New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

Father Cathal Sair knelt and prayed.

He prayed to gods that did not love him; to an emptiness that offered only death.  He did not believe they listened, but he did not feel that his prayers were in vain.  They were more than his pitiful existence.

As low as it was.

Zyzus was losing patience with him.  Despite the ritual, Cathal had not been able to push Apollonia further along her path.  She ignored him, and he dared not approach her.

Brooks had made it clear, in a hall whose lights had suddenly gone dark as the two had met.

His eyes had, naturally, been drawn upwards.  And Brooks had slammed him against the bulkhead.

“Do not go near Apollonia Nor,” Brooks had said.

Cathal shifted in his grip, but could not escape it.  Brooks was stronger than he looked.  “Captain, I do not understa-“

“You heard me.  You understand.  I do not know what you did to her; but I know that you will do nothing to her again.  If you do, I will be watching.”

Sair had felt his righteous indignation swell.  “So this is the true face of the Union-“

Brooks’s look alone was enough to cut off his words.

Sair knew the look on the Captain’s face.  It was one he had seen before, on Gohhi.  The face of a man who was unafraid of consequences and was willing to kill.

His next words would have no meaning.  They would only determine if Brooks killed him now or later.

He blinked slowly.  Multiple thoughts of what to say in response went through his head, and though he had faced death before – this was different.

He was unnerved.

He just nodded.

Brooks let him go, and walked on.  Not looking back.

The lights had turned back on.

Cathal had remained standing there, staring after the Captain.

This was his ship, and he had full control of it; full control of all aspects of it, he realized.  For now.

And Brooks had kept his word; Cathal knew he was being watched.  There was always a drone near him, doing some work, apparently, but watching him all the same.  Different kinds in different places, he was never left alone.

Only here in his cabin was he safe from the prying eyes.  An individual’s room only had drones when the resident allowed it, and he’d banned all of them, carefully cleaning everything himself to keep there from being an excuse for an intrusion.

It made it hard to talk to the Father.  Zyzus was frustrated by it.

“We are nearing the time of the Meeting,” the old man said.  “We need to be more prepared.  We need more numbers.”

The ritual had been too soon, Cathal thought.  Yes, the opportunity had been there, but it had not been the time.  He should have used that time to bring Apollonia more to their side, to win her over.  Now she was distant.

Though he could not yet think he had lost her.  The idea grieved him.  He told himself that he should have stood up to Zyzus about this.

But the man was the Father.  He had the right to make the decision.

His hands trembled, and his prayer fell silent, even in his mind.

He did not know how, they never did, but soon they would be far from the Union; in a place no human had ever been.  There they would find Others.

The Followers of Daikon; their title was something that was simply Known.  In his mind he could see the shape of the concepts.

He had told Zyzus of it.  For all of his great power, he could See better than even the Father.

He shivered now, thinking of just why that was.  What an unnatural thing he was.

He should not be here now, the old thought came to him.  He should have been left to the Void in that other life, as he had wanted.

But Zyzus had pulled him back, made him who he was.  Given him a life, even if it was not the one he had wanted . . .

It was enough, he told himself.  And one day, perhaps it would be more than enough.  He would have back what he most desperately wanted.

The thought of that day weakened him yet more, and he slumped, wracked with sobs.

He just had to hold on for a little while longer.  And he had to find a way to make things right with Apollonia, even if he could not go to her.

---

A beeping woke Apollonia from her sleep.

“What the fuck,” she murmured, slapping her hand onto her nightstand for her tablet.

There was a clattering as it fell to the floor, and she blindly reached out to find it.  The alarm beep wailed on.

“Shut up!” she finally said.

“An awaited message has arrived,” her system replied helpfully.

There was only one message she was waiting for.

She rolled over in her bed.  “Lights on,” she called.

She saw her tablet had flopped further than she thought.  Crawling to the edge of her bed, she reached out and pulled it closer by a corner, fumbling to pick it up.

Finally pulling it up, she tapped the ‘show message’ button.

An official logo came up, and her heart began to beat faster.  This was it.

Apollonia Nor,

This letter is to inform you that we have carefully considered your Command Aptitude Test results.

We are unfortunately obligated to inform you that you have not been accepted into the Voidfleet Academy for the Class of 2954.

An extraordinary number of beings apply for the Voidfleet each year.  Our decision is never an easy one, and though there are many factors in each individual’s lives that make their interest and goals unique to them, powerful to them, we must judge each applicant fairly and equally.

We express our sincerest regrets that we cannot accept you at this time.  Despite this rejection, we believe that you hold great promise in command.  Do not lose heart over this rejection, and it is our sincerest hope that you will attempt your CAT test again for the class of next year.

Our best wishes to you in your future,

The Voidfleet Review Board

*******

FINIS

---

< Ep 14 part 4 | Ep 15 part 1 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“Dim,” Brooks said.

The lighting in his study faded, leaving only general shapes visible.

He liked the dark.  It was more comforting than the light.  Perhaps it was another reason he liked being in space.

Darkness hid things; like how he’d overloaded the sensors in the hall that Tred had been concerned about.  Poor man – he did his best, and in this case almost too good a job.  But Tred would not discover that Brooks had done it; he had hidden his tracks well.

He did not want anyone to know just what he had done there; what he had said.

Brooks put on some music, but the sound was only another wall against external intrusion.

It was an old Jazz song, from the Classic Antarctic era of the mid-2200s.  He did not know its name, but his system had noted his reaction on hearing and brought it into a playlist.

The machine knew him, he thought.  As he knew the machine.

He was off-duty and should be sleeping now, but he did not want to do that.  Instead, he took a stim and stayed up.

He was more comfortable in his study than his cabin, anyway.

It wasn’t that his cabin wasn’t nice, but he did not like it and no amenities could change that.  He was always more at home in his working environment.

It reminded him of old memories; as a younger man, how his duty station on the dusty and creaky old freighters had become more his home than his bunk.  Shipmates he got along with would joke about it – he was a packrat, a station hobo, a workaholic.  People he did not like did not dare to say anything.

But his study was sparse.  It was better to keep things packed away, and even better to just get rid of them.  Only keep what you need, and most of that was in your head.

He flicked an annoyed finger over his HUD to bring up his messages.

His system sorted them all into categories that were useful to him – ones mirroring his thought process.  One was Annoying Ship Problems – the sort of minor task that he was required to solve that he always felt more on the clumsy-side with, or ones that had no good answer.  Yet not things that were ultimately of great importance.

Then there were Good Problems.  The sorts of ones he actually found himself enjoying solving.

He hadn’t created the categories.  The system had just created – and even named them – on its own, based on its study of his reactions.

Kind of funny to think about, when Good Problems could be true existential crises.  He was the machine, and he knew himself.

Glancing through the important ones, he found that there was nothing urgent.  Urle was on-duty and the ship was cruising smoothly, the Agricultural Station far behind them.

But then he saw the small notification he’d set up secretly.  It was designed to not catch attention from code-trawlers or anyone who somehow managed to get into his personal system.

He brought it up, and saw a message from Nadian Farland.

He read over it; they had stayed in contact since the Relic Station.  Information-sharing – Brooks on his personal experiences with things Tenkionic-related, and Farland with the same, plus what he heard at the fringe.

Farland had been in dire financial straits since the Relic Temple, with the loss of his ship and crew.  The Union had not been under financial obligation to the man, and he had not inquired in any way about compensation.  Thus he was simply floundering.

Not that he’d said as much; it was Union intelligence that had informed him of that.  Farland only spoke to him of what was important.

Brooks saw that his latest research mission to an unnamed world on the fringe had been canceled – his investors were citing cost-to-risk ratio.

So we’re not going to be the first to get to the temple site, and confirm or deny it may have a connection to the X.

X, for Xanagee.  Nadian had explained that the sound was best transliterated that way in Galactic Phonetic Alphabet.

I don’t suppose you can get one of your teams out there?  I’ve got a bad feeling about this one.

Brooks read through the rest; Nadian had not heard any rumors about the vessel of the X that they had seen right before they’d left the Relic Temple.  It had not then appeared in any other nearby system.

The lack of any rumors at all was disconcerting.  While a lot of people saw crazy things on the fringe of space, it felt logical to assume that anything actually weird that was big and noticeable would have some related rumors.

That they hadn’t meant that the Xanagee had only just returned – or were so secretive that they gave no sign of their presence unless they wanted to.

Nadian had not heard from Vermillion Dawn, either – our mutual friend as he called her – not even through any of her lesser contacts.

Nor had he.  Brooks did not like that – it was deeply unsettling to feel that all she had said to him on their last encounter had been more out of love or pity than because she actually wanted to bring him into her larger world.

If she wanted him to stay irrelevant in the schema of this deeper reality, though, she was wrong.  He had left her to join the Voidfleet, but that did not mean he was giving up on making a difference.  He would not be content to remain on the sidelines.

He closed his messages, a reminder being set up automatically to have him reply to Nadian in a little while.  He could not keep the man waiting, though he could not also think of any pressure he could apply in the right places to get a team out to that unnamed world right now.

Probably Dawn already had it, he mused, but the thought felt sour.

He was not immature enough to let his old love fall into hate.  That was far too easy and simple a calculation, and a harmful one.  Dawn had her reasons, and he had his.  She did not make decisions on whims.

Damn it all, though, he thought, allowing himself to feel his irritation.

He rotated his chair, gesturing at the wall and watching it turn into a perfect view of space.

He still liked a real window better, but he had to admit that if he did not know this was a screen, he would not have been able to guess it.

The starfield beyond was his true angle to the galactic disk.  The Craton was moving slightly coreward, which meant that the arms of the galaxy were above his head.  He glanced up and his HUD filled in the Milky Way’s core and arms with again perfect clarity.

Nothing moved, though they were, in fact, moving.  They were light-years from any star, so any noticeable change would take millenia.

They would be diving into zerospace soon, and the feed would no longer be live.

God, how small they were, he thought.

---

< Ep 14 part 3 | Ep 14 part 5 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

The day had been long, Jaya thought.

Her uniform had weighed on her on their excursion into the Agricultural Station in a way she had not felt before.  It did not feel like it fit her, like she’d put on someone else’s and the seams and proportions were just a little bit off.

That was not true; scans confirmed all was in line with her current parameters, which were unchanged.

Knowing that did not make them feel like they fit her.

Now, looking at herself in the mirror, Jaya did not think her reflection looked any different.

But she did not like it, either.

Her face was the same as always; her dark hair pulled in a bun, dark brown eyes and light brown skin.

She just did not recognize it as herself.

Waving a hand angrily, the wall turned from its mirror setting back to a blank whiteness.  It took a moment longer before the normal pattern returned, and she tried to shake her own mental image of herself.

She had died, she thought.  She remembered it.  A surge of radiation through the part of the ship she was in.  She remembered all of it.

Alexander Shaw had not survived.  It had been Cathal Sair who had saved her, despite the massive quantity of radiation she had taken.

Enough that she should have been beyond medical care.

Jaya could not say how she knew it was Sair, and it made no sense.  He’d been with an entire crowd of his followers, across the ship.  Well out of harm’s way.

As much as she wanted to speak to him, to figure this out, she found that she could not.  Even the thought of approaching him made her feel unable to act.

A ding came to her door, and her HUD popped up that it was Apollonia.

Her immediate response was positive.  But quickly the thought of actually talking to anyone, even Apollonia, turned sour.

She felt herself shiver, and she could not control it.

Taking a deep breath, she clenched her hands into fists until it subsided.

Several long, deep breaths.

Then she opened the door for Apollonia.

“Hey!  Sorry to bother you, I was jogging by and-” Apollonia’s face fell into seriousness as she studied Jaya.  “Are you all right?”

“I am fine,” Jaya replied evenly.  “What did you need?”

“Uh, I was just wondering if you had heard anything?  About my test.”

“Not yet,” Jaya said.  “Just have patience.”  She smiled slightly, but it felt forced even to her.  “I know you can do that.”

“Yeah.  Thanks . . . and sorry for bothering you,” Apollonia said.

“It is no bother.”

Apollonia lingered a moment, as if she wanted to say more, but Jaya moved to close the door.  She paused, then, giving Apollonia a chance to interject.

“Say,” Apollonia said.  “Ann and Zey are busy tonight, wanna catch dinner?  Now we know where it comes from and everything!  I’m sure that makes it taste better.”  She was grinning, and Jaya considered the request for a moment.

“I’ll have to pass,” she said.  “I have a lot of work that needs doing.”

“Oh, sure.  If I can help or anything, let me know.”

“I don’t think your expertise is in Operations,” Jaya said.  “But thank you.”

She closed the door quickly this time.

---

Apollonia headed back towards her room.

She felt a keen disappointment from Jaya’s refusal to join her, but she held onto that thought.  In her state of . . . not feeling much, feeling even a negative emotion somehow seemed better.

She kept an eye out for Cathal, but she did not see him.  It was too bad; if he’d been there, in her present state, she might have gone right up to him and yelled out everything, then gone to Brooks and . . .

The thought seemed to slide out of her mind, leaving her drawing a blank.

Something affecting her thoughts, the passing idea came again.  Manipulating her, limiting her.

It was easy, she thought, to just ignore a problem.  It was doing something that was hard.

This made it so much easier to just get on with her life, even if she was feeling nothing.

Brooks walked into the hall near her, and she nearly jumped.

He was not looking at her as he walked, his eyes fixed ahead and his face set in grim lines.

Next to him was walking that strange little Engineer who she’d met on Darkeve; Boniface Tred, her system supplied for her.  He was talking animatedly to Brooks.

“. . . they don’t just go out like that, Captain.  Not a whole hallway.  I know we’ve gone over everything after the, er, relic temple business, but I want to look deeper and see if that could be why the cameras and sensors-“

“No,” Brooks said sternly.  “Like you said, the ship went through a lot.  You’ve replaced the sensors?”

“Yes, but-“

“That’s good enough,” Brooks said.  “But next time we go to port I’ll- oh, hello, Apollonia.”

He had just noticed her – or more likely was using her as an excuse to escape Tred, she thought cynically.

“Hello, Captain,” she said.

He had come to a stop, and so did Tred.  Brooks spared him a glance and waved him on.  “That will be all, Engineer.”

“Er . . .”

“Go,” Brooks said, firmly.

Tred saluted and went on his way.

“He’s good at his job,” she said.

“Yes, and he actually accepted his promotion this time,” Brooks said.  “But sometimes he’s too persistent.”

“So,” Apollonia said.  “Something happened in a hall?”

“Just a minor error,” he said.  “It’s nothing.”

She hesitated.  There was something odd about him.  “Really?”

“Yes,” he said.

Whatever it was was gone, she thought.  Now slid into the vault of his mind.

She suddenly thought of the times she had read minds; could she do that here?  She wanted to know what he was hiding, her curiosity rose up stronger than normal, unhampered by much in the way of other feelings.  She could reach into his mind and pluck the knowledge out . . .

But she rejected that idea immediately, guilt and shock at her own thought driving it away.

Why would she do that?  Just out of curiosity?  She was not . . . a monster.  What a violation of privacy it would be!

And another part of her suddenly wondered if she could even do that to him.  Brooks did not strike her like other people.  There was something larger than life about him.

“Did you enjoy the food production station?” he asked, a slight wry smile at the corners of his mouth.

“Oh, yes,” she said with a laugh she didn’t feel.  “It was amazing.”

“Kind of strange to think we make so much like that.  But it’s been proven for hundreds of years now.  As a species we’re healthier than ever.”

“You don’t have to sell me on food,” she joked.

“All right,” he said warmly.  “Have a good night, Apple.”

“Good night, Captain,” she said.

He went on, and she watched after him, frowning.

There were a lot of people keeping secrets right now, she thought.

---

< Ep 14 part 2 | Ep 14 part 4 >

New to Other-Terrestrial? Check here! Or if you need to, jump to the beginning of the episode here!

---

“This really isn’t what I was expecting,” Apollonia said quietly to Urle.

The Executive Officer glanced at her, only a quarter of his face showing skin today.  His lower face was a metal mask that was so tight it suggested he had no jaw at all, along with his left eye and the area around it.  The cluster of sensors were expressionless, disturbing even, but it was lessened by his right.  His bright blue eye was pleasant, and he smiled frequently with just the wrinkles around it.

Which he was doing now.  “What were you expecting from an AgriStation?”

Urle swept his hand out, clad in a heavy gauntlet glove, at the massive metal vats that stretched floor to ceiling.

“I was expecting big fields of crops,” she said.  “Waving grain, with little bees and butterflies fluttering about.”

Urle looked somewhat amused still.  “We grow things in vats and then shape them into more familiar forms later.  Very few foods do we husband in old-fashioned ways.”

“That’s really kinda gross, isn’t it?” she muttered.

Urle shrugged.  “It’s been centuries and we’re healthy on it so far.  Even the luddites gave up complaining about it.”

He knew she knew the reasons; their food production methods made things with perfectly-balanced nutrients, fiber, and calories for baseline human consumption – or for any species in the Union.  The grown stuff, whether literal slabs of meat or algae, would be converted into stuff that was superior to the natural thing in safety, quality, and even taste.

At a certain point of understanding and technology, it was better-suited for them than even the food nature provided, and thousands of times more efficient in production.

When she had been told they were going to an Agricultural Station, she had been interested.  Not many wanted to actually go with him, only Cenz seemed excited – he would be boarding the station to help them with some research for awhile and then rejoin the ship later.

So she’d gotten on the team going in, naively still imagining big fields of plants.

But it was just a stupid tour.  Like what tourists got.

She raised her hand, catching the attention of their tour guide.

“Yes, miss?” he asked.

“Has anyone ever fallen into one of the algae vats?” she asked.  “Like while they were stirring it or something?”

The man looked slightly confused.  “They’re hermetically sealed, miss.  You can’t fall in.”

“But if they managed, what would happen?”

The man froze for a moment, then glanced to Brooks.

“She’s joking,” he said calmly, waving it off.  “Please, go on.”

“Oh, well . . . as I was saying, there are over three million algae vats . . .”

Brooks seemed to be genuinely interested in all of this, Apollonia thought.

From some perspective it had to be interesting.  Certainly important.  Just not exciting to her.

What she’d hoped for was a touch of nature, like she’d seen in the Cloud Forest on Earth . . .

Damn it, she thought too much about Earth.

And thinking of Earth had other consequences.  It made her think of the seat of government around it, Korolev Station.

And that made her think of her Command Aptitude Test.

It had been over three weeks now – with no word.  Jaya had told her to be patient, and she had been.  But this was a very long time to wait for her results.

“It is abnormal,” Jaya had admitted.  But her concern had been distant – as had she, overall.

It seemed to be going around, Apollonia thought.

Looking to Jaya, standing near to the Captain and listening to their guide with the same level of professional attention as he, she felt a stab of guilt.

She should not be so selfish that all she could think of was her CAT, while Jaya herself clearly had something bothering her.

Could she be this shaken up by getting a bump on the head and the insanity around the relic temple?

She had even inquired with Y, and while he had told her he could not tell Jaya’s private information, he did assure her that she did not need to worry.

Though even Y seemed distracted lately.  She’d taken to eating most of her lunches and even sometimes dinners with Ann, Zey, or both, who seemed to be the only people she knew who were acting normal.

Brooks spoke again, breaking the monotonous drone of the tour guide.  The man was himself of high rank, but he was still the one giving this tour.  He wasn’t good at it.

“Are nitrogen and phosphorus sources secure for the station?” he asked.  “What is the supply situation?”

“We keep at least three month’s worth on hand at all times,” the man said.  “It’s not something we really need to worry about.”

“Yes, but what if . . .”  Brooks trailed off, turning to look around him.

Urle stepped forward.  “I have the list, Captain.”

“Ah, thanks,” Brooks said, distractedly, catching sight of him.

Apollonia realized that Urle had been hanging back with her, rather than staying with the Captain as he usually did.

It didn’t really seem intentional.  More like he was as bored as she was, she thought.

“This way,” the guiding commander called, gesturing them towards the door.  “After the clean room are the meat vats, they’re fascinating!”

---

< Ep 14 part 1 | Ep 14 part 3 >