The figure who appeared on the screen looked about as worn and damaged as the ship itself did. He was clearly a Seosten, with dark skin, a nasty acid scar of some sort across part of his otherwise handsome face, and a look in his eyes that made it seem like he would be cursing the perfect memory of his people for quite some time. His uniform was burnt, dirty, missing one of the sleeves, and he wore an insignia that definitely wasn''t that of a captain. At least as far as Jacob had been able to figure out in the time he had spent looking through the records this ship had. His best guess was that this was the equivalent of a lieutenant, or something to that effect. Which said a lot about the state of the rest of the ships’ crews if this was the highest ranking officer able to make contact with them even when their communication was this important. These people were absolutely in bad shape.
As soon as he saw Jacob standing there on his own screen, the other man blinked and reached out to tap something, probably the screen itself. He hit it a few times before speaking up with a completely bewildered tone. “Seosten? Where did you--I mean how--what?” In his surprise, the man had apparently completely forgotten everything about both military decorum and possibly even his own situation, if only briefly. He clearly hadn''t expected to see someone who looked just like his own species, that was for sure. He continued to sputter a bit more.
Well, this was yet another moment of truth. What exactly was Jacob going to say about the resemblance? Could he pull off allowing this man to keep thinking that he was actually a Seosten without screwing that up? If it came down to it, he could pose as one pretty well. He had the possession power if that needed to be demonstrated, after all. He remembered that much at least. And he could pretend that anything else he did was simply special magic. Or possibly the result of advanced experiments like what had happened with the Olympians and Tartarus. Hell, he could probably simply claim that he actually was one of them on a secret extended mission.
Okay, seriously, how did he remember all that stuff, but nothing about who he actually was or any details about his own actual life? What the hell kind of magic amnesia was this anyway?
Yeah, this really wasn''t the time to focus on that, he knew. It just snuck up on him sometimes. But he pushed that aside and gave the other man a wide smile. “That''s right, it''s your lucky day.” That was what he intended to say, though that spell made the words come out in Latin, twisting his mouth as he spoke. Yes, a very odd feeling. “And from the look of things, you could really use one of those. The name’s Tabbris. Let''s just say my people and I are on a mission we''re not allowed to talk about. But we can spare a little help. What happened over there, exactly? Actually, first, are your ships going to hold together long enough for this conversation? I''d really rather we didn’t end up losing you while you try to answer my questions.” He tried to offer a reassuring smile with that, but wasn''t sure how well it came off. It didn’t help that he really had no idea how a real Seosten would react to this sort of situation. Would they be more arrogant, demand to know what had happened, ask where the Fomorians were right then? Would th--oh. “And I’d really like to hear about just how many of those bastards you sent to the Void before you had to withdraw.”
There, that should work. It included Seosten arrogance about their capabilities against the Fomorians, acknowledged the damage that had been done, and prompted them to brag even in the face of impending death. His memory about his own life and identity might’ve been swiss cheese, but hopefully he still knew the Seosten well enough to make this conversation work.
Still, the Seosten on the screen gave him a brief, curious look that made Jacob wonder if he had said something wrong after all. His chin rose, and he echoed, “Tabbris. Your parents are of that set, then. I’m surprised you rose as far as you have, to command your own ship. And a very… advanced ship at that, by all indications.” He paused, then added, “I suppose it speaks well of your command ability, to rise so far despite being given such a name. Most in your situation would have changed it. But you seem to wear it with pride.” Another pause, while he seemed to consider. “I hope that’s because you intend to undo the damage that was done to the name.”
What the hell was he talking about? Keeping a blank look on his face to avoid giving away his utter cluelessness, Jacob simply replied, “Our people will know the name Tabbris for my own deeds.”
The other man seemed to accept that, albeit with another pause as though he was considering the words. In the end, he nodded once before introducing himself as Optio (it was indeed basically the equivalent of a lieutenant) Madeli and explained that their ships had taken on Fomorian invaders who managed to kill or abduct at least a third of each of their crews, while doing heavy damage to their systems. Most of the actual command staff had fallen first, as the Fomorians somehow knew exactly who to target to cause the most disruption to the Seosten combat ability and create chaos when it came to knowing who they should listen to.
Their tactics had worked well enough to almost completely wipe out the Seosten research fleet, and in the end, these few had been forced to flee or risk losing everything. It was obvious that this Madeli felt some real shame at the idea that he had fled from battle rather than staying right up to the end. He seemed to expect Jacob--or Tabbris--to reprimand him and the rest of the ships’ remaining crews for not allowing themselves to be utterly slaughtered.
Instead, Jacob informed the man that they had some repair supplies they could use to help get one of the ships generally space-worthy. “If you move all the remaining crews from the other ships onto that one and consolidate everything with what we can share, you should be able to get back to friendly space. Then you can come back for the other two ships. Or send others.”
Madeli turned to say something off the comms to his crew, getting an acknowledgment before turning back to the screen. “Aye, we’d be grateful for that. We’ll drop a navigation buoy to find this spot again. Assuming you’ll be moving on with your… mission after we finish here?” Yes, he was fishing a little bit, but Jacob couldn’t exactly blame him for that. They were a mysterious, obviously advanced ship out in the middle of nowhere. And on top of that, he had apparently managed to give some sort of fake name that didn''t seem quite right. Damn, was it the equivalent of telling someone that his name was Adolf Hitler or something? God, he hoped not.
Keeping that uncertainty out of his expression and voice, Jacob offered the man what he hoped was a friendly but enigmatic smile. “Yes, we have our own experiments to carry out. With any luck, you''ll see some of what we''re working on get deployed to the rest of the fleet soon enough.” A brief pause came, then he added, “And maybe future ships will have the firepower to blast those monsters back where they belong.” There, maybe that would be enough to satisfy their curiosity while simultaneously encouraging them to let Jacob’s ship get back to work as soon as possible.
From the brief expression on Madeli’s face, he’d accomplished that much well enough. The man gave a quick nod of agreement before raising one hand with his index and middle fingers extended. The other three fingers were closed into a fist, which he tapped against his chest. The translation spell informed Jacob that it was a salute. “Excellent, Centurion.” He sounded far more relieved than he probably meant to, and it was obvious the man had barely been keeping himself together. It was only then that Jacob really understood that he and the rest of the people on those ships had probably fully expected to die before managing to contact anyone for rescue. They really had put absolutely everything they had into coming this way, just for the chance that the ship they had detected would be both able and willing to help. If he’d gone through with having Gaia send them the wrong way, if she hadn’t searched their systems to find out what was going on, if… if… yes, it would’ve been bad. Worse, he never would have even known the truth about what they had done. He would have gone off satisfied in pulling the wool over their eyes and never had any idea of what he had condemned those people to. How easy was it for something like that to happen? Had it happened before, in the history he couldn’t remember? Hell, had there been moments like that that he did know about and had now simply forgotten? How many tragic memories were locked in his brain right now, waiting for him to get them back and feel guilt all over again?
It didn’t matter, not really. It wasn’t like he could just give up his memories forever. He needed them, all of them, the good and the bad. He needed to know exactly who he had been, and what he had done. He needed all of it back, no matter what sort of darkness there was in his past.
Promising to come over with the supplies they needed, he signed off the call, then slumped back on his heels once it was over. A heavy sigh escaped him. “Well, that could’ve gone a lot worse.”
“So who’s Tabbris?” Laein immediately demanded, bouncing up and down while staring intently at him. “Where’d that name even come from anyway, and why did that guy react like that to it?”
Jacob offered a shrug. “Honestly, I don’t know. It just sort of popped into my head when I thought about needing to give him a real Seosten name. I have no idea why it made him react like that.”
“I know why.” That was Gaia, who spoke quietly while casting a glance to Jacob. “As soon as he reacted to the name, I checked their computer files for anything related to it. Do you want to know about the other Tabbris?”
He hesitated slightly, considering potential ramifications for knowing what the name he had given himself actually meant. But in the end, it was better to know. Especially if the subject came up on the other ship. If they figured out he had no idea why they’d reacted that way to the name, it could be bad. So, he nodded while sending the mental request for some of the ghosts to start loading their repair supplies to be taken over there. “Yeah, I should probably know what I got myself into.”
So, Gaia explained. Apparently the other Tabbris had been some important man in the Seosten past who managed to secretly collect enough magic from all their leadership to actually hide an entire planet, making it impossible to locate. He was infamous now for being a traitor who abandoned the war and took untold numbers of not just more Seosten, but other species with him. The planet he stole had been erased from all records, and was apparently literally invisible to everyone who wasn’t included within the spell itself. Even if by some completely random and absurd chance they happened to chance upon it, no one would be able to see it. It was even masked from being detected by much less obvious sensor readings, like gravity anomalies.
After hearing all that, Jacob pondered briefly. Then he straightened up and announced, “Well, there might be more to that story to make it worse, but for the moment, I don''t think I mind using that name.” His head tilted slightly. “Actually, I think I feel kind of proud about it. It''s a good name.” Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
Laein, for her part, made an impatient noise in her throat. “Yes, yes, such a perfect name. Be as proud of it as you want. Get the name stenciled on all your clothes and make a shrine to the name. Just don''t do it until we get out here. Those people obviously don''t like it, so unless you want to get in another fight with a collection of refugees who can barely stand up, be quiet about it.” For all the young Necromancer’s constant talk about dominating others and destroying the lives of all who dared stand against her and so on and so forth, she looked completely disgusted by the very thought of actually going into battle against those Seosten. “Just give them the supplies and repairs they need so we can leave and get on with our own journey back home.”
Jacob agreed and they went to help the ghosts get the supplies together. A lot of repairs could largely be done with magic, but it required some level of raw materials to work with. Even magic generally couldn''t make something out of nothing, especially on the scale of repairing a ship. Fortunately, they had plenty of pre-made repair materials left over, even after fixing the damage that came from their own encounter with the Fomorians. For the most part, they were essentially lengths of metal with most of a bonding and repair spell already etched into them. The spell just needed to be finished and triggered while the metal was held up against the spot to be repaired. It would expand a fair bit and bond with what was already there to seal any holes in a ship’s hull.
There were other repair materials as well, mostly meant to fix damage to their engines and give them more energy to make the actual trip back to safer and more inhabited areas of the universe. Jacob just hoped it would be enough. The damage had clearly been catastrophic. He was honestly still surprised they’d managed to make it this far, the more he looked at those ships.
Obviously, they didn’t have an entire complement of troops to send over there with the supplies. Well, they did, but he was pretty sure those people would have a lot more in the way of questions and suspicion if they saw an entire army of ghosts like that. This whole situation was already very precarious as it was. Honestly, those Seosten probably wouldn''t even have actually accepted Jacob’s excuses and all that as much as they had if they weren''t quite as desperate. As it was, they didn’t have that much of a choice in the matter. Whatever their equivalent to the idea of not looking a gift horse in the mouth was, they were probably thinking it pretty damn hard right then. But still, Jacob knew it was better not to push their luck worse than they already were just by doing this at all. It was like Laein had said, they needed to get this done and get the hell out of here before something else went wrong. Because it obviously would. They needed to leave as soon as possible.
In any case, it would have been only he and Gaia who could go (unless their companion wanted to look like a slave, which she very much did not), but the latter had produced a disguise spell that was capable of making Laein look like a human. Or rather, in this case, like a Seosten. The small girl clearly had a fair number of objections to the whole idea, but smothered them rather than risk not being able to go over to that other ship at all. And yes, Jacob did feel a bit anxious about taking all three of them over there, but three was already going to be an incredibly small number of people to visit those Seosten and deliver those supplies. Besides, they would still have the ghosts here, most of whom had already proven themselves to be perfectly capable people. Even if most of their memories had been just as thoroughly wiped out as his own were.
They were just going to have to make this work with three of them. He had a few ideas about how to answer if that was questioned, but only if they brought it up. Volunteering the lie immediately was a good way of looking even more suspicious. They needed to play this as cool as possible. Which meant being mysterious and giving these Seosten very little to work with.
Finally, there were a dozen large metal crates filled with repair supplies and other needed resources, all gathered in the ship’s transport bay. Jacob, Gaia, and the transformed Laein (she looked like a Latina human, which they were hoping did have some sort of Seosten equivalent) stood among the crates as the transportation spell was empowered. The hum of rising magic filled the air, and they all did their best not to think about all the many ways this could all go wrong. The smart thing to do, for themselves, was to leave without having any more interaction. They could have just sent the crates over alone and explained they couldn’t wait any longer before going back to their own mission. Or dumped the supplies into space and let those Seosten gather them. It would keep them busy. But… but something told Jacob it was better to go over there themselves. He couldn’t explain why, even to himself. It was a risk. Hell, Gaia didn’t even need to go onto the other ship to get all the information they had about how to get back to Earth. They could get everything they needed and leave without ever having a face to face with these people. And yet, they were doing it anyway. All because his instincts told him to.
Just as the transport finished activating, Jacob reached out to take Gaia’s hand. He squeezed it reassuringly, giving her a quick smile. Their eyes met, and he had the most ridiculous urge to kiss her. Wouldn’t that just be a fine way to introduce themselves to these Seosten in person?
Resisting the urge, he released the woman after that brief squeeze. In the next second, they were standing in a room that was fairly similar to the one they had just left, albeit both larger and emptier. Other than a few scattered tools and bare shelves along the walls, there was nothing here. These people had clearly already cleaned out absolutely everything they had just to get their ships this far. And frankly, from the protesting sounds coming from the ship itself, it seemed like even that had barely been enough. Ship and crew alike, they were in rough shape.
Well, there were no physical supplies, at least. What there was, standing around the trio and the crates they had brought, were Seosten. Ten of them, including Optio Madeli, all of whom looked equally ragged, tired, and anxious. It was obvious that they were barely able to stay on their feet, let alone put up any sort of fight if it had come down to it. Frankly, Jacob was starting to think the three of them could completely take over this entire trio of ships if they’d had a mind to. Actually, it probably wouldn’t even have taken all three of them. This wasn’t a trap, that much was clear.
“Centurion!” In a voice that was obviously meant to be commanding and proud, but came out as more of a wheeze, Madeli saluted. The rest of the group did the same, or attempted it, to varying levels of success. A few looked like they were ready to pass out, or, quite frankly, like they should have been in the medical bay. Which said a lot about the ones who actually were in medical.
“Optio,” Jacob returned the greeting, also using the other man’s rank since that seemed like the thing to do. “I hate to state the obvious to you, but it looks like you''ve all been having a pretty bad few days out here.” He gave them a sympathetic wince. “Why don''t you catch us up to speed with the worst of the problems so we know where to start? Maybe begin with anything that''s likely to catastrophically fail or explode while we''re talking, so we don’t all end up sucking vacuum.”
The man gave the three of them a quick, searching look. It wasn''t hard to interpret his confusion. He was wondering why there weren''t more of them. But he didn''t ask, whether because he didn''t want to push things when they needed this help so badly, or because he assumed it was beyond his pay grade and his people were very good at compartmentalizing military secrets like he believed this was. The point remained, he didn’t push the issue. There was just that brief look before he launched into describing the worst of what was breaking down. It was… a lot, and from the sound of things, that was barely what it would take to make sure this ship could limp all the way to a place to get real repairs and call for help. Those Fomorians had sure done one hell of a number on them. Which gave Jacob another rather sharp pang of guilt for being the reason those creatures had been out there to begin with.
Still, these supplies were just what they needed. First, the man had two of the troops there take the crate of medical supplies down to their vastly overworked, understaffed, and understocked doctors. The crate would help with that last one at least. And once the three ships consolidated their crews, there would be more medical people. Unfortunately, there would also be more patients. Some of the other crew were already clearing out space in one of the cargo holds to set up as an expanded medical bay. It sure wasn’t going to be the least bit pretty, but it would work.
Each time Madeli brought up another problem the ship had, another way it could completely fall apart at any given moment, Jacob provided another crate of the exact supplies needed to at least temporarily address the problem. None of this would be enough to make the ship ready to fly into battle, not even with the weakest of space-worthy opponents. But it would allow them to make it to civilization.
Gaia and Laein helped as well, mostly by communicating with the ‘crew’ back on their ship (really some of the ghosts Jacob had left in charge over there) and directing them to carefully send the ship around this one, checking the worst of the exterior hull damage. And by having them grab more of the specific supplies needed for repairs so they could be teleported over. The people here were still clearly curious as to why only three of them were here while there appeared to be a full crew back where they’d come from. But like Madeli, they kept the questions to themselves.
Apparently there was also a problem of some sort with their computer system. It sounded like the Fomorians had managed to infect it with a living virus, some sort of creature that had attached itself to the mainframe and made it impossible to access a lot of their data. Including the best route to take to civilized space even after they repaired the ship enough to move that far. That was the same thing that had destroyed their long-range communication systems. They had exterminated the creature and completely wiped out its remnants in their computers, but the damage had been done. Madeli asked if there was any way they could provide some sort of replacement for that, even just a small backup system that could sync into what was left of their navigation computer. Gaia, however, said she could take a look at it and see it was possible to bring the original system back up. At Madeli’s bewildered look, Jacob simply introduced him to ‘Galaeia’ and told him she was a specialist in very experimental technology-based magic. He remembered enough about the Seosten to know they were always dabbling in new things.
“You know we can’t get into our work out here, but let’s just say if anyone can bring your computer back from the dead, it’s her,” he assured the other man. “If you want to let her try.”
“Well I’d be spitting into the void if I tried to argue,” Madeli noted. “Anything your people can do to help, we’re open to it. I’d really rather get out of here as soon as possible, before anything else goes wrong.” He gave a heavy sigh, rubbing his forehead while looking completely overwhelmed by the whole situation. “It’s already bad enough that I’m going to have to explain how we lost two of the Olympians.”
“Err, lost the what?” Jacob gave a double-take at that.
Madeli grimaced. “You know, the crew who went through the Summus Proelium project to enter Tartarus. We had two of them here with us, that was what our research was about. They ahh…. got taken by the Fomorians. Them and their research. If we’d had anything to spare, we would have tried to go after them, or at least killed them before they could be taken prisoner, but…” He sighed. “We just didn’t. If we just had our communications, I would have called in a fleet to go save them. But who knows where they are now. Or if the Fomorians even kept them alive this long. I guess if they were going to keep any Seosten alive, it’d be the Olympians. But honestly, I think it’s safe to say they’d be better off dead than being subject to whatever those monsters want them for.”
And then he said the words that made Jacob know that he wasn’t going back to Earth yet. The words that made him realize they weren’t done with those Fomorians they had barely escaped from. The words that told him they had to go back and find the abducted Seosten. No matter what it took.
“Either way, without Radueriel, Cahethal, or their work, I don’t see how those people back on Rysthael are ever going to get that so-called Eden’s Garden project off the ground.”