Shadow of the Empire: Day 10

[aesmael]

Originally published at a denizen's entertainment. You can comment here or there.

Surprisingly I actually managed more than the pace target last night. Probably won't happen again but it was nice to do that for once.

Was disappointed that a scene I had been building to ended up not happening. It turned out not to make sense given everything that had been written so far, so was averted instead.

The cast of this story are supposed to be of Arabic heritage, but I am fairly certain a lot of definitely wrong idioms and details have made it in so far. Am trying not to worry about that for this draft and wait until editing to fit those details to the story (including making significant changes if that proves necessary). Depending how well that works, will consider making such an approach in future too - sort the details and practicalities we don't know after writing the story's skeleton. There will be a lot of that to do, not only for culture.

Currently at 7841 words, should be at 16,667 to be on track. I compare the counts because doing so is easier than not doing it, but I don't really care by this point. I seem to need the occasional day or few off writing anyway, don't know if I will be up to writing more tonight. We shall see, but this is a late start and I'm having an early night.

Nawar had been keeping something hidden from the Algonthen guards, and from her crew, but it wasn't anything she'd been forbidden. The prospect of being permanently separated from Shula was dreadful to her. They had conspired during that final approach to ensure they would not be out of contact. Most of Nawar's effort had gone not to whatever busywork the others had assumed, but instead to the construction of a small transceiver additional to the communicative hardware all members of the space corps had installed by default.

Its primary virtues were a different albeit not superior encryption and a few additional communicative modes which while not the safest or quietest or even most appropriate would serve in emergencies where others were unavailable. She had modelled it largely on Ferideh's position specialisations.

Contact was not attempted for several days until after they'd been disposed of, then not for some more hours in case doing so sooner would be somehow suspicious. As soon as safety was no longer her overriding concern she found a quiet park bench to sit upon and pretended to watch birds.

"Shula? Shula? Is that you?"

"Nawar! What happened?"

"We were held for questioning a few days. Nothing serious, I think. What about you? Have there been any problems? What did they do with you? By the time we were released you'd been moved."

"They stuck me in a warehouse! Barely moved me anywhere, just stuck me in one of the buildings and locked me in here. They didn't even leave the lights on."

"Oh, Shula, I'm sorry. That's no way for you to be treated." A breeze curved over her skin and she pitched her communication softer. "They didn't do anything to you? Didn't try to get access or ask questions?"

"Nothing. Just dumped me here."

"No way to treat you. We've got to get you out of there."

"Wouldn't that undo our reasons for surrender? I don't think we can be compliant and non-compliant at the same time."

"Yeah, well. I don't see any of the rest of us volunteering for a life of solitary confinement to keep the peace."

"None of you would be considered committing an act of war by blowing out for some fresh air."

"Maybe you don't have to blast your way out. Maybe you could just walk out. I could build you a new body, you could transfer yourself over and we could just walk away."

"But... I would miss having you inside me."

Nawar fell right off the bench laughing. A couple of passers by tried to help her after a minute, but she waved them off when she got her breath back.

"That was... I never would have expected to hear something so organic out of you."

"But we are not simple. Not you and not I." A pause. "Now that you mention it, I am curious what it would be like to have legs."

"If we weren't so distant I could let you walk around in here."

"That would be a nice change, me inside you."

Nawar struggled to keep a straight face. "Don't... you... "

"What did I say?"

* * *

Nawar was off to a slow start. The materials she needed were not commonly available and she was not eager to draw attention by making such specialised purchases so quickly. She did not anyway have the resources to do so all at once, had warned Shula this might be a very long labour of hers before it could be done. Particularly she was having difficulty placing orders off-world, though she expected this would change with time. They talked while she worked.

"When we are done with all this, let's go to a planet with proper beaches. Would you teach me to swim? I want to run down a beach and dive right in."

"If I can remember. It's been years since I got anywhere near enough water to swim in. Hold on, there's someone else wanting my attention."

That someone was Algol, who had just finished talking with Ferideh, now come to tell Nawar of her findings and the change of plans.

~ First I'm finding out where everyone ended up, then we can sort the details, but the core of the plan is: we get back to Shula, and we get out of here. Do you think ve'd up for that? ~

~ I was just talking with ver. Let you know in a moment. ~

~ You've been talking with very? How is- ? ~

~ Shh! ~

"Hey, it's Algol. She's changed her mind on the whole surrender thing. How would you be up for just getting out of here altogether?"

"Before your heart's next beat."

Nawar smiled. "Excellent."

~ I guess ve'll have to wait to walk ~

~ What? ~

~ Shula's up for it ~

~ Excellent ~

~ I know ~

~ I'll be in touch soon. You'll be ready? ~

~ I will ~

* * *

The plan they settled on was even simpler than Algol had been expecting. There was no Algonthen presence anywhere on this world except the isolated landing zone they had been directed to, not even in the capital. That was easy enough to locate.

They acquired weapons easily enough too. Zara was hardly a customarily armed society, but nor was it free of such implements, and Ferideh had little trouble getting hold of them. They were not expected to be used. It hardly seemed prudent to rely on that.

On the morning of the fifth day since they had been disposed of, twelve days after landing on Shihab, a month and a half since Zara surrendered, they met again with their belongings in bags at the junction where they had been separated. Algol and Altair ran to embrace each other on the platform.

"Our ride will be here in ten minutes," said Nawar.

Algol nodded.

Ferideh distributed weapons - small chemical pistols - and a couple of clips each. She, Algol, and Hanifah checked them out before putting them away.

"Does anyone else have the sudden feeling we're about to do something stupid?" said Hanifah. "Just me? That's very reassuring."

The train from the base arrived when Nawar said it would. Right when she had summoned it to appear. They stepped on board and her fingers sent it dashing back, silent swift and unannounced. No one had been there to miss it when she took it away; she kept an eye on the monitors at their destination in case anyone was around to notice it return. No one was.

"Anticlimactic," said Ferideh, dismounting.

"Preferably so, yes," said Algol.

"Premature," said Altair. That gave them a few seconds looking to see if she had spotted anyone. "We haven't finished," she said, and shrugged.

Above ground there was still no one. No vehicle either, just the same dull buildings that had not welcomed them to Shihab and a long, long walk over exposed ground to the one they thought held Shula.

"I should tell ver we're here. We'll be gone in a couple of minutes."

Algol took a look around the landscape, gaze lingering on the building where the Algonthens had set themselves up. "Do it. The longer we're here or walking the more likely they'll spot us, and we have no cover."

Nawar nodded. Seconds later there was a burst of hot light from not the building they had expected, the Shula emerging from a shower of heated metal and concrete to perch in front of them.

* * *

"If you want to survive the next ten minutes I strongly advise you all to be safely secured very soon."

They scrambled to their usual battle positions. Shula had left the ground before any of the Algonthen guard had even left the building to come after them, but that was not a concern of theirs now.

~ Shula, here's the latest orbit of the Potboiler I picked up from a sky-watcher's network. Don't imagine it will be accurate for more than a few seconds now. ~

~ Much obliged, Commander ~

Shihab was rapidly ravelling back into a ball below them. Algol grew tenser with each second.

"Fighters!" said Shula, and then they needed that acceleration protection. "You're going to love this."

Garrett was projected in front of her. He looked like he'd been interrupted in the middle of something.

"What do you think you're doing? Stand down immediately or be destroyed."

"Sorry Captain. One of my crew had the urge to find an ocean. Hope you won't mind."

This time she got to cut the connection. That was satisfying.

~ I don't think a second surrender would have done us any good anyway ~

~ It seems unlikely. Hold on now. I won't kill you, but you'll probably be blacking out before we're free. Unless it comes to that before Altair's ready, in which case, wheee... ~

* * *

Shula's very urgent requests of Altair were significantly more involved than was usual. First, slick space immediately surrounding Shula because without that boost to acceleration and manoeuvrability they would die. Second, jell space surrounding the Potboiler's fighters else even boosted they'd die. Third, ablate weapons fire from the Potboiler itself or they'd die. Finally anything she could do to make the enemy more vulnerable to return fire would be very, very helpful.

Altair's scribing remotes could operate under much higher accelerations than her flesh could bear. She operated them on her stelae mostly in the order of Shula's requests. They were all in basic forms standard geometer work and easily enough wrought for that, but a situation like this called for considerably more refined execution than the techniques used on random pirates. Algonthen fighters had no human pilots to protect and consequently fewer restrictions on how hard they accelerated, making escape impossible normally for anyone who cared to preserve the lives of those on-board. Altair had to shape ever finer patterns to squeeze as much benefit as possible from her designs, to let Shula slip more easily through space, to impede the fighters Garrett sent after them.

She locked the patterns together, feeding the energy of one spell into the other so they reinforced, the ease of movement here stilling motion there, and likewise in reverse. When she felt she had achieved some stability there, so they did not have death quite on their heals, she began unwriting one of her other stelae, the one which intended to weaken Algonthen defences and which was having little effect. This she incorporated partly into their defences, reshaping an ablation into redirection, so that energy sent their way would return to its originator. There was resistance to that from the Potboiler's end which suggested they had someone - not a geometer, but someone - working counter to Altair. Shula would have to handle projectiles verself for now.

Altair had no awareness of anything but her stelae, her projections of their tactical situation, and the pressure enclosing her that made breathing hard while Shula tried to weave their way out of this mess.
She had done what Shula asked as well as she could. It did not seem enough. They'd covered near a quarter million kilometres in their attempted escape and though Potboiler was falling out of real-time it seemed her best efforts had merely delayed the swarm of fighters at their heels. She asked Shula what the fighters' range was.

~ Further! ~

Altair turned her attention to expanding beyond the work she'd done, aiming to twist space in their wake to a more effective shield that diverted and stretched every path behind them, boosted their own escape a little more. That was for her a massive, intricate work, a stretching of her skills. She could not seem to make the structure hold; she tried and tried again and some little part of the pattern, different each time, seemed to slip out of her grasp.

These mistakes cost them a little of their lead each time and Shula had to push harder. Altair could feel her consciousness slipping. She hoped it was not being low on oxygen that was leading her to feel inspired for this attempt, that she really was scribing a way through her previous errors and not building a catastrophe for them, but when she was done before she could see what she had wrought a final burst from Shula pushed her over her threshold and all she knew of her creation was hope.