to usurp her.

“Last I heard, my father, head of house Velereau, was backing Myra.  She’s proven open to working with him, and if she pulls off her coup, Urlitch and Velereau together could force real concessions out of Sect Master Morris’s faction.  As I understand it, Morris likes the status quo, and would prefer Darla stayed in power without actually reaching tungsten.  If she advances, she either becomes a threat to Morris’s position, or a recruitment prospect for the Black Maw.  Either way, the balance of power shifts.”

I raised an eyebrow.  “What does any of this have to do with us?”

Charlotte looked me dead in the eyes.  “Three years ago, Liam Morris, son and heir to Sect Master Darrow Morris, then bronze to my tin, decided he was in love with me.  I leveraged his affections for private instruction and extra focus room hours—he couldn’t have a bride two stages below him, after all.  Liam, idiot that he is, let slip his intentions to his father.  The Sect Master, none too happy that his resources were going to the daughter of his greatest rival, struck a deal with Darla Urlitch, a marriage contract between Liam Morris and Darla’s daughter, Ayuma Urlitch.  

“Since Ayuma’s cultivation was of a level with Liam’s, he had no incentive to give away such valuable resources.  Nobody liked this arrangement, least of all the couple to be.  Myra and Cassie both stood to lose if Darla was allowed to forge such close ties to the Sect Master, and my father saw it as an attack on his interests.”

“Sounds like your garden variety cultivator drama so far,” I commented.  “How’d this all end up with you stuck on Fyrion?”

“I still don’t know who sent the first assassin, but I’m extremely confident Cassie Urlitch sent the second.”

Pin drop silence hung in the air as the weight of Charlotte’s words settled upon us.  Lucy took the onus to finally break it.

“I’m so sorry you had to go through that.  That must’ve been terrifying.”

“It was humiliating,” Charlotte growled.  “Dozens of plans went up in smoke because Liam couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut.  I should’ve had contingencies.  I should’ve preempted Darla’s deal with one of my own.  I should’ve done literally anything other than let myself become the most convenient piece to eliminate.  My departure was a compromise, a deal my father struck to salvage what few concessions he could from the mess.  I selected Fyrion myself.  If I could work my way back from that rock, I could establish myself as a promising talent in my own right, the kind it would be wasteful to assassinate outright.”

“This isn’t your fault,” Lucy assured her.  “You did nothing wrong.”

“I did everything wrong.  I was complacent.  I was overconfident.  I was greedy.  I overestimated my position as scion of one of the major factions, and I suffered the consequences.  I won’t make that mistake again.”

One by one Charlotte’s eyes met each of ours as if daring us to disagree before she spoke once more.  “I’ve learned.  I’ve grown.  I’ve made allies of my own.”  She held up her left hand, the one Lesley had cut off, the one her nanites had regrown in a matter of minutes.  “And I’m not so easy to kill.”

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