Cataphractoi

  After dropping down to slower-than-light speeds, the mirazar cruiser took its time approaching the asteroid hiding the Astrum Vitae, likely in order to scan the parts of the rock already facing it. The other ship wasn’t even trying to hide at this point, painting the asteroid and all the smaller rocks in its vicinity with active sensor scans. Shortly after detecting the first scans, though, Min-ji reported something else.

  “Captain, it looks like they’re sending out a message,” she reported curiously.

  “Would it be dangerous to listen to it?” Miliam asked cautiously, even knowing it was probably a silly question.

  “Uh, no, it looks like they’re transmitting in all directions,” Min-ji answered. Miliam gave her a nod.

  “We may as well see what they have to say, I guess,” she decided. Min-ji put the transmission on screen, revealing to Miliam what exactly a mirazar was. The broadcast was full video and dispyed the cruiser’s bridge, presumably, at the center of which was a creature with a hunched back, lying forward on a sort of arched ptform that was like a hybrid of a chair and a bed. Shaped like a half-circle, the alien’s chest and belly rested against the arch while its limbs hung loosely to the sides. Its forelimbs stretched forward over a console below its head.

  Around the mirazar were sprayers that coated it constantly in mist, keeping its slick skin damp. Its hide was mottled, each tone a color that could be associated with mud. As for its head, it was rounded and rge, with retively tiny eyes and flexible antler-shaped appendages where ears would normally be, their actual function anyone’s guess.

  “Unknown ship, seeker of the Abductors’ legacy, your presence is both an affront and a boon to the Unnac Imperium. Reveal yourself and yield us their secrets and I, Mellifluous Cwfisher, Delve Lead of the UINS Falcon Catcher, will guarantee your lives.” Although the alien who Miliam assumed was the ship’s captain was speaking, its mouth didn’t move. For the first time in a while she was reminded that the transtion charm she wore didn’t mask the original nguage entirely, as the mirazar’s speech was accompanied by a two-toned whistling that was invariably off-pitch to her, making it thoroughly unpleasant to human ears.

  “…do they always talk like that?” Miliam asked no one in particur, finding there were too many things she wanted to comment on and settling on possibly the least important.

  “You imply an entire species’ conversational habits may be gleaned from a single example,” Abigail noted, covering her mouth to mask her amusement.

  “Transtion: nay, cap’n, this guy is just a melodramatic ass,” Aoibhe provided flippantly.

  “Odd as it may seem, there is a certain logic to appointing one such as he to this role. It is unlikely he would take his assignment anything but seriously, considering his clear disdain for the Observers,” Abigail added to Aoibhe’s evaluation.

  “If he hates them that much I doubt he actually pns to let us go…” Miliam muttered sullenly, her earlier predictions seeming more likely by the moment.

  “Indeed. He will not allow knowledge to escape.”

  Silence fell upon the bridge as everyone waited for the cruiser to pass. Everything relied on Min-ji’s skill right now. Eun-ji seemed to find that calming, given her total trust in her sister, but Miliam was starting to hallucinate that she could hear everyone else’s hearts pounding in their chests.

  In a stroke of fortune, the mirazar captain chose a course that would take his ship around the asteroid in the wrong direction, requiring it to fully circumnavigate the rock before arriving at the Astrum Vitae’s position. Miliam’s ship had needed to circle the pnetoid most of the way around before finding the right spot as well, but the cruiser had no way of knowing where they had ended up, so it must have been starting from where its prey had arrived.

  Despite the probably size of the IUNS Falcon Catcher’s sensor operation team, the ship proceeded slowly. That probably pointed to them being thorough in their search, which was a double-edged sword for Miliam and her crew. It meant the other ship would need more time to conduct its scans, but meant it was unlikely to miss the vault as well, and any attempt to get closer would reveal her ship’s presence.

  Briefly, Miliam cursed the unfairness of the situation. They didn’t even know for sure the vault was built by the Observers, but there was no way of convincing Delve Lead Cwfisher of that. His mind was surely made up already.

  Eventually the cruiser passed around to the other side of the unnamed asteroid and Miliam knew it was time to act. This was possibly the riskiest part of the pn, but there was no telling how many passes the cruiser would make in its search, and she knew her luck could only hold out so long- as could Min-ji’s stamina. They had to leave now.

  “Min-ji, Eun-ji, go ahead and switch while the cruiser doesn’t have eyes on us,” Miliam instructed.

  ““Yes!”” the twins answered in unison. They reacted at the exact same time, hopping from their seats and crossing the bridge to the opposite consoles. Both women dodged to their own right, neatly sidestepping each other without the need for any prior communication before sliding into their new stations. Concerningly, Miliam noticed they hadn’t taken their grimoires with them, but she decided she would just have to trust that they were so simir the devices wouldn’t detect a difference. There just wasn’t time to waste double-checking.

  “Aoibhe, burn for as long as you think is safe!” Miliam commanded next.

  “Aye, cap’n!” Aoibhe acknowledged as she worked her controls. With the inertial sinks active Miliam didn’t feel the ship move, but through the viewport the view of the crevice the ship had nded in quickly disappeared, repced by nothing but distant stars. In seconds the Astrum Vitae accelerated on thrusters alone until it was moving at a pace of several kilometers per second, a speed that seemed incredible until compared to the distance they needed to cover, well over one hundred thousand kilometers.

  Eun-ji, fresh and now in control of EMCM, acted to mask the thermal signature thrown off by the thrusters before it could give the ship away. Her sister, taking over on sensors, kept a close eye on the cruiser’s st known position, plotting a prediction of its course based on speed and trajectory. Aoibhe soon cut off the thrusters, but her hands remained on the controls, ready to react at a moment’s notice. Feeling the need to do something, Miliam thumbed the intercom.

  “Tessa, keep an eye out for incoming missiles. We’re moving now and the cruiser could notice us at any time,” she reminded her weapons operator.

  “Already on it!” Tessa affirmed without hesitation.

  Now there was nothing to do but wait. On the sensor plot Miliam saw the asteroid they’d just left grow ever more distance as the Astrum Vitae sped away. It was already over a hundred kilometers away and becoming more distant by the second. She couldn’t help but be aware that such a vast distance was only a drop in the bucket right now, but fortunately it wasn’t being framed in terms of the total distance remaining on the dispy she was watching. That would just be maddening.

  “Can you tell if they’re interdicting at all?” Miliam asked Min-ji.

  “It doesn’t look like it,” she answered.

  “Could we escape the asteroid’s gravity well with the wave drive without being detected, now that we’re far enough away that it won’t be caught in the bubble?” she asked of Aoibhe next, chafing at the slow pace of their escape. It was honestly a question she should have asked sooner, but it hadn’t occurred to her until now.

  “Nay…but I think Min-ji could expin this one better,” Aoibhe replied, passing the buck back over to the woman on sensors. Hearing her name, Min-ji looked up, pointing at herself as if to confirm she’d been named, but Aoibhe wasn’t looking at her, so she looked to Miliam, who nodded.

  “She’s right! It would actually be one of the few things that can be detected without line-of-sight even through a pnetoid. Since a wave drive maniputes gravity and proximity to other rge masses influences the size of an object’s effective gravity well, that cruiser would be able to notice the change in the gravitational fields of nearby asteroids. We’re not big enough to have a noticeable effect on the big one, but the smaller ones are another story,” Min-ji expined for Miliam’s benefit.

  While she understood the principles of literally none of that, Miliam was at least able to grasp the bigger picture. In short, an asteroid cluster was literally the worst possible pce to operate a wave drive if you wanted to be stealthy. There were too many objects with a mass high enough to have a noticeable field of gravity and also low enough to be affected by something the size of a corvette’s wave drive. The instant they attempted that, it would be impossible to miss the effect it had on objects around them.

  “Nothing we can do but wait it out and hope they don’t look in this direction after all, huh…” Miliam groaned, leaning back in her chair and kicking her legs out.

  “Think of it as a way of training your patience,” Abigail counseled. It prompted a gre from Miliam that failed to perturb the schor.

  Minutes passed slowly. Soon it had been ten minutes since the Astrum Vitae departed the asteroid, and then those ten stretched into twenty and thirty. Eventually the IUNS Falcon Catcher emerged from the other side of the asteroid, continuing its futile search. Its reemergence didn’t do Miliam’s health any favors; she broke out in a cold sweat and her heart accelerated as she watched the rger vessel slowly orbit the now-distant rock.

  At this point the Astrum Vitae was thousands of kilometers away, but that wasn’t even remotely close to being far enough for comfort. Now that the cruiser was visible again Eun-ji reported more transmissions, but a brief check was enough to confirm it was simply sending the previous message on a loop…which again left Miliam with little to do except stare a hole into the sensor dispy.

  Restless energy built up until Miliam was tapping her foot and drumming her fingers against her armrest, stopping only when she felt a warm object bump against her cheek. Turning, she found Abigail holding a tray of mugs in one hand. Her other hand held a single mug, which was pressed against Miliam’s face.

  “I believe we shall be here for some time. Perhaps a drink would calm your nerves?” Abigail offered. Miliam hadn’t even noticed Abigail leave, so focused had she been on the dispys. Gratefully, Miliam took the mug and Abigail went on to hand the rest out to the remaining bridge crew. She took a sip from the cup, which was really more of a mug-shaped thermos designed for us on a spaceship, and found it was full of some kind of warm, fruity beverage. Probably one of the instant drinks stocked in the galley, considering Abigail’s abysmal cooking skills.

  With the drink warming her belly, Miliam realized the true reason Abigail had gone to get refreshments. In the throes of anxiety she’d forgotten a crucial lesson; she’d given her orders and it was now her job to reassure her crew with her confidence in them. Taking a deep breath, Miliam straightened her back and tightened her grip on the mug. She would tell herself to be confident ad infinitum if that’s what it took; she was not going to allow her fear to unnerve her crew and doom them all.