Chapter 32

MARK

The final enemy flagship pushed on past their location directly into the main battle group. It opened fire on the captured Taiidan destroyer which was too slow to get out of the way of its massive front end ramming into it. However, taking out the destroyer caused significant damage to their vessel as well. It continued in a straight line and managed to fire a single shot at Mothership before detonating in a third ball of light followed by a large shockwave.

He received a strange text message on his console from an unknown sender. It must have somehow been her. He sent a reply, and waited for company to show up. He was counting on Isabella getting someone to follow his last trajectory to see what happened. And sure enough after less than ten minutes he spotted a salvager being escorted by a repair corvette.

“Hey there Mark, so you didn’t die out here after all,” Jasiid said.

“No, just out of both gas and bullets. That’s okay though, I think this little one is as well.”

“Want us to call it a hauler too?”

“Nah, you go ahead. I can dock with the Mercy using maneuvering thrusters.”

“Ah, right.”

He stole one final glance at they mysterious pilot. Her gaze was now lowered with her hair having fallen over her face. He could imagine what she was feeling at that moment having lost all he knew himself not all that long ago with the burning of Kharak.

“Also M-Mark, is that what I think it is?” Jasiid asked.

“The Khar-Toba, very far from where it is supposed to be and in one piece, yes.”

“Sajuuk be kind…”

“Mothership taking damage,” Karan announced. He checked sensors, and yes. A lot but not all of the enemy ships were doing kamikaze runs into the hull in he supposed some last ditch effort to take them out.

“What a waste,” he said. It was over, they had won.

ARAZIS

She was forced out of her ship onto a hard metal floor bathed in a blinding blue light from all directions, almost to bright to see. A loud cheer erupted in the hangar among these other Hiigarans, whereas her fellow Kadeshi mostly had looks of sorrow or anger on them. She looked around to get a bearing on her surroundings, and there it was with its hatch open. The Red Ship. She looked around to those nearby and among the crowd of jumpsuit wearers was its pilot, cheering and embracing his colleagues. A thing she also would have been doing should the tides had gone in another direction.

“I found Khar-Toba!” He shouted to cheering.

“Mark! Mark! Mark!” The crowd began to chant. So Mark must have been his name. Someone then grabbed hold of her arm as she took a step forward towards them.

“Hey there, you’re not going anywhere unless I get the order,” he said to her.

MARK

The crowd simply would not quit. The cheers of victory, his fellow pilots chanting his name, the joy of having defeated their most powerful foe so far. It was all overwhelming. And then he noticed something, they were chanting his name. His name. Mark, not Markus. He was no longer the son of Markus Soban, he was just Mark Soban. Captain Redblood too now that Jasiid gave an embarrassing toast in his honour to inform everyone of his old callsign. It felt a little wrong to be enjoying himself as much as he was, but everyone deserved a little ego boost now and again he supposed.

“I guess this is how my dad must’ve felt pretty much every second of his life,” he said to Isabella who was attempting to help him get away from them all as he had important matters to attend to.

“I bet, must feel real important now, don’t you?” She teased.

He started towards the captured fighter of the mystery pilot, but she was nowhere to be seen. He supposed they must have already processed her. And so, making his way to the detention block with Isabella, Jasiid, and now Johan too back aboard. It was not a short walk over either, but they managed. He could see rooms upon rooms of Kadeshi captives being interrogated. There were quite a few Kushan leaning against the wall in the hallway as well, simply observing. Then he found a larger group who looked saddened by something. When he looked into the room, rage swelled up in him.

“I can’t watch this.” He tried for the door key, but it was locked. A guard who was standing watch came on over and unlocked it for him, giving him a knowing nod. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, exactly?” He said entering the interrogation chamber. The guards in the room stood blocking his way, but when they realized who it was they were looking at, they stepped aside. “Is this what we stand for? Brutal barbarism towards even our own blood? They aren’t the Taiidan who burned Kharak. We invaded their home.”

The interrogator looked to the guards in the room. “What are you doing? Do your jobs and remove him!”

“Yeah, what he said. Remove him.” Mark repeated, and without hesitation, the four guards grabbed the interrogator by the arms.

“What the… get your hands off me!”

“I’m sorry sir, but you’ve been asked to leave. If you refuse we will have to escalate the matter.”

“What, cause this kid says so?”

“Sir. This kid is the son of Markus Soban and one of the best pilots and strategists we have aboard this ship. It was his thinking using the voids left by the enemy flagships that led us to victory. We all owe a debt to him now.

“I’ll have you all fired!” He said before being tossed outside and the door locked again behind him.

“Yeah, I wouldn’t worry about your jobs. If anything that guy’s in for some real trouble now,” Mark said seeing the blood that was slowly dripping down her cheek from her forehead. “You know what, you guys too. Go take an extended break. On me.”

“Is it wise to be alone with her?” One asked.

“Look at her, even if she did somehow lay hands on me I’m sure it would barely hurt.”

“Yeah, that’s a good point. We’re keeping on audio and video recording, however. Just in case.”

“No problem.” 

After they were gone, he looked at the interrogators pile of notes on the table.

“Okay. I apologize so much for that. I do have a few questions, though. Let’s see… what’s on his list here? What?” How does your hyperdrive work? and other oddly technical details of the like were the entirety of what he was asking. “Does he not know you’re just a pilot? I’m a pilot. How would I have any idea how a hyperdrive works? That’s basically just space magic and nonsense to me. Okay forget that,” he said tossing his entire booklet over his shoulder.

She was silent. Not even meeting his eyes.

“We’re not normally like this, I promise.” Still nothing. “Will you at least tell me your name?” This time she looked up at him, but still did not answer. “Mark Soban. Nice to actually meet you in person.” He had reservations about being amicable with the person responsible for his friend’s death, but he did understand she was simply doing her job.

“I can’t see anything, its so bright and it hurts but they put something in my eyes to make me not able to shut them.”

He found the controls on the desk and turned the room’s brightness down to half. “Yeah. That is a torture tactic not an interrogation tactic, I think that guy’s not in the right profession.” He released her restraints and she immediately rubbed her wrists. “Look, you don’t need to answer anything I ask if you don’t want to. I’m just trying to figure out who you are, exactly. Like, you and your people. Because apparently we’re the same. That, and how you’re holding up.”

“How I’m holding up? You couldn’t possibly know the depth of my pain,” she said with newfound tears.

“Hyperdrive engaged,” Fleet Command announced over the speakers.

“And so we are off,” she said.

“You’ve had many if not all of your loved ones killed before your eyes, you’ve been forcefully removed from your home, and all you feel like doing is finding the nearest airlock? Yeah, that was me for a solid two weeks after I watched my planet’s atmosphere burn away and everyone still on it eliminated from the land of the living.”

“Where do you people come from?”

“That’s kind of a hard one.”

“You don’t know?”

“No, I know. It’s just a horrific thing to have to remember again,” he said. There was a pause before he continued. “It was a hostile desert world named Kharak. Okay, I’ll just go from the beginning. We discovered an ancient starship buried deep inside the Great Banded Desert, and managed to secure it and begin excavations. The ship was an exact match to that rectangular one you led me to. It was a place nobody knew the location of as all that knowledge was lost to history. Khar-Toba, the First City. Across its hull were carved out sigils of our world’s oldest kiith clans and more I suppose lost to time. The ship held a Guidestone with a galactic map, mostly still intact. A few cracks, sure, but we could still make out the important parts. Like a name thought to be only myth and legend, one older than any written account of history we have: Hiigara. Where we came from. Deeper inside still, we found the hyperspace core. It seemed not connected to Khar-Toba’s own systems, however, and looking back on all this retrospectively with what I know now, I think that is because we as Hiigarans smuggled it aboard in secret.

Before this discovery the planet was in a state of constant war between the Gaalsien and the Coalition of Northern Kiithid. The Gaalsien were religious fanatics who came to believe that the act of seeking the stars in any way was an affront to Sajuuk, and that we are here because of a grave sin we committed. But nobody knew what that sin was we were supposedly serving the sentence for. In mythology, Hiigara is a paradise. A veritable world-sized oasis of plenty. One we lost. We were exiled to Kharak as punishment, that is known by many. Life on Kharak is, well to put it simply, it sucked. It sucked more than you can probably imagine. It was searing hot almost everywhere, not much water beyond the polar caps, and that water which did exist was salted to no end and very expensive to drink, and the sand I guess too. You couldn't escape it. It didn't matter what you tried, sand would find a way in. So we became hardened by our world. My home as that of many who did not care much for city life, was made entirely from sandstone with most of it underground. We would do anything to get out of Khar-Illum’s roasting hot light. Backbreaking labour was the norm, and most only looked out for themselves as they could not expend the energy to do otherwise. Then the time came.”

“What time?”

“The Time of Reason. It was when we finally accepted globally that we were not from this world, that we were aliens to Kharak. Studies comparing Kharaki animal life to our own biology proved this outright as our genome had no comparison to any life on Kharak. Once we found the Guidestone, this shocked our culture deep enough to merit the approval of the construction of a massive interstellar colony ship, the one you’re inside right now. It took sixty years to complete. When it was ready to launch from its scaffolding, I was only in orbit for testing the new fighter craft and was supposed to return home before Mothership started its actual maiden voyage across the stars. We were doing the hyperdrive test, only going to the edge of our own star system, and that’s where everything turned sour. We exit hyperspace to find the ship we were supposed to meet up with was destroyed. Not only that, we were intercepted by a group of Turanic Raiders, that carrier your people ran into before our initial encounter. We forced them to retreat without any real trouble, but its when we got back to Kharak that most of us fell to our knees and wept.”

Mark had to pause and take a breath.

“When we returned, I was to catch a transport back down to the surface and continue on with my life, I was even considering proposing to my girlfriend soon. We instead returned to see nothing but the damage. The entire planet was being consumed by a storm of raging fire, leaving only ash and glass in its wake. They ignited the atmosphere itself.” He couldn’t help it, and teared up a bit. “I couldn’t accept it at first. I couldn’t physically move from the common room floor, or take my eyes off the view screen showing me what I was not believing possible. The entire northern hemisphere was already charred to oblivion. I was from the north, so my entire life was already gone before we got back.”

“That’s so awful, there aren’t words for it.”

“We managed to save the cryogenic trays still in orbit, though. We lost one, but saved five. Each contained a hundred thousand colonists. So that, plus whoever is currently part of this fleet, is all there is left of us. We captured the frigates that remained in orbit to finish off the trays. Not a single one of them survived interrogations, I’m happy to report. The Taiidan Empire committed genocide against the Kushan people and destroyed my entire world and everyone and everything on it. At that moment, we decided any punishment Sajuuk originally sent us there for was therefore repaid. There was nothing left for us, and decided to begin our journey and never look back. And there’s some more to it, but that’s effectively the important parts of how this all began.”

“What of the fleet that destroyed your home?”

“We found them in an asteroid belt mining while conducting repairs. And we wiped them out. Those we captured were put to work completing our Mothership’s sub-light engines. Not exactly a safe job.”

“So you are the other half of the eternal convoy,” she said.

“Huh?”

“I suppose it is only fair I explain a few things myself,” she said still holding her left wrist. “Half the exiled prison convoy, or some—we do not actually know how many—seeing a potential refuge nearby, separated and found peace in the Garden of Kadesh and we became known as the Kadeshi, the custodians of our Goddess’ Garden. The rest of the convoy we never heard from again. I suppose until now, that is. With the help of a lone Hiigaran Empire carrier that was monitoring our progress in secret, we were able to build up a small defensive force. Soon enough, we began preying on passing freighters and miners. We built better and better ships over time, and eventually left the old prison barges to rust. Most became used for various purposes, museums, chapels, that sort of thing. Somewhere for us to go and remember and revere the ancestors. Eventually we built up outpost colonies, and entire local fleets to defend those as well. It was not until roughly five-hundred years ago that the first Needleship was constructed after having expanded upon the Hiigaran Empire carrier’s salvaged hyperdrive to create our own.”

“Needleship?”

“The model of flagship you encountered.”

“I see. And there’s more of you still there, you said?”

“Oh, of course. Our population is approaching a billion now.”

“A billion? That is quite impressive considering Kharak’s population was not even half that.”

“It’s Arazis by the way.”

“Huh?”

“You asked my name early on but I didn’t answer. Arazis Restona”