It was telling on your return that no one disputed your decision to risk the entire mission on the word of a Shiplord you had only met once. You could have argued that there'd been others there, as indeed there had. But in the end, the decision had been yours. The answers you'd brought back from your conversations with Kicha made for a powerful distraction, but not enough of one for you to miss that. You'd chosen a path far outside expected mission parameters, and your crew had followed it.
Trust can be a deceptive thing, sometimes. Terribly hard to find until it's tested, making it all the more powerful when it proves itself. It was much on your mind on the journey the Adamant charted out of the Third Sorrow, and even more so when you jumped to the First. The stellar shell that awaited you was no different to the others, clearly the product of the same ancient meta-construction. You could've kicked yourself for forgetting to ask Kicha why they'd been made.
Fortunately, Mary was available to do that for you. Not that it hurt through Sidra's Aegis.
That amusing incident aside, the circumstances of your arrival were quite different. You made the jump under light stealth, enough to disguise your very non-Shiplord origins and nothing more. Exiting jump broadcasting a full IFF wasn't something you'd ever expected to be doing, and it was a very different IFF compared to human ones. Fortunately, the Adamant had been fully equipped for covert operations, and broadcasting a Shiplord ID was well within its capabilities. Mission planners had just never imagined that a situation might arise where you'd have access to a real one.
The recognition of the system shell as you approached was unquestionable and immediate, forcing you to reassess what Kicha must represent in Shiplord society for her codes to elicit this sort of reaction. The Adamant was sent an entry vector bare moments after exiting FTL, shifting two civilian vessels out of their current approach paths to provide you the swiftest time to entry possible.
"How rare is it for Hearthguard ships to visit other Sorrows?" You wondered out loud as Lina passed orders to move the Adamant onto the new approach vector.
"I doubt it's common," she replied in a gap between orders. "But I can feel our threat analysis team drooling from here, as well as Miss D'Reve."
"Drooling might be an overstatement." Mary's eyes were fixed on the displays around her, darting between them as the Adamant's active sensors came fully online for the first time since your departure from Sol. "But I am definitely excited at looking at the readbacks from going through one of these entry points."
Said entry point was rapidly approaching now, areas of the space subtly reconfiguring as you came closer.
"Look at the defences on the entry point," Lieutenant Callahan said. Highlighted sections jumped forward on the main display, revealing rings of grav batteries built into the ring's edge. "Dozens of emitters, and every single one of them is capital grade. It would take a fleet to suppress these defences. A big fleet."
"And they've got Orrery coverage," Callahan noted. a dusting of tiny sensor signatures flooding out from the shell. "Well out beyond weapons range, too. The scale of it's incredible." That was certainly one word for it. You'd brought back detailed recordings of what the War of the Sphere had shown the Shiplords to be capable of, but they'd just been recordings. This was real.
Not that it was trivial to construct fortifications this huge, even for the Shiplords. But mastery of the Secrets won across millions of years reduced the insurmountable to merely resource intensive.
A flurry of code queries flashed across the space between your ship and the entry ring as you glided into range of it, so swift that it would require Shiplord grade accelerators to keep up. Another layer of defences, you wondered, or their standard procedure?
:Perhaps both,: Sidra suggested, the Unison Intelligence watching through your and the Adamant's eyes both.
:Perhaps,: you agreed, as the portal yawned open. It was fully massive enough to allow the entrance of an entire fleet at once, and you felt very small as the comparatively tiny shape of the Adamant sliced soundlessly through a door held open to a ship full of foes. There was less disruption this time, even compared to your latest experience, and you could tell from Mary's contemplative sounds that there was a great deal she'd want to unpack later.
All such considerations fled, however, as the system ahead took shape on your sensors. At first glance, the system appeared almost normal; a touch more crowded with debris perhaps, but that was all. But then you looked at the readings again.
"What the hell happened here?" Mary's hands flickered across the panels arranged concentrically before her. "The star's on the wrong axis to produce a primary orbital plane like this one. And the other stellar bodies...it's like someone tried to stitch them back together after someone else ran around swinging with a planet-size scalpel."
It was an apt comparison. The planets were whole, but their crusts were torn and scarred, more than a million years after whatever events had caused this. Yet as the full readback parsed, it became obvious that whatever had happened here must have been deliberate. Tracing back wounds driven into planetary crusts with all the ease of a knife through butter formed a pattern that it took Iris little enough time to find. And at its heart there was a space station, quietly orbiting something that was more than a simple absence of light.
"We've got a message coming through for us." Fingers tapped on fake tactiles behind you, then your comms officer spoke again. "Not the usual greeting, but it's not live, either."
"Punch it up, Kristen," you heard yourself say, yet your gaze remained fixed on the shard of blacklight around which had to be the Shiplord enclave orbited. There was something about it, pulling at the edge of your Focus in a way that you'd never felt before. Like a lurking titan, caged and hidden away but never possible to be forgotten.
An image of a Shiplord took form in the centre of the bridge, their veil arranged into a manner of respect, but curiosity also. "Emissaries of the Third, we bid you welcome to our Sorrow. It has been long indeed since a Warden's Seal was given, and we must admit curiosity as to why a pilgrim vessel would be granted this honour."
"But that is not a matter of concern." The Shiplord gestured, their veil granting the movement tones of acceptance and the feel of a welcoming hand. "I am Rinel, Warden of the First, and I offer you the greetings of my own hands to our oldest Sorrow. Consider me at your disposal when you choose to visit our Enclave."
The figure flickered out, and the transmission ended.
"Well," Lea said, turning to look at you. "That's rather more than we expected."
"It is," you agreed. Yet where Lea sounded suspicious, your own words were simply curious. "But not to our grief, I think. What he could tell us, if the Wardens are what we think they are, Lea."
"I do hope you're not intending to reveal all." The words were very calm, but there was a menacing air to them. "You got lucky with Kicha, Amanda. This...this looks very different."
"It is," Mary said. Your friend sounded faint, and you turned to look back at her. Her normally brightly toned skin was whiter than milk. "I can't be sure, Mandy, but I think I know what that station's drifting around. It's only a guess, but it's the only guess that makes any sense with the readings we're picking up."
"It feels wrong to me," you admitted, and Mary barked a laugh that sounded painful.
"I should bloody well hope so." She shook her head, simulations flickering in and out of existence around her. "That's a stable artificial singularity. And I can only think of one reason why it would be at the heart of Sorrow."
"We've got the standard message now," Kristen reported. "Bringing it up now."
"What reason is that?" You asked.
"Whatever happened here, it tore up the system in ways that everything I know about the Secrets says shouldn't be possible." Mary nodded towards the singularity, utterly placid at the heart of an area of empty space, attended only by the Shiplord station. "And that's keeping whatever it was cut away from the rest of reality."
"But what-"
"I think we might have an answer to that question." Lea's voice pulled your gaze back towards the front of the bridge, where a new hologram had sprung up.
Be welcome in this place, those who have come to remember our failures. You stand now before the first. Our greatest. For creation to be known, it must exist. And in this place, that most precious existence was threatened so gravely that we were forced to do the unthinkable.
It was our failing, one of teaching gone awry and more. But what was done here, the sacrifices made, was done to save everything. It is from here that all our failings then-to-come flow. Come, remember what was lost here. And if you are blessed, understand why.
There was more, of course. But this was different to the Sorrows that had come before. It spoke of a threat from which there had been no escape, that had forced the Shiplords to take sides. Between what wasn't said, but one thing was very clear. If you wanted answers, they would be on that station. The only question was if you'd take the opportunity Kicha's codes had given you.
This station and what it orbits are only points of interest in the star system. You are going down there. Kicha provided identity codes for a full team, and Mary seems utterly enraptured (and terrified) by what the truth of this Sorrow might be. She is determined to come with you, and your entire specialist team will be coming with you this time. You may vote against Mary coming if you wish, but it will require more than half of the voters write-in to do so and a hard roll to succeed.
The real vote is this. Do you accept Rinel's offer of hosting? A Warden would certainly be able to guide you in ways no one else could. But is it worth the risk?
[] Yes
[] No
