Microstory 2446: Caverndome

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I have no idea how big this place is, or how many corridors and chambers this dome has, but it seems pretty complex and expansive to me. According to the literature, this was a natural cave system that survey satellites and drones discovered while they were mapping the topography of the planet during this project’s early days. Seeing the opportunity, they built one of the domes on top of it. I saw the satellite view myself, and there aren’t any other domes very close to the rocky formations to the northeast of Caverndome, which makes me wonder whether the caves extend far beyond its borders, so they just decided to cut it off, and call it good enough. It certainly is. You could probably spend a whole standard lifetime here, and not see everything. The prospectus hints at the possibility of there being secret passageways and hidden chambers, and given the scope of the network, that’s probably true. I wouldn’t know how to find or access one of them, though. It could be mechanical or electronic, where a wall will part after inputting some kind of code, or it’s a tight squeeze with a big payoff, or it’s just so hard to see through an optical illusion. Some of the walls may straight up be holographic. A lot of people were running their hands along them in case the apparent solid surface gave way to empty space instead. We’re not allowed to bring in our own surveying equipment, which makes sense, because unlocking all the secrets all at once would go against the spirit of the dome. At its heart, this is an ecological dome, which means there aren’t any planned activities. You’re only supposed to come here if you wanna explore and see some cool caves. There is opportunity for spelunking and cave diving, but through the lens of this goal of exploration, not so you can test your mettle, bump your heart rate up, or get your rocks off, so to speak. Don’t come here and be disruptive or annoying. There’s literally a chamber that is specifically designated for echoing. It’s called Olimpia Hall. I would have called it the Echo Chamber, but maybe there’s some significance in the name that I am not cognizant of. If you wanna do that, go there, don’t disturb or undermine other people’s experiences because you were freakin’ born yesterday, and you’ve never heard an echo before. Yeah, it’s cool because of how powerful Olimpia Hall’s echoes are, but it doesn’t have the same effect elsewhere, so stop looking for alternatives. Sorry, I’m complaining about other visitors, when I’m just here to review the dome, but staffing is an issue. I guess it’s not their fault, because like I said, the network is so deep and intricate that they can’t station bots everywhere, but people are taking advantage of that freedom, and it’s making it a frustrating experience, so maybe they can try to find a solution? I dunno, I’ll shut up now.

Microstory 2416: Mountain Mountain

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Mountain Mountain. So nice, they named it twice. You ever heard that saying before? I actually think they named it that specifically so it would fit that phrase. Before you ask, there aren’t only two mountains here, and there is no mountain that’s literally just called Mountain. Someone in my orientation group thought that was the thing, so they were asking which one was Mountain Mountain, presuming it to be the largest one near the center. Everyone laughed, but I think it’s an honest mistake. Anyway, I’m not here to review that woman. There is nothing particularly astonishing about this dome. There are eleven distinct major mountain peaks here. You can find a list of them in the prospectus. The biggest one is called Mount Vendelin, by the way, if you were curious. For those of you who aren’t knowledgeable on the history of this world, it was first colonized by a man named Vendelin Blackbourne. So he lent his name both to the whole planet, and now this mountain. If you like mountains, I suggest you come here, and if you don’t, well then, whatever. There is a lot you can do on this mountain, but there’s something a little bit different about this dome. It’s not “state run” which means that there aren’t any robots or human staff members providing you with any assistance, except as part of orientation. That is, no one is in charge of activities. There aren’t any activities to sign up for at all. If you wanna do something, just print your supplies, and go do it. They will execute rescue operations, if it becomes necessary, but there aren’t drones flying around constantly, or satellite imagery. It’s basically the wilderness out here. My guess is that they want to see if anyone develops their own institutions, but they didn’t actually say that. Need to learn how to mountain climb? Right now, there’s no one around to do that, unless you happen to run into an expert who’s willing to help. I believe, at some point, as fans begin to show up, people will naturally take on leadership roles, and basically start little businesses. Who knows? We’re still in the early days, so we’ll have to wait and see. Maybe it’ll be you!

Extremus: Year 96

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People keep telling Tinaya their secrets, and including her in them. She knows about The Question, and the questionable course corrections. She knows about Thistle’s true nature, and their persistent connection to Verdemus, as well as a satellite Nexus. She’s aware of the war against the Exin Empire, a ton of what the Bridger Section is all about, the fact that her son is a time traveler, and even a few tidbits about what’s to come in the future. Now there’s this whole thing with her husband that she has had to add to the pile. Over the last year, the Chief Medical Officer and the Head Temporal Engineer have been working with him to understand his new powers. He is not, as they suspected, a retroverter, which are those who can de-age others, or themselves. What he does has nothing to do with health and vitality, in fact. He’s an old man, and no matter what he does to his outward appearance, he’s not gonna manage to generate extra years to his lifespan.

He’s a chameleon, which is a term that Dr. Cernak had to come up with himself, because this power is not anywhere in the database. There are some people who have time travel abilities so powerful and precise that they can actually transport individual photons of light from one point in time to another. Or maybe it’s more like they’re copying the photons. Tinaya doesn’t know all that much about it, but these are simply illusions. Behind the holograms, the true person still remains. This is not what Arqut is doing. He is modifying the substructure of his skin and skeletal system in order to make himself look different. He can look like himself at a different age, or someone else, at any age. With enough time and focus, he can modify only his face, or his whole body. This is decidedly not a time power, and the experts are at a complete loss as to where the power might come from.

There’s a lot out there that no one on the ship understands. Not even Omega and Valencia have all the answers. There is something of interest in this matter, however, and it involves a fundamental truth about the universe that the database only touches upon. Despite the fact that everyone here is descended from a population of ancestors who lived in a different universe, they actually don’t know much about how the multiverse works. There are more than two; this much is known, and not because Ansutah makes it impossible for there not to be, but because of vague and unrelated reports that various researchers have collected over the centuries. And there is a theory, based on this limited data, that the physics of these other universes might range from a little bit different to unrecognizably so. They may allow for the existence of a person who can shapeshift into others on a purely organic level, as opposed to a workaround via nanite technology, which the experts were able unequivocally to rule out as an explanation for Arqut.

The reality is that they have exhausted all avenues of information gathering that they have at their disposal. If they want answers, they’re going to have to look for them somewhere else. And Tinaya doesn’t have the ability to do that with him. So now they have to make a choice, and it might lead to a premature end of their lifelong commitment to each other.

It’s the Nexus that can potentially and theoretically transport Arqut to another brane, as it’s called by the researchers. The technology apparently comes from one of these other branes, and while they’ve not been able to figure out how to return to that weird waterworld they were sent to as soon as the Nexa were activated, Valencia believes that she has discovered the term sequence to somewhere else that might be of help. She calls it The Nucleus. If anywhere in this universe has the ability to access the full network, it’s there. But if Arqut does go in search of answers, he’ll have to go alone, or at least Tinaya can’t go with him. She has to stay here to complete her duties as a captain, and later an admiral. More importantly, she has to stay for Silveon. He’s getting bigger, but he still needs a mother, if only for appearances. It would be hard to explain where both of his parents went, and why they left him behind. Even if they could claim that there’s some secret mission off the ship that would benefit the Extremus, why would they send both parents of a young child? No, they either have to separate, and possibly never see each other again, or scrap the whole thing. Arqut is leaning towards the latter.

“Don’t you wanna know?” Tinaya asks.

“Where my new powers come from?” he guesses. “Yeah, but...I don’t want to leave Silveon at all, even though you’ll still be here. I may never come back. I may die out there. It’s not worth the risk. It seemed like a decent idea when Valencia brought it up, but there are too many variables that we can’t account for. Yeah, I can feel myself talking myself out of it in real time. This is a dumb idea. Who cares? Salmon go their entire lives not knowing who’s pulling the strings with their patterns. The idea that I could die under a similar looming mystery isn’t as big of a deal as it sounds. I don’t think I need to know any more than I do now.”

Tinaya was secretly hoping that he would say that, but she can’t let on. “Are you sure? I mean...it has to be from somewhere else. Organic shapeshifting isn’t a thing.”

He shrugs. “What good is it? I’m too old to be a spy, and I don’t know that anyone should have this kind of power anyway. What I should do is die, and have my body cremated, so no one has the chance to reverse engineer it, or something. Going out there, I lose control over my own postmortem directives. You can protect me. You can keep this power out of the wrong hands.”

“That’s a good point,” Tinaya agrees, sincerely and gratefully. She’s about to elaborate on her thoughts, but her watch beeps. “Oh. I have to go meet the new captain. Wanna come?”

“Am I allowed?”

“It’s a partially public affair,” she explains. “We don’t want it to look like we’re making some backroom deal. It’s actually better if you’re there...if you’re up to it.”

“Yeah, sure.”

They walk over to the port side together. Niobe meets up with them in the corridor with little Silveon, who’s not so little anymore. He’s currently eight, going on eighty. He’s loosening up a little bit around others, creating a narrative that he’s so subdued and unexcitable because of his precociousness. He still has to remember to laugh at childish jokes, and not at jokes that should go over the head of someone his age. He’s considering adding a third friend for him and Waldemar, who is now about to turn sixteen. Their age gap is starting to get noticed, so the idea would be to split the difference, and find a twelve-year-old to bridge the gap. Zefbiri is evidently searching for the right candidate, which is a crazy way to make a friend, but this being an important mission to the future, it might be their only reasonable option.

Lataran was right that the new captain would be a boy. Oceanus Jennings is only 28, having graduated from the captain’s track a few years ago at the very top of his class. He’s bright, professional, approachable, and frankly, attractive. Most importantly, he’s young, which the people have been wanting to see in the chair again, even if they aren’t willing to say the quiet part out loud. He is the kind of candidate that should always have been the only ones considered for the job. Again, he’s the appropriate age, and there’s nothing political about the appointment. Well, that’s not true; it always involves at least some politics, but it wasn’t done as some kind of favor, or with a deep agenda in mind. He’s great on paper, and he’s great in person. He became a natural leader of his peers in his youth, and is expected to do quite well next year. He didn’t campaign, or step on people’s heads to advance his career. He simply put in the work, and now he’s receiving his just rewards.

“Captain-in-waiting,” Tinaya says to him, shaking his hand. There’s no official deadline for when a new captain must be appointed—as long as it’s before the previous captain’s promotion—so captain-in-waiting isn’t an official term, but it’s there if anyone needs it.

“Admiral-in-waiting,” Oceanus replies respectfully with a smile as wide as the breadth of the whole ship. That’s not a term at all, since she has a real rank, but it’s fine. “I look forward to your advisement in the coming years.”

“We’ll see how long I last,” she jokes, self-deprecatingly acknowledging her own advanced age.

He holds that professional smile. “I would like to introduce you to my First and Second Lieutenants, Marlowe and Altin Gibson.”

Boys club. Okay. “Brothers?” she guesses.

“That’s right, Captain,” Marlowe confirms, shaking her hand.

“I feel like I’ve heard that name before too; Gibson.”

“Our grandfather, Hardy was an engineer back in the day,” Altin explains. “He was a pretty big deal.”

Tinaya nods as if she recalls who he’s talking about, but that would have been a long time ago. “Yeah, he was great. I’m sure you’ll do well too.” A boys club, and brothers. Well, hopefully it works out. The ship won’t survive another scandal like Tamm. “Oh, there they are,” she says, one arm open to receive her husband as he’s walking up with Silveon. “May I introduce you to Superintendent Arqut Grieves, and our amazing son, Silveon. Say hi, Silveon.”

Silveon has his whole body pressed up against his dad’s hip, like he’s nervous. He’s not saying anything, but staring at the new Captain and his posse. Hopefully, he’s only playing the part, and doesn’t actually have an issue with Oceanus. Tinaya doesn’t know what she could do with a warning about his future.

“He’s just a little shy,” Tinaya lies.

“Aww.” Oceanus bends forward to get closer to Silveon’s eye level. “Wadya think? Are you gonna follow in your mother’s footsteps, and become a captain too one day? “Silveon Grieves, Eighth of Eleven; how does that sound?”

Silveon just looks away, still shyly.

They go through the motions with this meet and greet, then leave as soon as it’s socially appropriate to do so. “What was that?” Tinaya asks once the door to their stateroom is closed. She’s grown accustomed to speaking to her little one as an adult. It no longer feels quite as weird and disturbing. “What does Oceanus end up doing?”

“He’s not the captain where I’m from,” Silveon answers. “I’ve never even heard of the man. That’s kind of what scares me.”

“Is that why you were acting so childish?” Arqut asks him, not at all meaning that as an insult. He literally has to act childish all the time.

“I don’t know how to be around him. I was thrown off since you didn’t tell me who was succeeding you, mom. I’ve been so focused on Waldemar, and now I’m realizing that we truly are in a new timeline, which I can’t predict anymore. That’s all I was thinking about. What if Waldemar just never becomes captain either? I wasn’t trying to stop him, only change him, but who knows what other changes I’ve made without realizing it? Things could end up worse.”

“I believe that Waldemar will still take the seat after Jennings,” Tinaya contends. “You’re not the only one with future knowledge. The Bridger section was quite convinced that there was nothing they could do to stop it. Of course, they never gave me a name, or even a shift, but based on what little you’ve divulged, I’m confident that you and they were talking about the same man.”

“All you can do is stay on mission, son,” Arqut tries to advise.

“That’s not necessarily true,” Silveon argues. “I knew the man who was supposed to serve between mother and Waldemar. I knew how to control his future too. I don’t know Jennings. I don’t trust him; not because I don’t think he deserves it, but genuinely because I don’t know. I hate the uncertainty. No one told me how much I would hate that from being a time traveler.”

“Well, I’ll be an Admiral, at least for a good few years. Lataran is younger than me, so she can keep Jennings in line after that. We’ll make it work. You’re not alone in this. I think you forget that since you weren’t planning on having so much support.”

“That’s true,” Silveon agrees. “And mom?” He steps over, and takes one of her hands in both of his. “You’re gonna last the whole next shift. You’re healthier than you were in the other timeline, and she made it through.”

“Thanks,” she responds. “Probably shouldn’t say any more.” Tinaya takes a breath, and turns away to walk towards the viewscreen, which is faking an image of outer space.

“What are you thinking about?” Arqut asks.

She turns back and smiles at him, and then down at Silvy. “How lucky I am, to be here, with the two of you.” She stares at the screen again, for a pretty long time. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this, but I feel like you have a right to know. And even though, Sil, you said I was going to live for another two dozen years, you can’t promise that. So let me give you time to prepare yourselves.” She spins around. “When I die, and they ask me The Question...I’m going to answer no.”

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Extremus: Year 95

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Lataran doesn’t call much, but when she does, it’s usually pretty important, albeit not typically an emergency anymore. Tinaya finishes up her scheduled duties, and then walks down to Admiral Wing at a deliberate but unhurried pace. She reaches up to ring the doorbell, but the door behind her opens. “Oh, hi.” What are you doing over there? What’s in that room?”

“Your future office,” Lataran replies with a smirk.

“Huh?”

“When you’re an admiral,” Lataran says as if it’s obvious.

“I thought we would share,” Tinaya explains, gesturing towards the other door.

“You think they would only build one office for all admirals?” Lataran questions. “Captains are supposed to sit down young, and sit back up when they’re still young. There should conceivably be three admirals at once. The much smaller third one, plus an extra space, are down that hallway.”

“Oh.” Tinaya tries to step into her new work space, but remains blocked.

“Don’t just walk in. That’s so unceremonious. I’m here to give you a tour.”

Tinaya drops her face into a sinister grin.

“No, don’t.”

She deepens the grin, then makes a short-range jump to the other side of the wall. She expects to find an office much like the one that Lataran has been working out of, but it’s much different. For one, it’s at least three times the area, and that’s just on the one floor. There’s also a mezzanine that wraps around the whole perimeter. Was this really meant to be an office, or some sort of shared recreational space? It would sure work for that. Part of it is made out of metal and metamaterials, like one would expect out of a transgalactic starship, but there’s also an artificial grass path that weaves through an impressively complex flower garden. It takes her a moment to notice the fountain, which leads to a very narrow stream before being pumped back up through the system. There are several trees known for thriving in indoor environments, but also a couple that are generally limited to the outdoors. Hopefully the Japanese maple and crape myrtle were genetically modified to stop growing before they reach the ceiling. Speaking of the ceiling, hologram viewscreens curve up the wall to meet each other in the center. They were surely an aftermarket add-on that was never in the original designs. Lataran has to have put a ton of work into this project, even if she commissioned someone else to build it all for her.

“I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t involve anyone else. An admiral is not allowed to give orders, so I did it all myself. It’s taken me years to get it to this point. I gave myself a buffer year, but obviously didn’t need it, and was too excited to wait to reveal it to you.”

“This is for me?” Tinaya questions.

“It’s for us,” Lataran clarifies. She glides over to the workstation sector, where two desks are sitting perpendicular to each other on either side of a corner. “Here, the next captain can see both of us at the same time when he needs help.”

“Or she,” Tinaya reflexively corrects. “Or they, or whatever.”

“It’s gonna be a boy, I can feel it.”

Tinaya chuckles, and steps deeper into the office to admire the garden. She takes a deep breath, accepting the sweet scent of the jasmine overpowering all other flowers in the room. There is lavender here too, as well as... She smiles, and gently runs her fingers along the petals. “Lilacs. Nice.”

“She’ll never see ‘em, but I figured I might as well remind you of one of your friends since she’s one of the few people you know named after things.”

“I appreciate that. I can’t believe you did all this.” It’s a little bittersweet, seeing the fruits of Lataran’s solo labor, knowing that in another reality, they worked on it together. But it probably would have been too much, and couldn’t have gotten done, due to her split focus with Silveon, Waldemar, and the ship as a whole. This was likely the best call, and a very lovely gesture. “I love you, Admiral Keen.”

“I love you, Captain Leithe II.” To Tinaya’s knowledge, she’s the only one on this tin can to call her Leithe II. People don’t really talk about the fact that she’s a legacy, and Tinaya doesn’t think too much about it herself. Truthfully, she’s always identified more with Admiral Perran Thatch, who wasn’t even ever a captain. What will it feel like when she reaches his rank, and if he were here today, what would he think of her?

“There’s one more thing that I need to show you,” Lataran says after giving her friend some time to soak in the beauty. She deliberately closes and locks the door to the hallway, even though not many people are authorized to be down here, and even fewer ever actually exercise that authority. She leads Tinaya up to the mezzanine level, and over to what appears to be a random spot along the catwalk, though it does seem to be intentionally behind the canopy of the maple. Lataran carefully looks around, apparently paranoid about looky-loos. No one could be here right now, though. There’s a self-contained teleportation controller on all high executive areas, like this and the captain’s stateroom. You can’t just show up unannounced.

“What are we—”

“Shh!” Lataran scolds in a loud whisper before transitioning into a regular whisper. “This is illegal. Very illegal.” She looks around once more, then kneels down to tap on the wall where it meets the floor. Glyphs glow faintly upon contact, but disappear quickly. After she’s finished inputting the secret access code, a square on the pathway disappears, revealing a hole leading to a very small room below. It’s more like a pod, but maybe for a few people. Minimal lighting flickers on automatically.

Tinaya looks over the edge of the catwalk. She recalls seeing the space under this from below. There’s no room here; it’s just more flowers and fake grass. The pod room must be in a pocket dimension of some kind.

“Trickle charged power reservoir, sourced gradually from the grid,” Lataran still whispers as she’s climbing down the ladder. “Undetectable as long as you don’t operate this too frequently, or for too long.”

“Operate what?” Tinaya asks, respecting the whisper.

“Come down here. And push that green button to close the door.”

Once Tinaya’s at the bottom, she looks down at the floor, and realizes that they’re standing in an undecagon, which is the same shape as the Nexus chamber, though that one is much larger. It’s an atypical number of sides to use for a room, so it’s either only an homage to that, or something more. “What the hell is this?” she questions, hoping that it’s the former.

“Backdoor Nexus access. From here, you can go back and forth to Verdemus without anyone else knowing. I know you left some people there.”

“This is illegal.”

“D’uh, I said that earlier.”

“I thought you just had alcohol down here, or something?”

“What? Gross! No. Omega built this here in case the main Nexus building were ever compromised by a corrupt government, or just some asshole.”

“How is this even possible? I thought that these machines had to be built to exact specifications.”

“They do,” Lataran agrees, “but once you do that, you can add satellite locations. Omega says that one of the floors above the control room serves the same purpose, but you can’t get there unless the gods let you in, or some shit. They have to like you, unless you wanna build your own backdoor, which is what he did here.”

“This isn’t okay, Lataran.”

“Okay, have me arrested,” she goads in a mocking voice.

Tinaya sighs. “You know I can’t do that. But I can’t use this either.”

“You don’t have to, but it’s here, and you had a right to know, and now that you do, you can decide whether anyone else does, like your husband, or your successor.”

“Okay, I’m leaving.” Tinaya reaches back up for the ladder. “Thanks for telling me. Let’s never talk about it ever again.”

“Very well.”

They start to climb back up until Tinaya finds herself face to face with Spirit Bridger. “Oh, crap.”

“Oh, crap, to you too,” Spirit jokes.

“Sorry, I just didn’t expect to find you here,” Tinaya says as she’s pushing herself back onto solid ground, and helping Lataran up behind her. “You were on Verdemus.”

“I was,” Spirit confirms, “but as you know, we have this little thing called a Nexus, which lets us travel back and forth.”

“That’s only become more regulated, and more difficult to pull off over the last few years,” Tinaya contends.

“Until now.” She jerks her chin toward the baby Nexus below them, the entrance of which waits a few more seconds before sealing itself off with its metamorphic nanites.

“You came through here?” Lataran searches through her armband. “I should have received an alert if anyone had done that, and there are a number of redundancies.”

Spirit smiles and slides a finger along the wall next to her. “There’s a direct power connection between the main Nexus and the satellite. We can appear anywhere along that pathway. The fact that you ran it along the scope of almost the whole ship means that’s just about anywhere. Can’t go back from anywhere, though...hence, I’m here.”

“That’s a security flaw,” Lataran points out.

“Indeed,” Spirit agrees.

Lataran looks back down at the floor. “I need to speak with Omega about that.”

“You’re too busy,” Tinaya reminds her. We’re approaching the transitional period, where we’ll end up with a new captain. Spirit can go coordinate with the Strongs to patch the vulnerability. Right, Spirit? You were going back there anyway.”

“Precisely,” Spirit replies.

“Then it’s settled.” Tinaya faces Spirit. “Play it close to the vest, please. We’ll keep the circle tight on our end too. Now, I gotta go. Silvy is getting out of school soon.”

“How’s the little bug?” Spirit asks.

“Precocious,” Tinaya replies, being honest, but still protecting yet another secret.

They say their goodbyes, and then Tinaya does head off to greet her son in the stateroom after school. But then she hands him off to Zefbiri shortly thereafter. It’s date night tonight. A normal couple with a five-year-old child would have to take breaks like this to make sure they don’t get burnt out on parenting, but while they don’t live with the same worries, they do have others. As Silveon grows, he becomes more and more capable of caring for himself, and inches closer and closer to whatever age he truly was when this started, but for now, he needs breaks too. He can be more himself with his parents, but he also has to be a certain way around them. It’s just different when it comes to his aunts. Zef was made aware of the situation a couple years ago. It didn’t make much sense for them to rely on her for guardianship responsibilities when she didn’t even understand who she might one day have to raise. Tinaya and Arqut are also aging, and could honestly be gone someday soon. The whole point is to be prepared.

The two of them are smiling at each other from opposite sides of the table, taking small bites here and there. A white tablecloth is covered in small plates which once held a dozen courses, each one a fairly small portion. A thistle bot has been serving them, and all the other guests are NPCs, which he programmed to ignore the humans. Thistle is still in the closet as a true, independent intelligence, and has been doing well. He can keep a secret, so they sometimes come to this simulation room for private conversations which can look like anywhere. This particular conversation has been pleasant, noncontroversial, and currently in a lull. Tinaya can tell that he wants to say something. “Go on, love. What is it? I know there’s something on your mind.”

He nods, and averts his gaze a small degree to the side. “Do you remember when I disappeared, and had that adventure on Earth in the future?”

“Yes, I remember. I’m constantly worried that that lemonhead will decide to steal you away from us again.”

“I took precautions,” Arqut insists. “It’s not about that. It’s about what happened to me while I was there.” He prepares himself. “I absorbed a ton of temporal energy, which I believed would harmlessly evaporate from me over time. We believe that that’s exactly how it would have worked had I stayed on Earth, but this...ship is a capsule, built with an incidental barrier of temporal energy of its own, zipping through space at hyper-relativistic speeds. There was nowhere for it to evaporate. Don’t worry, it doesn’t hurt, but I’ve been in contact with Dr. Cernak and Sabine Lebeau. It seems that my body has been metabolizing it, and altering me on a genetic level. They’re calling me a chosen one, though I may be something entirely different since the energy I took came from an eclectic group of time travelers, so we just don’t really know.”

“What does this mean? Can you...do something?”

“Don’t freak out.” Arqut sits very still. As his wife is watching him, the wrinkles in his face flatten out. His skin gets its glow back, and his hair turns dark once more. In seconds, he looks as young as he was when they first met.

You’re a retroverter,” Tinaya determines.

“Hopefully,” he says. “Obviously, I can do it to myself, and Sabine and Radomil are working on making it transferable. They’ll figure it out, and when they do, it means that we could start over. We could raise our son as twentysomethings; healthy and lively again. We may even be able to live forever. I know, I should have told you sooner, but this could be so good for us. What do you think? Are you interested?”

Tinaya daintily taps the cloth napkin against her lips before calmly laying it across her most recent plate. Still, she waits to respond, first staring him in the face for an uncomfortably long time. Finally, she quite confidently says, “no.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 16, 2437

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Finding the Vellani Ambassador was easy. Mirage had programmed it to follow her wherever she went while invisible with a space-warping generator on the hull, but something must have undone that at some point, because it was out in the open, and available to the public. The locals of Ex-666 had never entered the ship, but it was not clear yet whether they had ever tried, or if they deliberately stayed out of it. Because they had begun to revere it as a religious icon.

The government was a little too busy to return Mirage’s ship to her right away, though they did want to respect her ownership over it. They just really had to worry about preparing to go to war. The team was busy too, helping them take control of the eye in the sky. It was surprisingly easy. They were worried that there was some kind of catch that would come back to bite them in the ass, but the Chief Ascendant was convinced that no escape attempts had been made in the last 150 years, which probably caused some level of complacency.

Not much had actually changed about the world over the course of the last year. The armada from Ex-182 was not yet here. Some of the so-called prisoners were former fleet members, who knew enough about the ships that the empire used to tell them that they were mostly powered by reframe engines. They had built their vessels to be quite large, however, and scaling of the technology came at a cost. While regular fusion reactions were perfectly suitable to make the engine work for a smaller ship, like the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, capital ships demanded too much power. Not even a larger fusion reactor could compensate for the loss. The only way they could get up to maximum reframe speeds was to use matter-antimatter reactions. No one here knew enough about it to understand why that was a problem these days, but Mirage did.

“It was us,” she shrugged.

“You stole their antimatter reserves?” Leona asked her.

“Far as I know, it’s still there,” Mirage began to explain, but it’s hard to get to. It exists as a fully formed antistar, sitting out there alone in the void. Getting close enough to it to extract only as much antimatter that they need when they need it is a delicate dance. My team and I were tasked with engineering a containment megastructure. We were on schedule to completing that mission when I was separated from them, and captured. I knew that it was going to happen, so I made arrangements to halt all production and construction. If they returned to the project themselves, it’s going to take them a hell of a long time. I scattered my barges in all directions. Just getting them back would probably take longer than starting over from a new source of raw material.”

“Why were you helping them in the first place?” Mateo questioned. “Did you not realize that you were working for the bad guys?”

“We suspected from the beginning,” Mirage replied. “But we weren’t sure, we weren’t sure what level of technology they had—though it could have been vast considering their remoteness from the Earthan stellar neighborhood—and also we felt bad. We were the ones who destroyed their first antistar. For reasons I still don’t fully understand, they maintained a link between this region of the Milky Way, and Alpha Centauri. That’s how we ended up this far out in the first place. We were just going to Toliman to pick up my ship, which I had programmed to build itself years prior. There was something very wrong with that whole star system, so we blew up our asteroid to prevent anyone else from trying to investigate, and that’s what destroyed the star. It and the antistar annihilated each other.”

Leona winced. “Toliman has not been destroyed.”

“No, it had to have,” Mirage insisted. “What else could have happened?”

“I don’t know,” Leona contended, “but if Alpha Centauri B didn’t exist in this day and age, I would have heard about it.”

“Someone must have gone back to fix it,” Mirage guessed, “maybe me.”

“I don’t know how you would do that,” Ramses said.

“I have some ideas,” Mirage responded. She looked forward again, and sighed. “Looks like they’re nearly done.”

While Mirage was in the sixth circle of hell, the natives had transformed the site of the Vellani Ambassador into a sacred one. They didn’t worship the ship, nor whoever may have brought it here, but they conceived stories about how it might one day open for them, and a great savior would step out of it to rescue them from their damnation. It was only hitting them now that this was their very first sign of religious doctrine in this sector of the galaxy. The team hadn’t even noticed before, because vonearthan culture had managed to transcend its superstitious origins, so religion wasn’t much of a thing anymore. But the Goldilocks Corridor was apparently seeded with life thousands of years ago, and many of the worlds were severely underdeveloped. So it seemed rather odd, not that some evil religious order wasn’t controlling the masses alongside the evil empire, but that no one on the planets they had been to so far had taken comfort in the mystical. Was this agnosticism enforced...or incidental?

The religious leadership was dismantling the decorations and offerings that had been placed on and around the ship.  Some of them believed that Mirage was indeed their savior, and that their belief that she would literally come out of the Hope Chariot, which was what the worshipers called it, was just a matter of detail.

Why didn’t you have them do this before?” Angela asked. “You could have left before.”

“I figured I would give them one more year with it,” Mirage answered. “I knew that you would need that whole time to come back, and that kind of waiting means little to me in the long-run. I’ve developed high patience. Now they’ve had time to say their goodbyes.”

“Did you explain that it was just a regular ship, and not god, or whatever it is they believe?” Olimpia asked her.

“I don’t know if they believe me. Some think I am indeed the savior they’ve been waiting for, and others think that I’m just the one who is going to unlock it so the true savior can be released from it. This is a prison world, and while they’ve thrived here, they have not forgotten that. So if there’s a god of Ex-666, perhaps they’re a prisoner too, and maybe they’re trapped in the...Hope Chariot. It would explain why this deity hasn’t saved them yet.”

They had an interesting way to express respect here, at least as far as the religious people went. They would stretch their arms out wide, dip their nose down towards the ground as low as possible, and balance themselves out by raising one leg behind them as high as possible. Only the elderly members no longer flamingoed, but they still airplaned their arms, and lowered their head into a regular bow. The younger ones made the move with the most enthusiasm, and they did not care if they fell over in the attempt. “Hmm, it’s basically Warrior 3,” Marie noted, having tried yoga in the afterlife simulation in the early 19th century, before it was cool in the western world on Earth.

The Elder Priestess was the last in line to pay her respects to Mirage and the team. She made no attempt to bow, but smiled as wide as Mona Lisa, and nodded. As she passed by, she placed a comforting hand on Mirage’s shoulder, and walked down the hill to join the rest of the main group, who were watching from there. A huge crowd had convened behind them to witness the magic. Not everyone in the world believed, but surely there were plenty here who just wanted to see what happened. Fortunately, they were in an open expanse in the desert, which fit the instructions for the Ambassador to avoid populated areas, so something like this wouldn’t happen. The settlements here only sprung out as a result of its sudden appearance.

Mirage lifted her hand, and said in reference, “allons-y.” She snapped her fingers, prompting the back hatch of the ship to engage and lower. To her surprise, someone actually did step out. It was a young woman, perhaps in her early- to mid-twenties. She was completely ready for this, coming into the light with confidence and self-assuredness. The crowd went wild. A lot of them dove to the ground in a full Downward Facing Dog bow of intense unwavering loyalty and faith. The woman walked right down the hill, and approached Mirage. “Do you recognize me?”

“Niobe. You’re older now. How long have you been in there?”

This was the girl who was with Maqsud Al-Amin and Lilac’s son, Aristotle. She was a slave-child on Ex-324, but she originated on the Extremus planet of Verdemus. She smirked, and looked over at the team. “A few minutes.” She winked.

“Why?” Mirage asked.

“These people need someone to follow. They’re never going to let go of their convictions, at least not until they win the war. The Chief Ascendant is going to continue to run the state, but they are transitioning from peacetime, and they are severely underestimating what that is going to do to their culture. Someone else needs to be there to guide them. Now, I’m not going to explain why I’m the best person for the job, but it has to do with what I’ve experienced since we last saw each other. Just know that this is the right thing to do, and I’m not going to abuse my power. If you would like to be sure of that, you can stand by my side, Mirage. This team needs your ship more than you do.”

“What about...”

“Ex-10?” Niobe guessed. “Let it go, he means nothing. Do not be fooled by his low numerical designation. It’s a trick. Everything that Oaksent does is a joke, a smokescreen, or a mistake. So, how about it? Are you with me?”

Mirage looked back at the crowd, and let out her signature emulated sigh. She switched her gaze to Leona, who had made herself look like the real Iman Vellani. “Leona’s Rules for Time Travel, Number Fourteen, do not form, or inspire, a religion.”

“Leona is just a person,” Niobe reasoned, “not a god.”

“Nor are we.”

“We won’t act like one,” Niobe continued. “We’re there to help. They understand where we come from, but you were about to open this ship, and I saw an opportunity. I won’t apologize for that. I really am trying to help. The Empire must fall, and while I have limits to what I’m willing to do to accomplish that, this does not cross the line. You have to decide where your line is.”

Mirage shook her head as she thought about it. “Give me the rest of the day.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 15, 2436

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The new ship was done. The holographic projectors were up and running, making them look like something else entirely. Reminiscent of holodecks from the Star Trek franchise, a magnetic field of equivalent dimension gave it the impression of physical size, for when light was not enough. If someone, for instance, were to shoot a missile at a section of it that didn’t technically exist, it would not simply pass through it, but interact with this field, reinforcing the lie that they were bigger than they really were. In honor of this inspired technology, Ramses chose the USS Defiant from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine as their first hologram. It was a warship, so it looked a bit menacing, but was also relatively small. They couldn’t make it look as large as something like the Death Star, because the truth would be too easy to detect. There were a few other fictional ships that Ramses, and other members of the team, wanted to try, but they would eventually transition into original models. It wasn’t super likely that anyone in the Exin Empire had ever seen anything of these things, but there was always a chance.

This was an important test, because while the resort planet they just went to had no orbital infrastructure, Ex-666 did. It wasn’t much, but it was there, and it was trying to destroy them. Leona and Ramses both stayed on board so they could outrun it. For now, they were doing just fine with that. The defense satellite was apparently not designed to attack, but to prevent unauthorized entry. With this clearly being a penal colony, that made a hell of a lot of sense. So they were just going to keep away from it, and only fight back if the situation grew tiresome. Generally speaking, they did not operate on ships with weapons, but the Dorsch had an offensive system that they could use if they had no other choice. Ramses still had his eyes set on something brand new, advanced, and tailored specifically for their needs, but they weren’t going to find help on Ex-666, so that was still a dream for another day.

The rest of the team took the dropship down to investigate the surface. They didn’t want to teleport while they were being so closely watched, because they still didn’t know how ubiquitous such abilities were in this region of space. It could look too suspicious. The satellite may have called in reinforcements from somewhere, and who knew how quickly that would happen? Their only real concern was finding Vitalie!666, but it seemed ridiculous to not at least try to communicate with the locals. They were worried it would go terribly, and now was the moment of truth. “Good evening, folks. We are refugees from Ex-741. Have you, perchance, heard of it?” Mateo asked. At present, he looked like James Van Der Beek, because that was the only form he found himself able to maintain for extended periods of time for some reason. Again, hopefully no one here knew enough Earth pop culture to recognize him.

“We’ve heard of Ex-741,” one woman replied. “Why would you need to be a refugee from there? Weren’t you just engineers and technicians?”

“They were technicians,” Mateo lied, pointing to Angela, who looked like her finishing school teacher, and Marie, who looked like Marie Antoinette. “I was a janitor. She was a singer,” he added, pointing to Olimpia, who looked like a woman she had a crush on while she was still living in society on Earth.

“Singer? The dockyard had singers?”

“We need entertainment too. Anyway—” He had this whole explanation about how Ex-741 was going to be destroyed, and they were the last to escape, but they got lost in space, but these people didn’t seem to care.

“Sing something,” the woman insisted.

“Well, she doesn’t have to do it on comman—” Mateo started to say, but he was interrupted yet again.

“No problem.” Olimpia started to sing, using that positively gorgeous voice that the other five had forgotten she had, because she did not do this often enough. The locals were just as enamored by it. More started walking up when they heard it. They all clapped profusely after she was finished singing Ex:Re’s The Dazzler.

The woman from before smiled and nodded. “You’ve landed in the right place. This is where the Chief Ascendant lives. He’ll want to meet you.” She looked over to a teenager nearby. “Go gather some wagmen.” The young man ran off, and when he returned with five men who were rolling a wagon by hand, the woman rolled her eyes. “I meant pedal wagmen, son. These are honored guests.”

“Wait,” Mateo said, stepping forward. “You don’t have automobiles, so you get around by people who walk or pedal?”

“That’s right,” she answered. “Our technology is limited. You’ve fallen on a prison world. I’m sorry.”

Mateo shook his head. “Just tell us where the Chief Ascendant lives. We can walk there on our own. Really, we’re built tough. We insist,” he added when he saw that she was going to argue.

“Very well. It’s not far, just up the road.” She pointed up the hill.

The four of them nodded, and headed that way. Once they were at the sort of castle-looking building, the guards opened the gates with no questions, and let them through. They were wearing headsets, likely connected to radios, which meant that their technology wasn’t evenly limited. Who knew what other anachronistic things that they used in their daily lives?

They expected this Chief Ascendant to be lounging around on a bed full of pillows, and a harem of women, but he was behind a standing desk, along with other people. They were looking through papers, and discussing matters of state. “Ah. You are the freemen, aren’t you? Welcome to Ex-666.” He didn’t stop working. He kept signing declarations, and approving memos, or whatever else his staff was asking him to do.

“You’ve built yourself a nice society here, haven’t you,” Mateo put forth.

“Yes, well, we share a common purpose. We all hate the Exin Empire. I don’t know who told them that they should throw all of their insurgents onto one world, but we are probably the most successful one in the region. We work together, and if you’re here to disrupt our way of life, we will fight back.”

“That’s not why we’re here,” Mateo insisted. He was doing all the talking today. That was probably fine, for now. My colleagues are up in our ship right now, avoiding the ire of your orbital defense satellite.”

The Chief Ascendant laughed. “It’s not ours. It’s part of what keeps us here.”

“Do you want us to destroy it for you?”

The Chief Ascendant stopped, and raised one eyebrow at Mateo. “You came here in a warship?”

“It has weapons. It’s not a warship, but my engineer assures me that they can do it. They just don’t know what the consequences will be.”

“They’ll send an armada from Ex-182.”

Mateo sighed. “We can’t protect you from all that.”

“Could you...gain control over it?”

Mateo smirked, and turned his head slightly away to listen to Leona’s response. “Yeah, they surely could. They just need to get on board.”

“You could have anything you wanted,” the Chief Ascendant began, “if you did that for us.” He placed his elbow on the desk, and pointed to the sky. “That thing has an energy beam that can shut off all systems from hundreds of ships all at once, and then draw them in. If we had control over it, instead of the Exins, we would beg the armada to come, so that we could steal it.”

Mateo cleared his throat, and faced the group. “What do y’all think?” The conversation over comms was short, so he turned right back around. “Any enemy of Bronach Oaksent is a friend of ours.” He looked at the twins. “Go help them.”

Angela and Marie nodded. Angela tapped on her chest twice. “Two to beam up.” They both teleported away.

The crowd gasped. “You have some wild technology.” The Chief Ascendant noted.

Mateo chuckled. “They destroyed our planet on purpose, and since they didn’t wanna be destroyed along with it, they ran off a long time before it happened. We were left behind, with no oversight, so we stole all the tech we could, and flew off in the opposite direction.”

“Yes,” the Chief Ascendant agreed. “Their inability to organize, and our ability to do so, will ultimately be their downfall.”

One of his men sidled up to him, and whispered in his ear, “sir? What about the True Prisoner? They could help with her too.”

“Who is the True Prisoner?” Mateo asked, having easily heard his remark.

“This whole planet is a prison,” the Chief Ascendant began to explain, “but it is lush with vegetation, and other useful resources. We can’t leave, but most people don’t feel the need to. They’ve built a life for themselves. They entrust me to protect them, and to prepare to fight in their stead, which you’ve agreed to help us with. The point is, very few of us actually feel like prisoners. For the most part, things are better than they were before we came here. More would probably come on purpose if we could get the message out to them, letting them know that crime actually does pay. Only one of us is in a real prison. We, uhh...have been trying to get to her for decades. We don’t know anything about her; who she is, what she did to anger the Empire so much, or how she is able to survive the extreme heat and noxious fumes.”

“Extreme heat, and noxious fumes?” Mateo echoed. That sounded familiar to him. “Is she in a volcano?”

“You are quite perceptive. Yes, she is. It’s quite a distance to this volcano, but if you can teleport, you can get there quickly, and maybe even get her out. We would sure like to finally meet her.”

“Show me.”

The Chief Ascendant called for a map. His Prime Cartographer explained where they would be going, and went into more detail about the temperatures involved. Someone also called ahead to let the people who lived closer know that visitors would be arriving, and would need firesuits. Mateo thought about arguing against the need for such things, but decided not to bother. “Uhh...two more to beam up,” Mateo said awkwardly, trying to replicate Angela’s fake request for a technological solution. Unfortunately, he tapped on his chest after his request, instead of before, which would mean that their team wouldn’t have even heard it. That was stupid of him, but there was no undoing it now. He and Olimpia just let it go, and disappeared.

They found themselves in the magma chamber, standing on a solid rock formation. The heat was intense, as were the fumes. They could see a manmade structure shimmering in the distance, sitting upon its own rock island. It had a metal frame, but most of his was transparent, surely made of some kind of heat-resistant polycarbonate material. Mateo and Olimpia looked over to their left as someone was slowly side-stepping towards them in a shiny suit. They were holding an extra firesuit in their hand, and struggling in the attempt to give it to whoever was willing to take it. They were clearly finding it difficult to move in the thing, full stop, and the two of them didn’t need all that dead weight. Mateo dismissed the helpful volcanologist’s help, waving him away politely. He took Olimpia’s hand, and they made a jump into the cell. It was better inside, though not by much. Now that they were closer, he could see that this was no ordinary prisoner. He took her in his arms, and jumped them both to safety.

“Took ya long enough, James Van Der Beek!” Mirage exclaimed.

Mateo instinctually dropped his hologram, and turned back into himself. “Mirage Reaver, how the hell long have you been in there, dude?”

“That’s not my last name. What year is it?”

“It’s 2436.”

“I’ve been in there for eighty-three years,” she answered. “I did get one break thirty-six years ago, but then I had to go back.”

“Argh! God, it’s been so long!” He stepped back into her, and gave her a big hug. “I can’t believe you’re, like, all into this whole thing.”

“I’ve been doin’ my own thang, man. I know people. I’ve had adventures. I’ve traveled through time.”

“Not all it’s cracked up to be, eh?”

Leona appeared next to them. “Mirage. It’s nice to see you. Last we saw each other, you were on Altair.”

“You knew that she was back in this dimension?” Mateo questioned.

“I don’t tell you everything.”

“Are we cool?” Mirage asked Leona.

“We’re cool,” Leona confirmed. “Ramses is alive and well.”

“Thank you for getting me out of there. That place sucked. And also, hello.”

“Hi, I’m Olimpia.”

“Olimpia Sangster. It’s nice to finally meet you in person. I helped you once. You didn’t know it was me.”

“Thank you,” Olimpia replied graciously, not asking her to clarify.

“So.” Mirage clapped her hands together. “This is a prison world. My ship is nearby, and it’s invisible, so if you need a way to escape, you can come with me.”

“Where are you going?” Mateo asked her.

“I have a score to settle.” She looked at her bare wrist. “I just hope he’s still alive.”

Leona was too curious. What kind of vessel would an entity like Mirage build for herself? “What’s the name of your ship?”

“It’s actually a module called the Ambassador. It can detach from, and propel itself independently of, the main ship, which I named The Iman Vellani.”

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The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 9, 2430

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Ex-908 was unlike the other two planets in the Goldilocks Corridor that the team had been to. The first one was at medieval-level technology. The second one was more like the 2030s. This world was far more advanced, with an early-warning outer system defense grid, and multiple space stations in orbit. Fortunately, the AI on this little ship was intelligent enough to avoid being detected. It stayed out of range by hiding on a planetesimal in the inner edge of the transtellar debris cloud, which was smaller than the Oort Cloud that was around Earth.

“What are we going to do here?” Angela asked. “We’re trying to find the bad guy, but what exactly are we expecting to accomplish on this world? Or the next one? Do we have any protocols, procedures, or plans?”

“Good question,” Mateo said. It took him a few seconds to realize that everyone was waiting for him to answer it. “Why are y’all lookin’ at me? I’m not the captain.”

“This was your idea, though,” Marie pointed out.

“Wull...” He fumbled for words. “Why are you listening to me? I don’t know what the hell I’m talkin’ about!”

“It’s okay, honey.”

“Look at them, salivating like honey badgers, acting like I have all the answers. This is just what we do, try to stop all the bad shit happening when we find ourselves in a position to make a difference.”

“Okay, okay, it’s fine. Relax,” Leona encouraged. She looked into his eyes, and started to breathe methodically until he matched her. Then she gestured for him to continue while she talked. “This is the most advanced civilization we’ve run into. There seems to be some air of mystery surrounding the emperor of this empire, of whatever it is they call him, but maybe they know something. Let’s go and ask.”

“The last one could stop us from teleporting,” Olimpia reminded her as she was rubbing Mateo’s arm up and down, since he was the one who suffered from that technology the most. “We were smart to leave one of us in the ship, but that could have easily not been enough. We may not be so lucky this time.”

“Ah.” Ramses disappeared into his lab, and returned a few seconds later. He was holding a damaged gizmo with wires loosely hanging out of it. “The spatial tether. Yes, I almost forgot. In the future, I might be able to help us avoid it altogether, but until then, I’ve designed some clippers, which will break us out of it.” He held up the remote that he had been carrying around lately to do other things, like disrupt Bronach Oaksent’s interstellar holographic projection. The only thing is, there’s only one. If any of us gets caught, you’re gonna need me.”

Leona takes it out of his hand, and turns it around in her own. “How long will it take you to build another one?”

“A second remote that does everything? All day,” Ramses answers. “A cheap knock-off that only clips spatial tethers? A couple hours, maybe.”

“Stay here and do that,” Leona orders. “I’ll take this one in case we need it. Hopefully, if they have such technology, it operates on the same principles. If not, you’ll be up here to save us.”

“I’ll stay with him,” Olimpia volunteered. “I don’t think anyone should be alone. I can be your little assistant,” she said to him.

“I would love that.”

“Okay, we’ll split into three teams. The second group needs to go find this planet’s version of The Caretaker. Vitalie, I don’t know if you wanna do that, or if you very much don’t want to...”

“If not me,” Vitalie!324 began, “at least someone she recognizes. So either you or Matt. The other iterants never met Angela-slash-Marie.”

“I’ll do it,” Mateo said. “Whatever questions need to be asked to find Oaksent’s ruling world, I’m not the one to ask them. It may end up in a fight, who knows?”

“Okay,” Leona agreed. “I’ll go start askin’ questions, and knockin’ heads. Mateo will find Vitalie!908. Ramses and Olimpia are staying with the ship. By the way, keep moving. Break orbit, if you have to, which I think you probably will. Go into darklurking mode. We’ll still be able to communicate through our comms. I don’t think more than two need to stay here, though. Nor do I think finding the other Caretaker is more than a two-person job. So who wants to join my husband while the other two come back me up?”

Both Angela and Marie raised their hands.

“I don’t know what that means,” Leona said to them.

“We both want to help Mateo,” Marie clarified. She looked over at her sister. Then they dropped their hands down simultaneously for a round of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Marie won after the third game.

“All right, is everyone ready?” Leona posed.

They nodded.

“Rambo, navigate us to the planet. I want you to look for three things. Number one, the biggest, baddest seat of government you can detect. Number two, the remotest region on the surface. Number two, the most complex cave system that’s still remote. If something goes wrong, jump to, and hide in, the caves. We can find each other while avoiding pursuit. Once we know where to go, we’ll split. Group Confrontation will go to the city. Group Stasis will find the other iterant. She seems to usually be away from civilization. Obviously, Group Breakthrough will stay with the ship, which I’m realizing now still needs a name.”

“No, it doesn’t,” Mateo claimed.

She was thrown off a little by this, but didn’t push it. “Okay. Let’s do it to it!”

The quickly-conceived plan went as well as they thought it would. Speed was key, which Leona knew. Orbital defenses sprang into action, but they weren’t fast enough for them. The three groups jumped to their respective missions, and no one was caught. Not yet, anyway.

As it turned out, they might not have to worry about spatial tethers preventing them from teleporting. When they appeared in the lobby of what appeared to be some kind of capitol building, no one batted an eye. They walked up to the reception desk. “Hello. My name is Captain Leona Matic of the...” She faltered. “Well, I gave my ship away, but that doesn’t matter. We need to talk to whoever is in charge here.”

“In charge of what?” the receptionist asked. She looked pretty young to hold the job, and didn’t seem to care about it. She may as well have been chewing gum.

“The planet.”

She yawned. “I heard he’s dead.”

“Not Bronach Oaksent. I mean, in charge of this world specifically, or maybe even just this city?” Unlike the first two planets, this world had several distinct cities, and any number of smaller towns in between. This one was the largest.

“Oh, the Prime Minister. He’s on the top floor, but—”

They didn’t bother listening to her full explanation. They just jumped right up there and started to look around. There were people hurrying about, but it didn’t feel like a crisis. This just looked like a Tuesday. One of them made the mistake of walking a little bit slower than most. Angela gently stopped him by the arm. “Pardon me. Where can we find the Prime Minister?”

“He’s back there. Can I go now?”

She let him go, and they walked down the hallway until they reached the big double doors. Angela opened one while Vitalie!324 opened the other. Leona barged in through the center. A group of men were in the middle of a conversation around the long table. They stopped and looked over at the disruption. “Good afternoon, folks. My name is Leona Matic. Perhaps you’ve heard of me. It seems that your god-king is a pretty big asshole. I’m aimin’ to take him down. Problem is, ya see, I don’t know where he is. You tell me what you know, I’ll leave you be. You stand in my way, I’ll take you down first.” She teleported randomly around the room, which wasn’t impressing them. “You may know people who can do this. You may be able to do it yourself. But I have other tricks up my sleeve, so don’t test me. Where is the seat of power for this Exin Empire? My guess is you call it Ex-001, but I dunno.”

The man at the head of the table was the only one standing. He tugged down on his sports jacket authoritatively, and began to come around the corner. “Emergency teleportation.” Everyone disappeared, except for him. “You’ll leave them be, because they got nothin’ to do with this. Your fight’s with me.”

“You’re not Bronach Oaksent,” Leona accused.

“No, but I run this rock. We have heard of you. We were just discussing your team. You’re a problem. You’ve been to two planets already, not counting the, uhh...traitors. I think you’ll find that you won’t be able to bully us like you did 275 and 324. They are...irrelevant, especially Ex-324, which is in the state that it’s in because it doesn’t provide Oaksent with what he demands. And you’re wrong, the primary system is not called Ex-001. You could never begin to understand our naming conventions.”

“What’s the main world called?”

The Prime Minister smirked. “I can tell you what it’s called, but that doesn’t mean you’ll find it. No one goes to Ex-69, not even me.”

Leona cleared her throat. “Do you know the significance of the number 69, sir?”

“Oaksent calls it the Divine Figure. That’s all we need to know. That’s more than you deserve to know.”

Angela wrote it out for him on a whiteboard. “It’s two numbers having sex.”

Leona never broke eye contact with the Prime Minister. “Your leader is a fucking child. Tell me where he is, or I’m gonna fuck up your shit.”

“I would rather die.”

“Weird nerd,” she mused. She tilted her head away. “Ramses, are you locked on?”

“We’re in, sir,” he replied through comms. “What do you wanna do?”

“Burn up the biggest one,” she ordered. “I want this world to be defenseless.”

The Prime Minister’s face couldn’t decide if he felt horrified, or confused. “What are you doing? What are you burning?”

The phone on the back counter started to ring.

Leona paced around menacingly. “We were wondering, why would your world need the kind of defenses that it does? It doesn’t make any sense. This is an empire in the middle of nowhere. No one out there knows that you exist. And the other two planets don’t have it. You don’t care about Ex-324 and Ex-275. So are you fighting against outsiders like us...or amongst yourselves? We didn’t speak long, but Oaksent didn’t strike me as the type who would have some sort of inherent opposition to civil war. You’re not his little babies. You’re his playthings. Hell, he probably stirs up conflict on purpose. I suppose I’m more like him than I thought, because I’m doin’ the same thing. If you keep refusing me, there will be nothing left to defend you, except for her.”

Vitalie raised her hand up, and waved with her fingers. “That’s assuming you can convince her to stay here as your Caretaker. The rest of your defenses will have burnt up in the atmosphere.”

“What do you want?” the Prime Minister demanded to know.

“I want to know where your god-king is!”

“I told you, no one knows that!”

“Ramses, on my mark, drop another one, but don’t worry about avoiding populated areas this time.”

“Wait!” He struggled to catch his breath. “You would do that? You would kill innocent people? That’s not the Team Matic I grew up hearing stories about.”

“You must have heard sanitized versions of those stories. The way I see it, you’re fighting a war on multiple fronts. I consider you to be an enemy combatant, and I’ll do what I need to do to protect the lives of the people that I care about. The Welriosians weren’t hurting anyone, and your boss tried to destroy them all. What happens when the vonearthans make it this far out? How will you react?”

“It’s not my job to react to outsiders. We’re the farest from the stellar neighborhood out here. That’s the whole point.”

“What is Ex-908’s responsibility to the empire?” Leona asked.

The Prime Minister took a breath. “These are testing grounds. Ex-182 regularly attacks us to see how we survive. If you destroy even one more of our satellites, we’ll all die. These aren’t games, the stakes are real.”

“I’ll leave you with what you have left if you tell me what you know, like I’ve asked a thousand times already.”

“I really don’t know where Ex-69 is, but I know someone who might. Ex-42 could have the answers you need. I think it’s about 24 light years away. It’s where we keep all of our data. It’s like one giant space server.”

“Ram, you know where Ex-42 is?”

“There are thirty-one planets between here and there.”

“That’s our next stop.”

The Prime Minister looked over at the phone. “I never answered it. Which satellite did you destroy?”

Leona looked at him incredulously. “I didn’t destroy any of them. Ramses was the one calling you on that phone. He was able to hack the communications network, and not much else quite yet.”

“You were bluffing,” he realized.

“We were that time.” They teleported away.

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