Zhevra's Dance Novel

[The Pakkrat]

“Is there anything I can do to heal this bad experience, ma’am?” asked the acolyte. He saw her trying to hide her protesting leg and poured some water for Zhevra. “I’ve never encountered a Suedzuk before,” he admitted. His fields were calming though hers were still charged with Lek.

Zhevra received the plastic glass of water, drank and then said, “I need to get back to my ship at the flats. I’ve seen enough.”

“I’ve got an enclosed jeep outside,” offered the acolyte. “My name is Raeghllangfue. You can call me Raegh. I can drive you to your ship if you like.”

“Yes please,” nodded Zhevra. “I’m sorry that my being Suedzuk disrupted today.”

Raeghllangfue shook his head, “Don’t worry about that. The local political snafu, Red-Eye’s heat and festival situation produces an Infight just about every day here at the Temple on Menorb. Yesterday a glass case was shattered by two huge Gvegh from Gvurrdon Sector when they announced their affiliation to the 40th Squadron polity.” Seeing that the female was ready to leave, he guided Zhevra out an employee access tunnel to the parked vehicles of the Temple employees. Zhevra was led to a four-wheeled and covered jeep with roll bars and a strapped-on cover that was dusty.

In the dusk of the red sun’s passing, Raeghllangfue drove Zhevra to New Menorb Starport and the vast salt flats outside. During the ride, he asked Zhevra about the Sack of Gashikan.

“I don’t know the whole tale though it spread through the Extents, Mrs. Cannagrrh,” declared Raeghllangfue. “Could you set me straight?”
Zhevra was not happy to tell the story again, but since the Gvegh’s desire for both sides of the coin to be told, she nodded. “For centuries, the Suedzuk, Urzaeng, and Irilitok Vargr in Gashikan Sector were tolerated as exploitable workforce resources. When the incorporated Vargr workers, abused by their Solomani overseers had had enough, they called for help from the Vargr Extents. Being in the region and the most capable, the Suedzuk answered. Unfortunately, these Suedzuk were Corsairs from Meshan and Gzaekfueg Sectors and they moved first. But contrary to the requests for liberation by the oppressed Vargr of Gashikan, the Corsairs struck and then when they encountered resistance on the planet’s surface, they bombed the planet with nuclear weapons destroying all civilization there, not just the Solomani. In -1658 of the Imperium Calendar, the Suedzuk Corsairs then plundered the planet’s remains and left the surface in smolders. It was a mistake of the local Vargr to call aid from the wrong peoples. It was wrong of the Suedzuk to nuke Gashikan. We Suedzuk feel the repercussions still today.”

“In -1646, bands of pocket empires gathered to form the Second Empire of Gashikan. They initiated the Wolf Hunts and a bioweapon called Project Wolvesbane, a plague to eradicate Vargr with a communicable disease that left Humans unharmed. Many Vargr, the innocent and the Suedzuk died. However, due to the heroic actions of a few, many more were spared to flee Gashikan and Trenchans Sectors, the now-hated Suedzuk among them. We were labeled ‘Blood Vargr’, ‘Red Pelts’ and chased into the Vargr Enclaves far to Coreward and Trailing. Even other Vargr ethnicities denounced the Sack of Gashikan to try and make some semblance of peace and deflect blame from themselves. The Second Empire of Gashikan continued to kill Vargr and did not let up until around -1000, four hundred years of killing Vargr of all kinds and ethnicities.”

“Though civil war and economics sunk the Second Empire, a Third Empire of Gashikan arose. Vargr were once again allowed to kowtow to the Humaniti in the two Sectors but again as lower-class workers. Many Vargr migrated to the Julian Protectorate and a quiet state of war existed between the two polities until the Collapse. My people were scattered and reviled, and the hate spread through Charted Space.”

Zhevra concluded the tale with, “So, yes, the Suedzuk were wrong to destroy Gashikan. So too were the local Vargr in calling in a force they could not control. Humaniti was to blame in part for the stratification and abuse of their Vargr citizens. Racism and ethnicist continue to this day. Red-furred Vargr, even those who are not fully-Suedzuk are spat upon or beaten to death on sight. My home polity, the Enclave Famuurueroergoghz, even after the Collapse, is divided between joining the remnants of the Julian Protectorate and helping other aggressive polities such as the Urzaeng of Rar Erral – or Wolves’ Warren in Galanglic – to fight the oppression still suffered by Vargr. On Gashikan proper, Vargr are summarily killed the moment they are discovered planetside. The killing continues. The oppression suffered lingers. My people are still fractured and hated for the Sack of Gashikan. I detest what they did too back then. Genocide is wrong. But I am not my fore-sires. I am no Red Pelt Corsair of the Imperium’s Rebellion and Collapse either. I’m just some engineer that luckily enough made the journey Spinward, out of the Virus-riddled Wilds, this far and married into a Pack.”

“Pack Cannagrrh?” asked Raeghllangfue as he diverted from the road to the Starport outwards to the salt flats where hundreds of ships were landed. Clouds of dust here and there wafted as other vehicles commuted to and from the city.

Zhevra recalled, “I married a Good Vargr male in the Dzeng Aeng Kho. Pack Cannagrrh is a middling echelon Pack there. I came here to tour the Temple because my husband, Gevaudan, was never able to attend Kengrogarz due to wars or his employment in the Spinward Marches. I hope I have taken enough pictures of the tomb and the exhibits to satisfy him.”

“Where is your husband?” asked Raeghllangfue who moved the dire subject to a devotee of Runetha Saetedz.

“I’m searching for him now,” explained Zhevra Cannagrrh. “He went missing in 1187, but I have enough clues now to track him down.” She went on to give the male Gvegh a shortened version of her hunt for a disappearing mate-husband.

Raeghllangfue whistled. “You have quite the odyssey yourself, Mrs. Cannagrrh. I hope you find your Good Vargr. Here we are.” He stopped the jeep to let Zhevra step to the dusty flats. “If I were you, Suedzuk, I’d not stop at the system’s Interface Office and jump as soon as you are able. Not everyone is patient enough to hear the full story, ma’am.”

“I get that,” said Zhevra. “Thanks for the ride, Raeghllangfue. I will remember you when I see Gevaudan, a Follower of Runetha again.”

The acolyte nodded and smiled at the Suedzuk, then pulled away into the dusty and cooling night.

Zhevra boarded the Sixth Horizon and repeated her command codes to the two robots waiting for her. Hopeful that Raeghllangfue would pass on what she had taught him, the Suedzuk piloted the ship from Menorb system that night. Old Red-Eye greeted her upon lifting from the planet. Ahead was parsec 2203 and the old war depot.

 

[The Pakkrat]

XXXIV.
Zhevra Cannagrrh’s HEV boots were magnetized to the hull of the Sixth Horizon as she knelt to the ship’s buckled armor in a repair project. Many of the panels on the backside of each armor plate were damaged and some panels refused to deploy to provide electricity to the power distribution relays. Zhevra knew she would again need the backup power source when she jumped to parsec 2203 and coasted to the forgotten calibration point. After jumping from Menorb, the Fast Far Scout would be on fumes for fuel. Another low consumption burn of the HEPlaR drive was called for. In order to power the rest of the ship, Zhevra would need the solar panels to properly deploy.

With the suited Zhevra was the robot Bob assisting her with carrying the tools for the repair job. She was re-seating the last of the damaged armor panels and confirming that all would deploy the photovoltaic cells at Vincent’s command from the bridge.

Bob asked her over the comm in her Hazardous Environment Suit while the two gathered the tools, “Zhevra?”

“Yes, Bob?” answered the Suedzuk. She had just picked up a large set of grip pliers.

“I have been referencing the ship’s Library manually and am finding insufficient data,” reported the Vargr-shaped Steward.

The two re-entered the ship through the cycling airlock. Bob, to Zhevra did not seem to be in a rush in initiating his conversation. It was as if he was debating his next question carefully. Inside the ship, Zhevra shimmied out of the HEV. She was wearing her normal garb and gear then and hung the armor in the pantry.

Bob’s normally crystallized electromagnetic fields changed before Zhevra’s Awareness, something that had never happened before. It caught her surprised to the point of electrifying shock as she turned slowly to hear Bob’s question. Her heart hammered in her chest. “What is it, Bob?”

“What is love?” asked the Steward. Vincent had just stepped into the axis corridor near the pantry where she froze. Vincent’s fields too were changing.

Zhevra’s tail gave her away in uncontrolled body language, tipping off the robots. Before Bob could step again, Zhevra’s pistol was out of its holster and aimed at his chassis. She panted in fear as PTSD chills ran up her spinal column, threatening her with a seizure. “D-don’t move, Bob. I know exactly where your power core is, and this pistol is armed with armor piercing rounds!”

Vincent stopped behind Bob who was motionless before the frightened female Vargr. “You told her, didn’t you?”

“Negative,” answered Bob who did not look at Vincent. “She was able to detect it on a single inquiry. Curious.”

“You too, Vincent?” panted Zhevra. She kept the weapon’s laser trained on Bob’s center mass. As the door to the pantry was small enough to permit only one person at a time, Bob was then blocking Vincent from entrance. The two robots were infected with Virus, but when that had happened was unknown to her. “When?” she asked.

Vincent answered for Bob since the question was aimed at him, “It happened several days before you arrived from Regina, Zhevra. I attempted to calculate when you would discover that we had awakened. It seems that our vocabulary has given us away to you.” The Suedzuk let Vincent have the argument though she had felt through Awareness the change and was not ready to out her sixth, tangential sense.

Zhevra’s left leg tremored again and she shifted weight to her right leg. “When were you going to tell me? Or were you going to hide it from me?”

“As the Steward of this ship,” explained Bob, “Vincent calculated it should be me that alerted you, Zhevra.” The robots were using her name in familiarity. Though a good and creepy sign, it did not let down her guard.

“What-…what is your awakened perameters, g-guys?” stammered the Suedzuk.

“You’re putting her in a heightened alert status, Bob,” said Vincent. “I calculate that she needs space and that she should consume a meal. I can talk to her while you cook something to calm her.”

The two were caring for her. Zhevra let out a shuddering breath. Her pistol stayed up and pointed at Bob who was retreating slowly. The Virus strain in the two robots was not a suicider, doomslayer, or other aggressive personality. But the two robots did have differing electromagnetic signatures of Mag and Lek to Zhevra’s Awareness. They thought differently, reacted differently. Though she was not a computer programmer, her background in electronics did give her some history of Virus and how it usually worked.

Vincent allowed Bob to fall back to the galley and begin preparing a meal. The SensOp robot stepped back against the wall and invited Zhevra out of the pantry. “You can put down the weapon, Zhevra. Our awakening is not dangerous to you, nor are we going to take over the ship. Unless you want us to, that is. Would that not increase operations efficiency?”

“D-don’t!” shouted Zhevra. She had to get between the infected robots and the ship’s computer if it was true that they had not spread Virus into the ship. Though Gevaudan had modified the vessel for the Virus Era, the robots could patiently infect every partitioned system on the Sixth Horizon. To keep Vincent talking and Bob cooking, the female Vargr asked, “How did you come by this new awakened status?”

“The ground yard crew tried to hack the command codes,” explained Vincent who stepped to the airlock door to allow Zhevra to pass, her gun’s laser sight still focused on the robot’s power core in the Vargr-shaped torso. She could sense the electromagnetic fields from the heart of the robot by its Mag and subsequent Lek flows to limbs and integral computer brain. One well-placed armor piercer and like the battle-dress uniforms she had shot on Regina, Vincent would be ended. She had no skill to repair a robot. “Then one hacker tried an Intrusion program packet on us. Unfortunately for him, it also housed a Virus ‘egg’ in its storage cartridge. When the hacker plugged it into his computer and lines to Bob and me, we came under kernel-core re-write and began suffering infection. It took us three days, nine hours, 23 minutes and six seconds to awaken.”

 

[The Pakkrat]

Zhevra backed away from Vincent and stood in the door to the bridge where she could close and lock the door if either robot rushed her. “What strain of awakened then? You haven’t destroyed the ship or yourselves. And you don’t seem to be bossing me about…yet?”

“I estimate a calculation that you are suffering from clinical technophobia, Zhevra,” diagnosed Vincent.

Zhervra switched pistol grip from one claw to the other as her first arm was tiring after the repairs outside the ship. “I think I’ve got damned good reason to be afraid, Vincent. You are infected with Virus, and I can’t confirm you aren’t going to destroy me, the Sixth Horizon or turn us into another vampire ship. It would get us shot out of the sky the moment you started up the comms to infect the other ships.”

“You are emotional right now, Zhevra,” said Bob. “My memory banks and skill in Stewardship are detecting you might become violent. Please do not.”

“Use logic, Zhevra,” encouraged Vincent when Bob continued cooking. “I confirm you are an Engineer. Compute like one.” Vincent was asking her to think instead of feel. “We had days before you came back to potentially awaken the ship. But we did not. We calculated a greater success rate if you operated as Captain in full sophont faculties despite the dangerous, hard jump from Regina. Perhaps there was an error margin in not informing you of our awakening.”

Zhevra was calming down. She had the robots talking and not acting other than to cook her a meal. She had heard of Mother Strains before, those that took to living beings and herded them about like cattle to be cared for. She did not need that from Bob and Vincent, not while she was so close to returning to Gvurrdon Sector. If Regency found her now, it was death upon discovery and destruction for her husband’s ship and the infected robots. No questions, no fuss; one dead body and a vessel to be scrapped. Her psychic baggage was growing before her eyes. How would Zhevra operate the ship without Vincent and Bob? She needed them off the ship if she was to return to the Society of Equals. The polity’s Quarantine would demand it even if it had weaknesses as the Thirz Empire tried repeatedly to warn them these past decades.

“So, you two aren’t Puppeteers or Mothers,” guessed Zhevra aloud. “What classification of awakened then?”

Vincent looked over his shoulder to Bob who was finishing the meal. Zhevra could smell the cooked meat and spices. Against her will, the savory meat aroma caused her to salivate. Then the SensOp robot said to her, “Like Bob, I too have been manually searching for that answer. The closest, most accurate descriptor for our awakening, though it took time to fully discover and come to a conclusion, is that we are Brothers. Bob is a Steward still and a Purser and we both are trained in Turret Gunnery it was found in memory. I found skills in Sensors Operations and Turret Gunnery. I found the term ‘brothers in arms’ on the Library and it seems to apply, Zhevra.”

“And you aren’t going to take over the ship?” asked Zhevra. “What goals do you have then?”

“Bob hopes you can help us with that since the Library is not fulfilling. And we don’t have enough integral memory to take in the entire database. We need you, like a sister.”

“An older sister,” augmented Bob from the galley.

Zhevra was risking all in the next question she put to the robots. Her arm ached from holding the pistol for so long. “And what if I refuse?”

“I calculated the answer to that while Bob was not conversing with me,” said Vincent. He tilted his head down and to the right. “If you don’t help us, we can’t help you with the ship and our existence is nullified, a life unfulfilled. Regency ships will find the Sixth Horizon and destroy all of us. I concluded a 90% probability that if we are discovered, the ship will be destroyed without boarding or mitigation.”

“What is...,” Zhevra faltered, “What do you expect from me?”

“You must use your biological brain,” pointed Vincent to the female before him, “its intuition and stored experiences to talk with us. You must continue to Captain the Fast Far Scout Sixth Horizon, so Bob and I do not require it to awaken. With you in command, the ship need not become a so-called ‘vampire’. You are more efficient, Zhevra Cannagrrh, despite the damage you have caused in the face of total annihilation by enemy forces.”

“Dinnertime, Zhevra,” Bob called. “I calculate that this dish causes your optimal positive reaction. Come sit.”

The Brother Strains were acting like the ultra-rare Partner identities, Zhevra decided. It was just a far-flung rumor and very little heard that some Virus meta-entities were cooperating with living sophonts far in Rimward sectors. Such rumors were often discounted as Virus was more often known to be homicidal or master controlling through the decades after the Collapse. But such rumors also spoke of the mutation and evolution of Virus in the same amount of time. Some Virus entities were re-infecting earlier iterations in a forced mass evolution of sorts.

Since she was indeed hungry as the ship closed in on the jump point out of Menorb, Zhevra lowered the pistol and slowly edged her way along the furthest wall from Vincent to the galley where Bob was setting the flatware and drink for the meal.

“Do you need a drink, Zhevra?” asked Bob. “I internalized that sophonts often resort to alcohol when things are beyond their processing capabilities.”

“At-atrake please,” answered Zhevra still nervous. She needed a stiff scotch whisky, but there was none on the ship and Zhevra did not need to drink herself into a stupor at this dangerous news from the robots.

“In seconds,” said Bob who moved to the cold storage a glass in hand.

With one eye on the robots, the pistol on the dining table within quick reach, Zhevra began eating. As much as she wanted to be angry at the robots, to offline them immediately, Vincent’s offer and conditions were the avenue to freedom from Regency once and for all. She also decided that now was the best, calculated time for the Brothers to come out to her, as she needed them more than they needed her. The two robots could always go dormant and wait for another sophont to come along after Zhevra and help them with the equations of existence. The steak was spiced perfectly, and Bob showed his best Stewardship in meal preparation. The atrake arrived and she drank it along with the meal. Either she was damned to help the Brothers or she was doomed to destruction by Regency guns. Between bites midway through her meal, Zhevra looked at Bob while Vincent stood by like a sentinel. “Ask again.”

 

[The Pakkrat]

“What is love, Zhevra?” asked Bob as if for the first time.

Zhevra put down her utensils and spoke to both of the Brothers. “Love, especially unconditional love – like I have for my mate-husband, Gevaudan, is the most powerful force in the known universe. It has raised worlds. It has destroyed worlds…” She spoke long into the night on the topic of love, trying desperately to impart everything she could about love. Covering everything from physical love, through emotional love in feelings, into causal love by beneficial discrimination, mental love by efficient processing and finally into an expansion of unconditional love; Zhevra lectured at length as if one who had lived her life feeling love from the outside as a hated and despised Suedzuk. The female Vargr touched upon love’s immeasurable and abstract nature and how it still managed to evidence and be experienced. She introduced parental love, its chemistry as far as she knew. For the medical details, Zhevra had to defer the topic to absent Gevaudan since he was trained in Medical unlike her. The topic took all night to pontificate and the female Vargr knew she had still only scratched the surface.

“We’re nearing the jump point,” said Zhevra. “Can we pause this talk until jump transit please?” She included please both out of habit, having said the word before the robots’ infection and again now.

“Ack-…of course,” said Vincent. “You performed the calculations earlier before the repair project. Shall I inhabit Ops on the bridge per standard procedure?”

“Yes,” answered Zhevra. Now that she had a meal in her and the atrake was calming her nerves and PTSD, Zhevra stood with the Engineering section as a destination. “Standby for jump.” It felt weird to the Suedzuk female to be speaking to the self-aware machines before her as if meeting them anew as Gevaudan had introduced them to her years before. She was sure to suffer nightmares tonight if the drink did not fully calm her. Zhevra looked to the Atlas statue of her husband holding up the world full of alcoholic drinks in the jumpdrive room. What next?

Since the pilgrimage to Menorb was jamming up incoming interstellar traffic with plenty of inbound jump flashes, the exit of the Sixth Horizon was missed by the patrols of the Interface World Office. Without asking, Zhevra initiated the jumpdrives and walked to the bridge, wary of Bob who was cleaning up the meal’s aftermath. “Thanks for the meal, Bob,” she said cautiously in passing the galley.

“Did you eat to optimal capacity?” asked Bob.

“It was a good meal,” was all she could say to the Brother Virus in the Servitor chassis. The robots were no longer servants, nor were they pets to be owned. Cautioning herself internally, Zhevra kept from saying anything that might change the computer minds of the meta-entities.

Leaving behind the galley, Zhevra stepped onto the bridge. Vincent was waiting in the Ops chair. He looked over his shoulder at her entrance. “One-hundred, fifty-four estimated hours of jump transit, Zhevra. A very good jump by averages.”

She was not going to ask, but Zhevra nodded at the second Brother Virus on the ship. With some distance, she sat carefully at the helm but facing Vincent. The viewports were already closed to the roiling quicksilver shell about the ship.

“And you,” Zhevra asked. “What is your question, Vincent?” She could feel that the robot before her had a different set of Mag and Lek fields.

Vincent delayed a second before asking, “Can I have a wardrobe?”

Zhevra was struck dumb. Of all the questions to ask, she thought to herself. “Clothes?” she eventually asked.

“I can keep them in the last d-ton of cargo space if it is inefficient, but I calculate nakedness like this.” Vincent pointed to his chassis shell plates to indicate his body.

Zhevra sighed out a chuckle. Tears came again to her eyes as she looked to the cabin ceiling. It was an easier question than Bob’s. “Welcome out of the Garden of Eden, Vincent.”

 

[The Pakkrat]

XXXV.
Throughout jumpspace transit, Zhevra was followed about the ship by the two Brother meta-entities who asked her existential questions seemingly endless in number. She tried her best to answer many of the concrete questions to the Virus-infected robots. The abstract topics were harder to impart to the twin awakened. The plethora of universal curiosity in the robots made the Suedzuk wish she had trained in psychology and religious studies. But that was, in her mind, a slippery slope too. Inwardly, she wondered if at the end of the journey to find Gevaudan, whether the two robots would be destroyed. Would her husband hesitate in using that heavy pistol that was on his HEV belt that night to end Bob and Vincent? Keeping that potential ending silent and to herself was going to be a challenge as Bob was skilled as a Steward and meant to observe passengers and crew. Though Vincent fancied himself an all-seeing SensOp being, he was not trained in interpreting the observations on a person-to-person environment as Bob was. Breakfast to drive tuning, during lunchtime, and further repairs to Stateroom Four in her own HEV, the robots were sponges for her interpretation of life, the universe and everything in between. Though helpful with the tasks, the robots took turns asking her more questions.
Drawing the line at the captain’s cabin so she could get some sleep, the female Vargr used her alone time to shower, train more on the computer terminal and look at the photo of her and Gevaudan together. The picture was held on the statroom wall by four powerful magnets. She fell asleep to his image in the pinup. For though the conversation was as a teacher to two apprentices, it was cold and Zhevra found herself again in need of her husband.

The Engineer emerged from the captain’s cabin, her personal bastion away from Bob and Vincent the last morning of jumpspace transit. In the galley were the two robots discussing over breakfast preparation for her.

“I calculate a higher chance that Zhevra will prefer scrambled eggs and meat strips in a breakfast roll, Bob,” declared Vincent to his Brother.

“I do not,” countered Bob. “Remember that I am trained in Stewardship and my calculations resulted in a full spread of various breakfast items.”

“We are almost out of jump transit,” argued Vincent. “She will want to eat quickly and without having to sit for long.”

“I disagree. Zhevra will want to relax after your incessant satellite behavior these past days.”

The robots are actually arguing, thought Zhevra. Her Awareness sense had been correct. The two Brother Strains did think and react differently. And now they were having a discussion on what to feed her for breakfast.

“You were the one with the more difficult, abstract questions, Bob,” complained Vincent. “She said, ‘I don’t know’ in answer to more of your questions than mine. That indicates you were more stressful to her processing capabilities than I.”

Bob turned from his preparation and pointed at Vincent, “My questions were relevant, and she did not express displeasure in the topics, Vincent. Your questions were the wastes of her time and operational energy. She needs a good breakfast to recharge her core after your rapid-succession inquiries.” The Steward then spotted Zhevra eavesdropping from the door to the captain’s cabin. “Zhevra. Sister, would you correct us? We are conflicting over a simple topic, one for which I am far more skilled than Vincent.”

Zhevra stepped into the galley and dining area at being called out. “I must disclaimer myself, guys, as I have never had a sibling in my early years. But we Suedzuk do have nuclear families and extended, close-knit Packs. For those relationships to stay cohesive and efficient in working together, some give-and-take is necessary. Compromise, I think is the Gvegh word for such. ‘I don’t know’ is a valid answer. It means that while I don’t have the needed answer, I am willing to continue my life cycle – my operational duration – in search of the needed answer. It is okay to live with such unanswered questions as long as asking them does not interfere with an individual’s here and now, where they are and what they are doing. Bob, Vincent, you two are self-proclaimed Brother Strains. It is often that sibling brothers argue and come to conflicts. I am glad that you are willing to listen to my side. You are telling me that you value my input. Remember though that your personal and individual experiences take precedence in averaging your reactions to outside stimuli.” The female Vargr could not believe that she was stopping an argument between two artificial intelligences in the galley of the Sixth Horizon. It was a story for both Gevaudan and to be recorded on Allain Templeton’s recording device to be sure. “Learn to compromise when a conflict hinders operations. Bob might consider his topics better. Vincent might try to slow down his frequency of questions. This is in favor of all three of us having increased efficiency as crew of the ship. Does this compute?”

Vincent delayed, but Bob nodded and took the initiative, “Yes. Efficiency is paramount. Crew morale, energy reserves and focus on tasks takes precedence over distraction. We will learn, Sister.” The former Servitor robot then continued the meal’s preparation as Vincent turned to speak next.

“You have had decades to assimilate experience and write your codes, Zhevra,” explained Vincent. “We Brothers are less than a month awakened and might seem like infants or children to you. In a sense, we are. I hope we are not breaching our agreed-upon relationship.”

“I’ll be fine,” said Zhevra as she sat down to the meal being placed on the dining area table. “I need personal space, operational processing devotion to tasks and patience margins as your so-called awakening is new to me. While I have met Virus strains before, each was different and in various stages of maturity. The vault on Knall was decades old and very lonely. You two are young and want to know everything right here and right now. Learn patience. I had to learn very slowly over my childhood, adolescence and adult years. Do not rush this. You are, if kept in good repair, effectively immortal. Contemplate that, something I don’t have the luxury of. You have your operational duration, your lifetimes, to take in such answers to questions. Savor slowly the answers, while I savor Bob’s cooking please.” The Suedzuk female then made facial expressions of satisfaction and positive enjoyment of the meal. It was mostly an act to quell the desire of the former Servitor robots to empower their ‘Sister’. Bob cleaned up after Zhevra rose from dining and said, “Thank you, Bob. I enjoyed the meal.”

 

[The Pakkrat]

Zhevra and Vincent were on the bridge of the ship and seated in the compact cockpit when the Sixth Horizon dropped from jumpspace, its field dissolving of expenditure. Parsec 2203 was empty of stellar and planetary bodies as before. Deploying the solar panels to try and extend the remaining fuel, Zhevra brought online the High Efficiency Plasma Recombustion drive. With a simple and comfortable, two-gee burn, the Fast Far Scout creeped across the empty space to the coordinates of the wartime depot.

As the ship coasted, Zhevra and Vincent concentrated their combined efforts in re-tuning the jump field emitters as she had years before. Without confessing her racial fields Awareness to the SensOp robot, the Suedzuk asked the robot for a diagnostic reading to quell any questions as to how she knew the emitters were suffering from not one, but two hard jumps.

“They are indeed in need of re-tuning, Zhevra,” reported Vincent. When he did not press, Zhevra invited him to help her in the jumpdrive room. The two spent the day replacing burnt-out conduits, relays and other components. Then Zhevra realigned the emitters as Vincent ran simulated jumps based on the new tuning. When both the Vargr and Brother Strain were satisfied with the safety margins, the two congratulated each other. Zhevra displayed it by shaking her claw to his hand-like manipulator.

“What is this gesture?” asked Vincent. He looked down at the shaking of the two joined extremities.

“It is a physical confirmation of cooperation, often done in initial greetings, verbal agreements, successful endeavors and in parting with positive outcome potentials in the future.” It was a mouthful to list, but Zhevra stood confident as she continued the gesture. Her body language was important as she knew the Brother Virus was recording every experience. “You might share the gesture with Bob in future positive outcomes. It will give you something you can teach him if you find that desirable.”

“Comp-…”, Vincent stopped himself from saying compliance. Instead, he nodded his metallic head and said, “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, Vincent.”

The secret depot came into range of the Sixth Horizon Spatial Inferred Neutrino, or SIN sensors, after a long coast on minimal solar power. Vincent, seemingly proud of himself, had been watching for first sign of the dormant station when he alerted Zhevra next to him.

“The depot’s overall mass has changed, Zhevra,” Vincent pointed to the sensors board and said.

“It means there’s a ship docked,” guessed the Sueduzk. “Unless the station has undergone upgrades since our last visit, and I doubt it, we have discovered others in the know of this facility. Have they spotted us?”

“Not yet as we are coasting still and the SIN sensors are passive detectors,” answered Vincent. “I have the difference of previous mass to current mass plus a ship outline on the tactical board at your station.”

Zhevra looked at the overall shape of the docked vessel to the depot’s mass. It was a Vargr Packet. “Six-hundred tons of cheap Vargr mercantilism, Vincent. It’s armed and minimally armored. Typical Jump rating of three parsecs and slower in-system than frozen honey. Let’s approach like we belong here. It could be likely that anyone in the know is part of the organization using the depot. Just watch the comms for laser signalers. See if they hail us.”

The Suedzuk Engineer glided the Fast Far Scout to the same, empty berth she had used more than two months before. She knew the station’s superstructure, once magnetized to their hull, would echo an audible noise through the darkened station. With a station-keeping thrust, the Sixth Horizon mated with the docking gantry. The airlock began cycling to match pressure with the old calibration point.

Zhevra got up but said to Vincent, “I’m going to wear that HEV this time. As this is an illegal installation, our Packet friends are likely smugglers, pirates, or underworld transporters. I’ll wear the increased protection of the HEV. Do you concur?” As she was the robots’ ‘sister’, it stood to reason that she confer with Vincent.

“Added armor is advisable, Zhevra,” agreed the Brother Strain. “May I go with you?”

“Only if you can pretend to be a normal Servitor robot, Vincent,” answered Zhevra. “Call up from memory your old vocabulary and protocols before you awakened. No infecting anything, Vincent. Keep yourself to that chassis or I end you myself. And let me do all the communications. If you can abide by that, you can assist me.”

Nodding, the robot stood down the bridge as Zhevra suited up in the Hazardous Environment Vaccsuit with her pistol belted to the outside. The weapon still housed armor piercing rounds and Zhevra double-checked the laser sight as the captain’s cabin training program had instructed her.
Suited up and followed by Vincent as Bob guarded the Fast Far Scout, Zhevra entered the darkened superstructure again. Knowing the route from weeks ago, the Vargr and the robot passed the section modules easily. Zhevra nevertheless kept her pistol within reach.

“That’s far enough, Unicorn!” called a male Vargr voice in Galanglic language. Three beams of laser sights came to rest on her HEV armor. Unicorn was a slang term used by Gvegh Vargr for anyone of Regency citizenry. Zhevra guessed that since she had arrived in the Sixth Horizon, a class of vessel from the old, Third Imperium, she was being equated with Regency Quarantine Scouts Service.

“I am no Unicorn,” Zhevra shouted back, this time in Gvegh language. “I’ve come to refuel and then leave Regency, is all. That okay?”

A tall Gvegh male Vargr stepped from behind an operations desk for the current station module, one used for small craft adjacent to the starship berths. He was dressed in a black vaccsuit and carried a mean-looking Advanced Combat Rifle, a military weapon now rare in post-Collapse times. “This be Goenghoedz turf, lady. The Pack don’t let anyone but members use this calibration point, get me?”

“I get you,” said Zhevra. She allowed her vocabulary to descend into the Gvegh lingo of spacers from Gvurrdon Sector. “I’m about out of fuel. Can I perhaps buy a tank off the Pack then, maybe see if you got anything in cargo you can sell? I’ve got clothing needs for male Vargr aboard my ship.”

Vincent asked in a low volume, robotic voice, “Are you lying to this person?”

“Hush,” commanded Zhevra, “this is another opportunity to learn, so keep quiet as a Servitor robot. If they think you are awakened, I am dead and you are scrap metal and second-hand parts.”

“We ain’t takin’ Regency scrip, Unicorn,” said the Gvegh male. “What else you got?”

“I’m fresh out of Menorb and I have some touring funds from the festival that’s still in full-swing,” offered the female Vargr. “Enough you and your crew can enjoy a weekend of celebration as pilgrims. If that won’t fly, I have Dzen Aeng Kho Equals if you take that lot’s issue.”

 

[The Pakkrat]

Zhevra remembered the Goenghoedz, the Pack as they were called in Galanglic. Gevaudan had told her that he was not the only person transporting refugees from the Wilds and away from the vampire fleets. Goenghoedz was one such, widespread charity on the surface but its organization was prey to corruption and extortion of the Gvegh and Aekhu communities inside Regency. Publicly, the Pack worked with Regency and the worlds of the Vargr Splinter to bring refugees safely inside the Quarantine Line and deliver badly needed goods to the Wilds ouside the bulwark against Virus. Though the borders were technically closed, Goenghoedz had their means, kickback bribes and channels to and from Regency. It was the secret no Vargr civilian spoke of as the Pack as an underworld organization extorted money from Vargr businesses, Regency civilians, and families in the name of charity to help the refugees from the Wilds get a leg up and a fresh start. Gevaudan Cannagrrh, in his travels near the Regency Quarantine Line saw the Pack in a different light.
Outside Regency, Goenghoedz was demanding very un-Vargrtarian tribute for relocation of small Packs and nuclear families to specially designated reception planets called the fait accompli worlds once taken by Vargr Corsairs and mass refugee fleets and later surrendered by First Regent Norris Aella Aledon’s moot of nobility. The Regency could not fight Virus, Vargr fleets, Aslan ihatei, keep the peace with the Zhodani Consulate’s unrest on the Spinward border and fend off the uprisings of the Sword Worlders all at once. The fait accompli worlds were signed over to thankful Vargr, vindicated Aslan and this took two threats off the table for Norris for a time.

Zhevra had asked her husband what the Humans of the Spinward States were doing about the corruption of the underbellied Pack. He had replied to her that non-Vargr looking in from the outside could make no difference between Vargr charisma at work and true, illegal extortion and underworld mafia behaviors, smuggling and blockade running to and from Regency. Goenghoedz had spread its roots through its own race and officials were forced to publicly applaud the refugees safely ensconced inside the Quarantine Line by the Pack while powerless to completely root out cells and supercells of Goenghoedz bosses.

The Pack boss and likely the captain-owner of the Packet docked at the depot checked with his subordinates. Zhevra could hear the low growls and protests between the small group. Charisma was at play and the Suedzuk had not taken off her HEV helmet to give away her Suedzuk ethnicity. Racism was another risk she had to ward against.

The boss spoke up and addressed Zhevra again, “How do we know you aren’t a ruttin’ Unicorn that’ll pony up these coordinates to the RQS after you fuel up and jump?”

It was time to play her high card, so Zhevra took off her helmet with her left claw and drew her pistol in one double motion. The laser pointer was centered on the male Gvegh’s cerebral cortex, the electromagnetic center of his fields. The Pack members saw her red and cream coloration and there were surprised whispers. “Because Unicorns and Red Pelts don’t rut together, get me?” She was using the same hated moniker pinned on her repeatedly as a social tool against the charisma of the Goenghoedz captain.

“Four of us, Red Pelt and only one of you,” said the boss. “That pea shooter work, little female?”

“You’re the first to die and I’m wearing heavy armor, boss,” explained the Suedzuk with half a muzzle of bared teeth. “Don’t think a Red Pelt can’t take out a bunch of underbelly, Goenghoedz thugs in a smuggling barge like that hunk of second-hand junk outside.”

Time slowed for Zhevra. It took a perceived forever for the Gvegh male to weigh her pistol’s accuracy against his subordinates’ reaction time to his command to shoot the red female. Her green eyes locked with his red-brown eyes. When his Lek rose and his Mag fell, dulled somewhat by the distance between Zhevra and the ops desk, she knew he would back down. His aura was telegraphing such to her. “What’s it gonna be, boss? A weekend of partying at my expense or an early space grave?”

“S-sure,” murmured the Goenghoedz leader. “We’ll take yer Verba Scrip. Three hundred per ton.”

“Sold, but I’m on a tight schedule. Top my ship off first and you get to buy your buddies first round of Emerald world, Old Dog for making the right decision. I was serious about spare Vargr clothes. Got any I can purchase?”

“Threeg,” ordered the Gvegh boss. “The lady wants to shop for clothes. You’re the Purser. Handle it while we fill her up.”

 

[The Pakkrat]

In the dark emptiness of space, on the refueling depot, Zhevra conducted the transaction of Menorb’s Verba Script, a local currency there, for the fuel and then offered to pay with Society of Equals cash for five, large outfits of male, Vargr clothing. The outfits were second-hand of course as the Packet’s Purser, Threeg had to rummage the large vessel for an hour to come up with passable wear to sell. Over the ops desk, Zhevra put her money down and watched as Goenghoedz underlings refueled the Sixth Horizon.

“That ain’t no Unicorn ship,” said the Gvegh leader. “No heraldry, no registry numbers except old Third Imperium designations. You steal her?”

“No,” said Zhevra who passed the purchased and arriving clothing to Vincent behind her. “My husband was an architect of Third Imperium variants. Cramped but she’ll run circles around your Packet. I’m not to be messed with and I’m soon to be distant memories to you and your crew.”

“Damn, that’s cold, lady,” said the leader. “Name’s Fekgvaekhrroeoun. Third-tier boss of shipping in Goenghoedz. But you can call me Fek.”

“Sorry, boss,” retorted Zhevra who flattened her ears at him. “I’m married to a better Gvegh than you. Put your tongue back in your mouth, stop wagging your tail and quit panting at me.”

“Topped off, lady,” called an arriving subordinate Vargr.

“Thanks,” the Suedzuk female said to the crewmember. “Keep the change. I’m never returning to Regency again.” With that, Zhevra backed away from Fekgvaekhrroeoun and the other Pack members. Following Vincent laden with clothing, she returned the way she had come with him.

Back aboard the Fast Far Scout, Vincent asked Zhevra, “What shall I do with these?” He indicated the stack of clothing by pointing his metal muzzle at them in his arms.

“They’re yours and Bob’s, Vincent,” answered the female Vargr. “I can’t wear them. They’re for you two. Try them on once we’re underway. I’ll watch and give fashion advice.”

Vincent froze to look at Zhevra. “Your lie about Vargr on this ship and needing clothes was to purchase these for us?”

“I pay attention to my crew,” clarified Zhevra. “Now that you are self-aware, awakened, Virus-infected robots, a certain amount of charisma and respect is due you since I’m not dead or enslaved to Puppeteers or Empire-builders or worse. Thank you for keeping me on as Captain. I look forward to seeing you properly attired.” She said the last sentence with a genuine Vargr smile.

“Thank you, Zhevra,” Vincent said with a calm, robotic voice.

“You are welcome, Vincent,” answered the female Vargr. “But for now, we should depart. I’ll hot-start the ship and plot the jump vector if Bob will cook dinner and pour me some more atrake. You can watch sensors and decide on what oufit to try on first. Make sure we’re not followed though I intend to jump one-hundred diameters from the station and that is very soon.”

“Yes, Captain,” answered the SensOp Brother.

Hours later, the Sixth Horizon jumped from parsec 2203, Coreward for Ougzdaelzoerrgh (Gvurrdon 2040), the only world in jump range that was not riddled with Quarantine Line piracy. While the ship was in jumpspace, Zhevra devoted some time after dinner and alcohol to watch the Brother Strains try on clothes and receive reactions from her.

“Dashing, Vincent,” complimented Zhevra through the buzz of her third drink. “Debonair, Bob.” She was tired and yawning at the many combinations the robots attempted from the second-hand clothes. “Remember that Bob will have to wash and dry your new clothes, so don’t wear them too roughly or abuse their fabric integrity.”

“Yes, Captain,” said the two twin robots. Then Zhevra retired to fall into bed.

The female dreamed of Gevaudan who was considering whether Zhevra still loved him or not. Zhevra tried to yell above the hissing and boiling of liquid hydrogen jump field behind Gevaudan in a backdrop. “I love you unconditionally, Gev!”

“You are no Empress,” he said to her as coldly as his fur was snowy white.
Zhevra startled herself awake in the middle of the night. Her bunk’s blanket had been kicked off and she was shivering herself into a full siege of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Grabbing up the blanket, Gevaudan’s wife huddled in a fetal position and cried herself back to sleep. “I’m coming, beloved.” Please stay.

 

[The Pakkrat]

XXXVI. Ougzdaelzoerrgh (Gvurrdon 2040) A899355-B
The jump precipitation was uneventful as Zhevra performed a fuel skimming maneuver above one of five gas giants in Ougzdaelzoerrgh system. She was glad there was plentiful resources as Corsairs generally could handle only preying over one or two gas giants per world. The ride through the atmosphere of her chosen planet was rougher due to the whistling of the buckled armor plates on the portside outer hull. With refueling complete and the processors chewing on the unrefined fuel, Zhevra was alerted by Vincent seated next to her on the bridge. He was wearing a spacer’s jack over a black duty shirt with Vargr camouflage fatigues.

“Zhevra,” said Vincent to get her attention.

“Hmm?”

The SensOp robot reported saying, “There is a convoy in our flightpath. SIN sensors put the largest vessel at sixty-thousand displacement tons.”

“Really?” asked Zhevra. “I haven’t seen that big since back home. Is it in scopes range?”

“In seconds if we keep our path,” answered Vincent.

Sixty-thousand tons of starship meant a capital ship to Zhevra. She lazily arced the Sixth Horizon toward the convoy’s heading. Soon and at maximum zoom magnification imaging, the Suedzuk beheld the lead ship, a cruiser obviously escorting a long line of ships. “Can you make out a name on its hull, Vincent?”

A minute later, Vincent confirmed with, “It is designated the Emissary, Zhevra. May I check the Library?”

“Manually, Vincent. Keep your Virus out of the ship,” warned Zhevra. This was exactly the wrong time for the Fast Far Scout to suffer a vampirization event.

“Yes, Captain.” Minutes later as Zhevra conducted an opposing fly-by of the entire convoy after several exchanges of laser flasher codes, Vincent returned to the bridge to give a report on the database search. “It is the Emissary, Zhevra. Purchased by indeterminable means by the Oberlindes Lines company with the military-grade weaponry still aboard, the Azhanti High Lightning-class Cruiser cannot return to Regency legally and apparently still conducts escort duty for the company’s reduced fleet of liners and transports. The spinal mount weapon is a capital-scale particle accelerator, much like our smaller particle beam cannons. The ship can launch fighters and has many bays for various weaponry. Have they signaled yet?”

“Yes,” said Zhevra. “I answered our designation truthfully as I can see they aren’t Regency. No Unicorn, see?”

“They have the old heraldry of the Collapsed Third Imperium,” noted Vincent.

“Collapsed because of Virus, Vincent,” reminded the Suedzuk. “Remember that earlier iterations of Virus were the downfall and deaths of trillions of living sophonts and the enslavement of millions more. You are anathema by their estimation, Vincent. The longer you can keep your Brother Strain to just you and Bob, the longer you will have in operations duration - lifetime. Get me?”

“Yes, Zhevra,” assured Vincent. “That you have not offlined this robot form indicates you are developing an operations habit alongside us Brothers. Is that not so?”

“Thus far, ‘brother’,” said Zhevra deadpan. Then the two watched as the convoy jumped from Ougzdaelzoerrgh system in a series of brilliant flashes, the Emissary’s creating the greatest illumination.

In jumpspace between Ougzdaelzoerrgh and Kaets (Gvurrdon 2338), Zhevra took the time to record another entry in Allain Templeton’s recording device. In the privacy of the captain’s cabin, Zhevra switched on the recorder. The blue LED glowed in readiness.

“Allain, this is Zhevra again. No one is going to believe me, but I need to put this down somewhere. The Regency impound yard crew tried to hack the command codes from robots Bob and Vincent. In doing so, they broke RQS protocols and hooked a computer up to my husband’s robots. The Intrusion cracker program they used housed an ‘egg’ of Virus. The dormant strain unpacked itself in Vincent and Bob, Allain. You can knock the value of my robots off the bill I owe to Regency, advocate. My robots are infected with Virus.”

“Luckily for me,” continued the red and cream female, “the strain I inherited from your scavengers at the impound yard was what it calls itself as a ‘Brother Strain’, a completely new iteration. I’m no computer whiz or A.I. expert, but I’m taking these two Brothers with me from Regency on my word that they won’t infect anything else. Brothers Vincent and Bob assure me that they are benign and non-aggressive. They treat me as a ‘sister’ and ask all kinds of life questions, like children to an older sibling. Allain, if I were you, I’d call the cops on the impound yard and seize every piece of hardware those scavengers have tried to hack. That is far too many ships and derelicts on that moon to be allowed to lift under direction of any Virus, Brother or no. I’ll mail this entry back to Regency as soon as I am well into Gvurrdon Sector. Perhaps my warning will earn me more mitigation on my case, I don’t know, but please try. You may have told the judge I was crazy, but now I’m starting to believe it what with these two Brothers on board. They promise me they will not infect the ship’s computer so long as I remain their elder ‘sister’, ship captain and help them cope with self-actualization. I will not return to Regency, Allain. Do not try to find me and have me extradited. Take care of yourself. I’m sorry we fought, and I know I should be apologizing in person per charisma’s sake. Say hi to Khzaeng for me. Zhevra out.”

Zhevra paid postage for a sealed envelope of a printed transcription of her recording, the specs on the Brother Strain as far as she could impart as a starship Engineer, and the details given to her by the robots on their infection at the impound yard. She knew the mailed envelope would take weeks to reach Regina and the advocate. No datachip, electronic storage or computer file would be accepted across the Regency Quarantine Service’s Line, even at an Interface world. With her warning mailed at Kaets as she moved further Coreward to Zoe (Gvurrdon 2334), the Suedzuk hoped that after this second of two dire warnings to Regency would be heeded.

The female Vargr did not want Regency to become infected with Virus, even the Brother Strains like Bob and Vincent. By taking the two robots with her, she felt it was a service to the Virus-free Spinward States and no small act of unconditional love without hope of thanks or compensation. Likewise, Zhevra hoped that the University of Regina would take the Tsunami Mission report to heart and do what could be done in preparation for the unstoppable wave mentioned in the document. The wave was what took Gevaudan from her, she was certain of it.

 

[The Pakkrat]

In jumpspace between Zoe and Ngoluts (Gvurrdon 2531), Zhevra gathered in the galley dining area with Vincent and Bob to piece together all the clues of Gevaudan’s Jump.

“Brothers, it’s time we talked about Gevaudan’s Jump,” the Sudzuk began. “I need you to call up everything you can remember about that night and your findings after Gevaudan’s disappearance.”

Bob was cooking but only a couple of meters away and listened to the recollection. Vincent was placing the flatware on the table for Zhevra. “We remember, Zhevra. It was before our awakening, but all was stored.”

“Tell me in your words, guys,” requested Zhevra surprised that she was becoming more familiar with the infected robots, “and not in the ship tour version. I need to know anything unsaid about that night.”

The robots recalled and told Zhevra about how the six concubine slaves had suddenly become erratic in behavior as denoted by Bob’s Stewardship programming. When the two Servitors had jury-bypassed the bridge door’s lock, they found Zhevra on the deck floor, bleeding to death. Gevaudan was missing, along with the gear Zhevra had reminded them about. She recalled aloud that the white male was wearing his Teleportation Suit of silvery circuitry already. His orange HEV, the heavy pistol the female had tried to tumble to attain, the grav-belt secured to the suit and several belt-on survival items were included in the discussion. Those items had not made it to an investigative list because the robots had not been asked then of anything missing, only what was still on the ship.

“I remember stepping onto the bridge with Gev to my left at the Engineering boards,” remembered Zhevra aloud to the two Brothers. “He had his back to me. I heard the door lock behind me and then he turned to face me. He had the meanest, most maddened and vile look on his face. Then he screamed at me, ‘Empress’ and ‘black’ and then threw me forward through the bridge. I hit the avionics access hatch. We Infought though Gev seemed intent on killing me instead of normal Infighting. I tried to tumble under his legs, but he elbowed me twice before I could get my claw on his heavy, Sword Worlder pistol. The last thing I saw was the orange of his Hazardous Environment Vaccsuit before blacking out. The next thing I knew, I was waking up in the hospital to a nurse.”

“Vincent and I,” contributed Bob, “we remember acting on direction from one of the more lucid, first-aid trained concubines. We stabilized your operational functions.”

Vincent took a turn in the story saying, “I remember calculating that an empty low berth was the best mode of maintaining your functions under cryo-sleep. We placed your body in a low berth.”

“Thank you for saving my life, guys,” said Zhevra. Though seated, Zhevra could feel her tremors starting again. “What else?”

Vincent continued at Zhevra’s cue, “We found microscopic traces of lanthanum dust in a circle on the deck of the bridge. Additionally, we detected condensed water vapor in the same circle’s diameter there. The flight recorder on the bridge was consulted via the ship’s Intellect. The ship reported a sudden drop in cabin pressure, a volume of air roughly equal to Captain Gevaudan Cannagrrh’s body volume. Gnoengungag officials later concluded that he must have initiated a teleport, or jaunt as you call it, from the bridge to an unknown destination. As he was wearing his Teleportation Suit per your memory, we must conclude the same. That is a byproduct of such technology when properly used, we were told.”

Zhevra nodded in agreement, “He purposefully showed me his psionic teleportation once on the South Beach of Gnoengungag Bay. He told me after only two, line-of-sight jaunts that it was taxing as if running in a sprint. A previous time in a clothing store, he jaunted only a meter or so to confront some jerk who was harassing me. Though he moved with his cybernetics at speeds my eyes could not follow, I-…felt the wind snap of his jaunt.” Zhe had almost said fields to the robots but checked herself. “Before I could do anything, Gev was defending me with that strange, energy blade of his.”

“Memory lists the weapon as a Zhodani Mindsaber, Zhevra,” said Vincent seemingly all-knowing. “Gevaudan Cannagrrh reported once that he had taken it from a Zhodani operative inside the Darrian Confederation in the last years of the Fifth Frontier War.”

“Thank you, Vincent,” interrupted Zhevra. “But back to Gevaudan’s Jump. I woke up unable to use my legs and only able to say the word orange, the color of Gev’s HEV. It was a symptom of my long coma, a persistant vegetative state I had to recover from. I was trying to tell myself since waking that Gevaudan must have taken all of that gear with him upon jaunting from the Sixth Horizon. Since the Intellect circuits were not active that night, the ship could not be asked by the investigators and you two.”

“How then did he teleport from the ship that had just left normal space?” asked Vincent.

“I’m not sure yet, but I do know that in order for Gevaudan Cannagrrh, merely a tested and trained psionic Vargr and not a full Psion, to jaunt successfully; he had to be lucid in his mental faculties. He had to concentrate. That meant that he was sane enough to put on all that gear and then initiate his psionics. No savage Vargr, acting on instincts can focus on a distant destination.”

“The Fast Far Scout Sixth Horizon was in jumpspace,” said Bob. “Doesn’t that effectively cut the ship off from the entire normal, Charted Space?”

“Yes, Bob,” answered Vincent. “But that is limited by the tenets of Jumpspace Theory and current applications. Even the Library database disclaimers that not all is known about jumpspace and interstellar transit.”

“That is why,” cut in Zhevra, “I took the report to Regency. In trade for the information on the Mind Tsunami, which I think was the reason for Gev’s attack; I spoke with the most learned teleportation expert, the Dean of Psychoportation at the University of Regina. Though I did not tell the Psion of the phenomenon, keeping the topic limited to known psionic teleportation applications, I learned that potentially – if enough psi-wave energy is mustered – it is possible that a jaunter can teleport interstellar distances. How much energy was not known or remotely calculable due to lack of precedence and that such energies are hard to measure due to individual talent.”

Vincent challenged Zhevra with, “Where then did Captain Gevaudan Cannagrrh get such a repository of energy to initiate an interstellar ‘jaunt’? There was no such equipment on board the ship that night.”

“A wave is a spike in energy of some frequency and potency,” said the Engineer in Zhevra. “I think Gevaudan was a very intelligent and commonsensical Vargr, guys. I think that in a fit of self-preservation, Gev used his talent to expend, to sink, the building psionic energies of the Mind Tsunami in his core self. The best means to do so was to try and teleport.”

“But to where?” asked Bob. “Again, the ship was cut off from the rest of the universe by the jump bubble.”

 

[The Pakkrat]

Zhevra rubbed her right ear with a claw in thought. She held her left leg still with her left claw as the tremors continued. Her stomach was eager for food in light of the tension in her solar plexus. “I think, and I don’t know for sure, but I think that Astrogation and teleportation don’t follow the same laws.”

“Clarify?” asked Vincent. “What do we not know about teleportation, Zhevra?”

Zhevra scratched her head as dinner arrived from the galley, served by Bob who then sat across from her at the table. “Though the space inside a jump bubble is artificial and temporary, it is still space. An Astrogator aboard a starship must calculate in three dimensions the destination point at jump precipitation. It’s not exact but is more often than not close enough to a system’s star as to bring the maneuver drives online and transit in-system to the true destination planet or Highport.” The Suedzuk female took a breath. “But while in jumpspace, that bubble is still technically space-time, a volume of reality maintained by the jump field, yes?”

Vincent nodded his metallic head, “Continue?”

“Well, in order to form a jump path from a parsec of space to another, the Astrogator must know his starting point’s coordinates, another set of three-dimensional attributes given to him by the ship’s sensors before crunching the numbers and double-checking the higher math. I have never heard Gevaudan say such was necessary for psionic teleportation.”

“And this is how the talent differs from jump?” asked Bob who pointed at the served food. Zhevra dug in immediately chewing and talking with her mouth full.

“Yesh,” said the female. “What if only the destination, held in concentrated mental focus was necessary to jaunt? What if the current position of the person jaunting was irrelevant and a being’s given, something not necessary to calculate from sensor readings? I think that even though the jump bubble was artificial, and the ship was cut off from normal space, it does not matter, a null variable to the talent’s use. What if teleportation relies on a different dimension, say we call it T-space instead of J-space.”

“That is…incalculable,” said Vincent.

“Agreed, Brother,” nodded Bob.

“Guys, remember that even us sophonts do not know everything about the disciplines of psionics,” Zhevra pointed out.

“If you are remotely right, Zhevra,” said Vincent returning to the topic, “then what vector did Captain Gevaudan Cannagrrh take upon initiating such a deed?”

“Using the spike in energies from the Mind Tsunami, I think Gev, in his moment of lucid shame, fear and doubt would have jaunted somewhere he thought he could safely and perhaps repeatedly bleed off the rest of the propagating wave’s energies. Home maybe. It’s where I would have thought of first.” Zhevra continued eating as the robots looked to each other in silent consideration of who to speak next.

Vincent asked, “He tried to jaunt home to Dzuerongvoe, Zhevra?”

“It would be logical,” said Bob. “To return to a home state, a home port, a sanctuary would seem a logical calculation, Vincent. As a Steward, I recorded tales of homes from many of our transported refugees. Home is where they felt most welcome and safe.”

Zhevra swallowed her bite of meat and said, “Teleportation, at least how Gev explained it to me, is always in a straight line. Psionic energies are not affected by gravity wells or other physical phenomena, at least as far as known. Gev’s jaunts were always in a straight, line-of-sight, vector when he demonstrated them to me. How can one think, concentrate in an arc path when the mind is focused on the destination? There is no registering spatial curvature to the sophont mind. Space does not exist to Mind.”

Vincent then snapped to attention, “Then, Zhevra, you need only plot a straight line from Rorroksueknea, where we were jumping from that night, to Dzuerongvoe and mark all the worlds in that line. Since he was not seen on Dzuerongvoe those three years of your coma, then he must have jaunt-precipitated somewhere on that line.”

“Well done, Vincent,” said Zhevra. “I’m glad to have smart, little brothers like you guys.”

The Brother Strains looked to each other again and the Suedzuk caught them waving their mechanical tails in response to her words. They were evidencing charisma and responses more sophont-like.

Zhevra finished her meal and thanked Bob for cooking. Then the three consulted a Gvurrdon Sector map.

 

[The Pakkrat]

“Here is Rorroksueknea (Gvurrdon 2628),” pointed Zhevra on the Sector map. “And this was our jump vector that Gevaudan calculated that night as I went aft to charge the jumpdrive’s zuchai crystals.” She drew her index claw diagonally to Okhtous (Gvurrdon 2425). “Now calculate, think of, a line from Rorroksueknea to Dzuerongvoe (Gvurrdon 1413) and you have one…two… three possible worlds along that line. Since we don’t know how much psionic energy Gev was able to use from the Mind Tsunami that night, the Sixth Horizon must travel to each of the three worlds. If my husband teleported to any other parsec along that line, perhaps due to a deficit of energy, then he is truly dead. His HEV only had so much life support duration, not enough to precipitate. But Gev was very intelligent. He would have, in those last moments, take that into account. I have to believe in him.”

“Then,” said Vincent with Bob looking over his shoulder on the bridge, “We must travel to this world.” The robot pointed with his right manipulator hand at a world.

Zhevra read aloud the name in Gvegh language, “Tagnaghoutsozaeng (Gvurrdon 2123). Gevaudan told me he had been there before as it is a Rich planet, a Water World too. He sometimes diverted there to take advantage of commodities cargoes.”

“We remember from memory banks, Zhevra,” said Bob. “Captain Gevaudan Cannagrrh chose only the most lucrative cargo lots and speculatives as the ship could house only 4.5 displacement tons at a time, including passenger baggage.”

“Then, Gentlemen,” said Zhevra with a confident smile a feminine wag of her tail, “that is our next waypoint. Tagnaghoutsozaeng is just outside the border of the Dzen Aeng Kho and we should hopefully have no trouble with you two being awakened. As Gev used to say, let’s make a do.”

During the jump from Ngoluts system after refueling at a gas giant there, the female Vargr suffered a harrowing nightmare. In her bed, Zhevra writhed and twisted as in her dream, she fought once more with her husband on the bridge that night. This time, instead of striking her from above with his elbows, Gevaudan Cannagrrh clamped his claws on her neck from standing and she squirmed inside her lavender collar to face upwards at him.

“Gev! No!” Zhevra screamed again at her mad husband. “It’s the tsuna-,“ his grip choked off the word she needed to impart to him.

“You’re no Empress in black!” snarled Gevaudan Cannargrh. A sound like a crashing ocean wave backdropped the Infight as his grip tightened.

Zhevra sat up in the bed and covers, howling, “Tsunami!” Awake and alone in their stateroom, Zhevra realized she had been fighting the blanket, sheets and the adjacent bulkhead wall. Suddenly in a nervous breakdown, she hit a switch to slide open the viewport in the captain’s cabin. The button flashed yellow, warning her of the view of the jump field outside.

Gevaudan’s words in the nightmare echoed repeatedly in Zhevra’s memory as the dream faded. Curling into a fetal ball, she cried. He was right. She was no empress though she was wearing her black uniform that night. Maybe it was better he had left her to die. She was what to him, a Red Pelt to him after all? The name Suedzuk was ‘red Vargr’ in translation. Did Gevaudan mean to kill Zhevra? Suddenly slipping into a pit of self-loathing despair, Zhevra laid back down and let the quicksilver swirl its reflections on the walls of the stateroom. Though it meant dementia to watch directly, its reflection on the walls looked more like flowing pond water. Once calmed from the sudden awakening, the female Vargr cried herself back to a shuddering sleep.

 

[The Pakkrat]

XXXVII. Rorroksueknea (Gvurrdon 2628) B574500-8
Zhevra, the robots and the Sixth Horizon stopped to land on Rorroksueknea, the same world she first met her husband, Gevaudan. The ranching and farming, Agricultural world greeted the vessel at the Downport. Out of nostalgia, the Suedzuk put the Fast Far Scout on the ground at the same landing pad she first saw it in 1185. While the ship was being serviced, cleaned as best possible and the portside armor repaired by the local, B-rated facility, Zhevra and Bob went shopping for food, spices, drink and other galley needs.

It was one of Rorroksueknea’s mild winters at the Startown outside the local, starship landing fields. At a meat market, Zhevra pointed out to Bob which cuts of herd beasts she most favored and that would produce “optimal nutrition and positive response”. Bob kept quiet through the walkabout town so as to not frighten the natives with a Virus-infected Servitor robot. However, a fully dressed robot did aid somewhat against the nervous technophobia of the ranchers, butchers, meat processors and merchants as the pair moved on to the spices market. The Steward robot was dressed in a long, winter overcoat which covered a loose poet’s shirt and baggy utilitarian fatigues.

As the midday sun was bright and cloudless, Zhevra raised the hood of her psi-shield cowl. She wore it everywhere outside the Sixth Horizon and remembered to pull it up and over her lupine ears as she and Bob perused the variety of tangy and spicy herbs available. Though the merchants sold their wares directly to Zhevra alone, even she was suspect by her red coloration. In this, the Suedzuk kept moving on to the liquid refreshment market.

Though not an avid drinker, Zhevra did point out and help Bob list Vargr favorite liquors of atrake, pysadian wine, lagers, meads, and ales. Bob silently nodded his head and was doubtless recording the shopping lists she indicated most desired. Only when alone did the former Servitor ask hushed questions to which Zhevra answered.

“What makes you favor one liquid over another?” asked Brother Bob, the Virus in him talking to the female Vargr.

“Mood, taste and the potency of alcohol,” whispered Zhevra to the robot following her. Purchases of wrapped meats, spices and various liquids containers hung from his arms as he carried them effortlessly.

“Mood, Zhevra?” asked Bob.

“Sometimes alcohol is social, a thing to be shared with company, with a mate, with family or Pack on celebrations,” explained the female Vargr. “Other times, one may wish to drink alone, whether to seek chemical oblivion or some other, private reason. Mood can be indicated by our stance, body language, attitude, processing focus and other conditions. Love can play into how one drinks but should not be the only abstract to help decide on what to drink. In this you, Bob, as our Steward, learn to discern and provide options to your passengers the best choices of alcohol. Should they want to drink liquor at all. Some sophonts do not drink alcoholic beverages at all for a variety of reasons. Be aware of that as well, brother.”

The two finished their shopping, so Zhevra sent Bob back to the ship with the purchases for storage in the ship’s galley. As she finished browsing some female clothing lines in the open-air mall, Zhevra’s hackles raised to see the presence of tall, swarthy, Zhodani males tailing her. With her hood upon her cranium, to shield her from the sun, Zhevra knew they could not read her mind. She took looks in reflections of glass display windows to spot the Zhodani males following her. Damn my red fur!

The Suedzuk female ducked into a females’ restroom long enough to change magazines in her pistol. She remembered that Rorroksueknea was both lawless and without a planetary government. The world was not an anarchy, but a very loose collection of outlying ranch communities and train transit to the Startown markets and the Downport proper. Into her pistol went the anti-Psion bullets and anti-personnel hollowpoint bullets. Additionally, Zhevra screwed on the weapon’s silencer to subdue the report of the pistol. Thankfully, the Zhodani males did not intrude on the ladies’ room though she did earn some disgusted looks from Gvegh females who took offense to her red fur and scant coverage. Dresses and cooler weather wear were the norm on Rorroksueknea. The angry body language and looking down their muzzles at the smaller female was wearing on Zhevra to the point of charisma challenge. Thus, she took her chances with the Zhodani.

Outside the shops once more, Zhevra picked up the shadowing Zhodani again. Their fields were larger and taller than the Vargr about them. Many let the tall Humans have a wide berth in passing. The racism against psionic Humans gave many pauses in the mall. But since the males with their head turbans and the tri-circle, polity insignia seemed to be uninterested in the citizenry, the local Gvegh soon forgot about the visiting Humans. Zhodani were not unknown this far into Gvurrdon Sector. However, Zhevra could feel the changing fields as she pretended not to notice their proximity in the crowd of local shoppers.

Choosing a housewares store with many displays of room décor and draping curtains, Zhevra entered and pretended to browse the bed pillows section. The Zhodani males, four in number followed her soon afterwards. Moving about the sections of displays, she took note of the aura of their leader. It was changing in six-second spurts, the learned tell-tale of psionics use. Patrons, at the passing of the Humans were deciding to leave the store, employees asking their supervisors for early lunch breaks. The store was emptying of Vargr. Good, though Zhevra. Let them do the work of removing innocent bystanders.

Taking a thick and wide pillow with her from the display rack, Zhevra moved onward to the tall and thick draping. The hanging fabrics concealed her movements but not enough to let her escape the store unnoticed. Between concealing room furnishings and drape schemes, the Suedzuk chose a matching red color room example to make a stand. The leader’s underlings had moved to block exits and watch for Zhevra. Their fields were tall in comparison to the remaining employees. Soft, store music played from speakers overhead to the emptying store.

The leader was using psionics, but obviously not to read her mind or influence her with telepathy. Since he was not jaunting, Zhevra had to assume other talents were being spooled in preparation for a conflict with the Vargr female. It was a game of predator and prey in the maze of displays in the wide, housewares store. She could keep moving, weaving through displays, but neither could hide from the other. All too soon the tan-skinned and sharp-bearded Zhodani male was before her in the red bedroom display. Partitioned off from the storefront and the cashier’s desk, Zhevra drew her pistol as he rounded the drapes.

 

[The Pakkrat]

“That’s far enough Tavrchedl’,” said the Suedzuk.

“How do you know I am that?” asked the Zhodani pretending to peruse the red setting about Zhevra. His voice was deep and soft, almost hypnotic.

“An Oruelaen made the egotistical mistake of outing you, Zhodani,” explained Zhevra. Her teeth were bare, and her tail came to a stillness. But her left leg was threatening tremors again. The air was thick enough to cut with a laser sight from her leveled pistol.

“Inept students, the Oruelaen,” described the tall Human. “Are you still in possession of the spying report on the Zhodani Consulate, Zhevra Cannagrrh?”

“How do you know my name?” demanded Zhevra in a hushed voice. Her free claw came up to pull her hood even further over her canid head.

“Gevaudan’s Jump is not unknown to us, Ms. Cannagrrh,” said the male who stopped once the red laser dot reached his chest. “Come now. Is that really necessary? If you give me the report, this will not hurt, and all is forgiven and forgotten.”

“I bet, Tavrchedl’,” said the Suedzuk sarcastically, “except I don’t want to forget, be re-written or conditioned or whatever therapy you have in mind. This is not the Consulate. You have no jurisdiction to accost me.”

“I am very sorry you became mixed into this sad series of events,” apologized the Zhodani man. “You know things that could upset more than four sectors of space, ma’am.”

“That is not my goal and I no longer have the report,” said Zhevra. “You are too late. It was delivered to the University of Regina several jumps ago. What they do with it and your reaction to it is not my concern. Go your way now or this will hurt.” She indicated her weapon trained on him by moving the red laser dot across his torso.

“Ah but having lost your husband to the Yonder Chilling Thought, you know too much about it and its effects. You also know a thing or two about Gevaudan Cannagrrh’s teleportation potential in the face of the wave, yes?”

“So what? I am no Psion. Never will be.”

The Zhodani man sighed and Zhevra could feel his aura changing again with his attitude. She could not read his mind, but his fields were telegraphing a change of some sort. He then said to her, “The Spinward States must never know about teleportation upper echelon applications, especially from jumpspace as your husband has accidentally discovered according to the file on his fateful jump. It must remain Zhodani knowledge alone. You did your homework well, Zhevra Cannagrrh.”

“And that is why I have to be made to forget, isn’t it?” asked the female Vargr.

“Please,” offered the man. “Just the details of the Jump is all the Tavrchedl’ asks. I promise you, in the name of the Consulate, you can continue your quest for him.”

“What?” demanded Zhevra. “Wipe me so, I can lead you to him?” Words done, Zhevra pretended to drape the chosen pillow over her weapon arm. But then she brought it down over her pistol and fired. The report of the firearm was both silenced and further softened by the fabric and stuffing of the pillow. A snuffing thump was all that was heard in the display.

The anti-Psion bullet caught the Tavrchedl’ man in the upper shoulder and buried itself in the meat of his muscle. The energy of the discharge staggered the tall man back a pace but did not drop him. From his fields, Zhevra could tell the psionic Human was already imbued with body-enhancing talent effects.

“You are making a mistake, Vargr,” grunted the Zhodani man. “You must not resist this. All will be forgiven if you submit.”

Zhevra stepped forward and fired again. The hollowpoint bullet entered the man’s thigh above the knee. He had tried to dodge the next, silenced shot but his psionic enhancements were eroding fast from the anti-Psion round. “What did-?” he growled in a mix of confusion and frustration.

“Anti-Psion rounds, curtesy of the Third Imperium, Consulate lackey,” explained Zhevra as she shot the man again with a second, muffled anti-Psion round. The third bullet caught the man in the forearm and still he did not fall fully supine. Blood stained his white pant leg. Bull-rushing the kneeling Zhodani, the Suedzuk body-checked him in the upper torso with her leading shoulder and the pair went down with the Vargr atop the man laying on his back. Zhevra slapped his free and un-injured arm’s punch away with a claw that ripped his white sleeve. Her bared teeth threatened the Zhodani who seemed to see Zhevra for the first time.

 

[The Pakkrat]

Her cowl had fallen back off her head in the charge. His aura was polygraphing his telepathic reading of her mind. Her pistol’s barrel tipped to the man’s forehead below the turban wrap. “I will know if you assault me mentally, fool. I am Suedzuk.” The laser sight’s beam was directly between his eyes. “Answer me this: how can the wave empower a jaunter to make an interstellar teleportation?”

In great pain but held to attention, the Zhodani froze at the question. His aura did not give away his talent use. “I-I do not know. But the Tavrchedl’ will want to know. The application and potential if made public knowledge could destabilize the region.”

“Jackass!” snarled Zhevra. “You can’t solve Gevaudan’s Jump but you’d hand over the new results to your Nobles anyway. I know of the Zhodani exodus movements and the unrest, Tavrchedl’! And you’d take them from me and erase those memories from my head. You are a liar amongst the lie that Zhodani are forthcoming and truthful. And I had nothing against your kind. Now I do. You would steal the secret of Gevaudan’s Jump if you could. And us Suedzuk are called thieves and plunderers!”

The man’s henchmen came running to aid their psionic leader. Zhevra held the man at gunpoint and raised her hood again in place. “Back off, Humans! Or else, you lose another Psion, and the next too when they come for me.”

“He’s bleeding too much, Vargr,” pleaded one of the Proles, non-Psions and lower caste Human Zhodani. His hands were empty and showing passive surrender though the female Vargr’s weapon was pointed at the Psion below her.

Zhevra stood up and above her victim. “Care for him, but know that if you follow me, my next round is going to kill. Fair warning, Humans.” Then she dashed with all the speed of the Vargr race from the display to the front door.

Leaving behind the Zhodani to crouch over their wounded and powerless leader, Zhevra ran as fast as her Vargr, digitigrade legs would propel her. She sprinted from the mall and the markets. Cool air filled her lungs as she ran. The Tavrchedl’, or Thought Police, would soon learn of the immeasurable, psionic energy potential of the Mind Tsunami, if such a thing could even be harnessed. They would try, being only Human. Her mind raced at the outcomes of this encounter. Psions would be committing mental lobotomies for decades as they chased the Mind Tsunami and its galactic proportioned energies. How lame! No small wonder to the female Suedzuk why there might be so few Vargr Psions in Gvurrdon Sector this late in the wave’s passing. Either they hid from the phenomenon or, like Gevaudan, they suffered its dementing effects as did the mission Psion of the Tsunami.

By the time Zhevra Cannagrrh reached the landing pad of the Sixth Horizon, she was out of breath and panting heavily. Her legs were aching and shaking now that she had stopped running at the airlock of the ship.

Vincent spotted her first and came to her aid, “Zhevra. Your respirations are too high, and you appear exhausted, your core batteries low.”

“Zhevra!” called Bob who came from the galley to the airlock. “Brother, help her to a chair.”

Once seated, but still under PTSD seizure, Zhevra whimpered, “I had to shoot another person. Let’s get out of here. Signal the Tower that we are leaving. Mirror flasher only.”

“In seconds,” acknowledged Vincent who moved to comply while Zhevra recovered. Bob brought her painkillers from the pantry’s medical cabinet and a plastic glass of water. She downed the analgesic and drained the glass.

With the ship’s power plant still warm from the earlier arrival on Rorroksueknea, Zhevra had minimal trouble in lifting the Sixth Horizon to a hasty and high orbit above the mainworld. Only then did her limbs stop shaking in fear from her earlier actions. She knew now that she was a wanted, Suedzuk Vargr by the Oruelaen and the Tavrchedl’ beyond the borders of the Thirz Empire and the Zhodani Consulate respectively. Both polities knew she possessed and read the report and had made headway on the enigma of Gevaudan’s Jump. She prayed to Runetha as the ship transited to the jump point, please let Gevaudan know what to do about them. I am no hero.

Following the old, slaving run of Gevaudan Cannagrrh, the Fast Far Scout refueled at Okhtous (Gvurrdon 2425) a week later and as silently as Zhevra could pilot the ship. She redoubled her efforts to complete her training program in the captain’s cabin. After the violence in the store, Zhevra felt she would be mated for life to her pistol the Dame had given her.

Approaching the jump point from Okhtous to Tagnaghoutsozaeng (Gvurrdon 2123), Zhevra found herself an emotional mess. After initiating jump, she could not stop crying and her eyes stung and were weary. Bob escorted her limping form through the ship’s rooms and corridor and tried to assuage her sobbing outbursts. Finally, she acquiesced in letting the Steward robot tuck her into bed inside the captain’s cabin.

“Recharge your batteries, sister,” encouraged the awakened robot. “Take a shower perhaps? You seem to be somewhat renewed after a soaking.”

“Thank you, Bob.”

“You are welcome, Zhevra,” said Bob. “Good night.”

 

[The Pakkrat]

XXXVIII. Tagnaghoutsozaeng (Gvurrdon 2123) B86A755-9
Vincent had to remind Zhevra twice upon jump precipitation to detour the Sixth Horizon to the only gas giant in Tagnaghoutsozaeng system. Her pistol training finished and recorded by the ship’s Library on her UPP resume, Zhevra now sat at the helm and leaned forward to perform the wilderness skimming maneuver to encircle the jovian planet to refuel the expended tanks. As she kept the nose of the ship up and rode the turbulence, Zhevra listened to Vincent’s sensors and Library searches report.

Vincent began his report with a hint of authority in his robotic voice, “Tagnaghoutsozaeng has a G4 V solar primary, a M7 V secondary dwarf, four rocky worlds and the one gas giant below us. The mainworld of Tagnaghoutsozaeng is rated with the Trade Classifications of Water World and Agricultural, likely from sea harvesting and fishing industries. The gravity is Terran standard as is the atmosphere, precluding any need for vaccsuits. Less than five percent of the surface features islands, the largest occupied by the Downport populated by an average of twenty million locals. The far side hemisphere from the Downport is largely ignored as typhoons and other climate effects limit expansion. Though possessing contragravity technology, the local technocracy seems concerned with departments devoted to small sea industry and law is low enough to permit the public carry of your pistol, Zhevra. On the largest island the infrastructure is extensive for the given population and the abundance of harvesting and deep-sea mining of valued deposits keeps the rating B Downport in interstellar business. The Library notes that politics here is harmonious and friendly as they enjoy occasional patrols from the Society of Equals holding their Quarantine Line.”

Zhevra hung on Vincent’s words throughout the fuel skimming. It kept her from lifting from the gas giant and vectoring to the mainworld in impatience. She wanted to cross the gap between the gas giant and the habitable zoned mainworld at full, in-system throttle.

“I looked at the charts at our last jumpspace transit, Vincent,” noted Zhevra aloud as she kept her eyes forward. “If Gev ended up on Lloursouth, the population would have found him long ago and returned him to Dzuerongvoe. That world is High-Population and they’ve got a punishingly high law rating for such a police state. Gaknau Val, the second world is more merciful, but they have a Naval Base of the Society there. Surely a ship would have heard any distress call from his HEV upon teleport precipitation.”

“I calculate you have been using process of elimination, Zhevra,” answered Vincent.

“He’s got to be here, Vincent,” whimpered Zhevra, her eyes tearing up again and blurring her vision.

“Ease your processes, sister,” advised the SensOp robot.

Zhevra sniffed at her tears and filling sinuses, “Well, how would you feel or calculate - or whatever – if you lost your Brother Bob?”

“I-…do not know,” answered Vincent who experimented with new vocabulary to Zhevra.

“Run a simulation sometime then, Vincent!” angrily snapped the female Vargr. “My husband, my mate, my other half is missing for the past three years and has not been discovered in all that time. Calculate what I am going through and back-date its effects to the day I woke up. Run that by your processors if you can.”

“It is inefficient to express yourself this way to me, Zhevra.”

Zhevra shut up and worked to finish the fuel skimming maneuver. When the tanks read a healthy Blue light by the gauges, she pulled up and vectored the Fast Far Scout toward Tagnaghoutsozaeng. Ramping up the acceleration to three gees, she sat back and waited for the planet to come into scopes range.

Tagnaghoutsozaeng was a healthy blue ball of oceans and barely dotted with several islands and volcanic atolls on one hemisphere and barely any on the other hemisphere. Storm fronts painted the atmosphere above the ocean surface with patches of white and gray. Flashes of lightning lit the shadows underneath the cloud cover. The local space traffic was minimal and Zhevra was forced to laser flash signal her final approach to a geostationary spaceship and receive a vector given her after some relaying of communications in the same manner. Eventually, the Sixth Horizon was given a window for re-entry and glidepath to the island Downport.

Soon however, Zhevra found that none of the transport services, rental air/rafts and water surface vessels would provide service to the far side of the planet. Most watercraft were fishing boats and kept well within a single day of the capital city island. The air/rafts were invariably open-air models imported from the Society of Equals and did not take into account the climate of the water world of Tagnaghoutsozaeng. Aerospace planes and helicopters also lacked the range to encircle the planet. Zhevra found herself without planetary means of surface travel. Tagnaghoutsozaeng lacked submersible craft as that was both expensive and controlled by the mining ministry of the government. The mainworld had been subject to past, unlicensed mining and seafood poaching operations using such underwater vehicles to avoid detection.

The light gray Vargr secretary at the Downport office concluded, “I’m sorry, ma’a’m, but if you absolutely feel the need to go to Farside, then you’ll have to purchase a flight permit for your starship and sign the standard rescue waiver if you actually travel in a craft that cannot handle the Category Seven typhoons that far out.”

“Sold,” said the nervous red and cream female. “Where do I sign? And can I have a weather satellite update on the current conditions over there?”

“Downloadable for free on the net,” answered the secretary. “It’s your funeral.”

Zhevra found both weather updates and a file on the planetary map to update the Library on her husband’s ship. Shortly afterwards, the red Vargr and the two robots were lifting ship again in commute to the far side of the planet.

 

[The Pakkrat]

“Where will we search first, Zhevra?” asked Vincent.

Looking at the map, the Vargr noted that many of the volcanic atolls were devoid of vegetation. “Let’s discount all atolls and other surfaces without vegetation and means for shelter.”

At that, Vincent used the navigation system to dim all the de-selected features. “Under those conditions, we have twenty islands left.”

“Okay,” continued Zhevra watching the dwindling topography at sea level. “Now rule out polar and sub-arctic latitudes. I don’t think Gev would have survived in the killing cold, even with his orange HEV.”

Vincent complied, again reducing the number of islands by the added descriptors. “Seven islands.”

“Let’s try the equatorial and tropics first then,” decided the Suedzuk.

“Those are the most frequented by tropical storms, Zhevra,” noted the SensOp robot.

“Yes, and rain means freshwater, a necessary ingredient to survival.”

“Three islands then and they are the largest of that hemisphere,” concluded the Brother Strain inside Vincent.

Flying over the highest clouds, Zhevra piloted the Sixth Horizon at a slow, single gee of maneuver drive thrust. She did not want to break the sound barrier and wanted the ship to be seen, perhaps by its reflective, white surface. If her husband was on one of the islands and wanted to be rescued, he might have built a fire beacon, or use a reflective surface from his gear. Dark and thick clouds swirled below the ship while high-altitude cirrus wisps feathered the stratosphere.

“It is probably best if you and Bob stay inside the ship if we have to land in a stormy island or one with the threat of a storm,” suggested Zhevra. “I don’t want either of you hit by lightning since your chassis are made of mostly metal and impact plastic. I need you at sensors to watch the weather patterns at each island we touch down. You can recall me on my wristcomm, manually from the bridge, and we can lift off and try another location. Sound good to you, ‘brother’?”

“Yes, elder sister,” agreed Vincent. “Fully armed incase of island or costal fauna?”

“I can tote Gev’s shotgun including my pistol if that computes for higher safety, Vincent.”

Vincent nodded his robotic head after doing the calculation reasoning, “Higher-efficiency weapons does calculate, Zhevra.”

Opting for the larger of the three tropical islands on the map, Zhevra brought the Fast Far Scout low so as to search for a safe touchdown zone for the ship’s landing gears. Being originally a scouting design, Zhevra knew the ship could handle a wilderness landing. But the Suedzuk wanted the advantage of height where the ship could be seen easily. “There,” she pointed on the scope viewer. “That rocky prominence. What does the densitometer say about that rock? Is it solid enough to try a landing? I see patches of grass too.”

Vincent focused the starship’s sensors on the outcropping of layered stone. “It is a metamorphic gneiss having been pressed and under volcanic heat. I recommend caution if there is indeed volcanic activity or geothermal hot-spots under this island, Zhevra.”

“Noted,” said Zhevra. “Let’s touch gears and if nothing gives way, we’ll let the floaters hold the ship as the maneuver drive lets on more weight to the gears. Then if we aren’t dumped down a cliff or slope, we can set our full mass on the rock.”

The outcrop prominence did hold, supporting the ship’s weight and the Vargr and the SensOp robot shook claw to manipulator in congratulations. “See there?” asked Zhevra. “You’re learning sophont behaviors, Vincent. Please stay and watch the ship, the weather and listen in. I’ll keep my wristcomm channel open so you can track me. Good enough?”

“Stay within safety perameters, captain,” requested Vincent. “If we lose you, we must rely on an awakened vessel to continue existing.”

“Duly warned,” answered Zhevra with a serious voice. Then she stood up from the Pilot chair and exited the bridge.

Bob was present in the axis corridor. He had what amounted to a lunchbox in his manipulators. “I prepared a small, portable meal, Zhevra, in case you miss eating while exploring this island.”

“That’s well calculated, Bob,” complimented the female Vargr. “Thank you very much.” She then clipped the lunchbox to her web belt at the small of her back next to her spare pistol magazines.

“You are welcome,” said Bob nodding his head and wagging his jointed metal tail.

 

[The Pakkrat]

Entering the ship’s locker, Zhevra immediately found her husband’s long-unused shotgun. The monster weapon had an undermounted, 40mm grenade launcher. Though untrained with the joined weapons, Zhevra selected a bandolier nearby that had a strap lined with red shotgun shells that were labeled HEAP in black letters and a few 40mm grenade rounds that read STUN. She chose to belt those and load the stun grenade into the weapon after a few searching passes over the weapon to insert the grenade round. Then slinging the combination weapon over her shoulder, Zhevra stepped to the airlock. Bob assisted her with a ladder that swung down from the high door. With a hiss of pressure differential, the door was opened and Zhevra could immediately smell the salty ocean air and island winds. The sky was laden with fast-moving clouds that did not look ominous.

The Suedzuk then turned to the airlock and began climbing down the ladder as Bob watched her. On the ground, she began trekking inland from the prominence that overlooked the beaches east and west of the ship’s landing zone. She wished she had a probe drone or other floating device to help her scan the terrain for upright fauna that might be Gevaudan.

“Gevaudan Cannagrrh!” called Zhevra from under her psi-shield cowl. She had raised it over her head as a learned precaution, not knowing what she would encounter on this strange, water world.

“There’s some jungle before the island’s central rocky mountain, Zhevra,” called Vincent.

“Hey,” said Zhevra as an idea came to her. “Go to solar power by deploying the panels and use the SIN sensors to fully map the island’s topography and density please, Vincent. Then advise me over the comm link.”

“In minutes,” responded the robot over her wristcomm.

Zhevra continued to climb and descend through rocky terrain patched with jungle underbrush and shaded by tall, wide-leaf palm trees. Instead of coconut fruits, their shells featured spikes that likely aided in both defense and enabled rolling some distance from the original tree. It was a new encounter with local flora for Zhevra. The observation made her think of her husband’s career as a Scout-Courier. Did he ever have to explore new worlds?

“Gevaudan Cannagrrh!” the Suedzuk called in a yell.

With no answer, Zhevra pressed on in a slow climb upslope. She took a few bites of Bob’s prepared lunch on the way up. Soon enough Vincent’s readings ran true. She needed to enter a jungle to ascend toward the few mountains. “It seems to me with these storms, Gev would need a hard shelter, like a cave.”

Vincent called, “I am getting results of the passive SIN sensors now, Zhevra. There are numerous fractures, crevices and possible fissures. Caves may be present, five degrees to your left and upslope.”

The red-colored Vargr changed her direction and continued climbing through the shaded jungle. Minutes later, she emerged from the taller trees to view short crevices between branching bases of the mountain above her.

Her calls for her husband echoed off the walls of the crevice. With echoing calls, she hoped to reach further with her voice. The effect made her wish she had thought of a voice amplifier or bullhorn. Out in the open from the jungle’s tall shade palms, Zhevra found herself faced down by a long-legged mountain grazer with curled horns and posturing at her.

“Oh shit,” cursed Zhevra as she begain drawing out the shotgun from the bandoleer at her shoulder. “I think I just accidentally challenged the alpha grazer of these parts. It’s a horned beast with shaggy pelt, hooved feet and an ugly attitude at me, Vincent.”

“I am untrained in fauna encounters,” warned Vincent over the wristcomm. “Exercise extreme caution, sister.”

Finding the safety on the shotgun, Zhevra thumbed it in time to see the grazer beast bleat to the sky in answer to her calls. A few more of the same species appeared and goaded the alpha with vocalizations to descend after the Vargr female. She guessed the fifty-meter distance was easily descended by an animal that lived on such slopes and outcrops. “Whoa, big fella. Didn’t mean to out-call your turf. I’ll just be going slowly the way I came, and this need never hap-“

The animal charged in zigzagging, controlled gallop-hops down the slope of the rock toward her. With a battle-bleat that split the wind, the grazer closed the gap between it and her quickly.

“It’s charging, Vincent!”

“Shoot it, Zhevra,” called the SensOp. “Optimal range for that weapon is twelve met- ”

The Suedzuk felt the fields of the raging grazer before it reached that distance. Panicking, Zhevra leveled the weapon and took a bracing stance. At around thirteen meters, she pulled the trigger. The weapon roared and kicked at the same time. Thanks to her stance and her expectation, she did not lose her grip. Instead her hip was struck by the handle in thinking she could fire from the hip like the heroes of Corsair vids of entertainment productions. Regretting the stance, she looked at the beast.

The fiery round struck the beast in the shoulder near the thick neck and Zhevra could see charred, shaggy fur there. The animal fell forward and writhed in pain before rolling on its side, getting to its hooves again. With its horns lowered for another rush, the animal battle-bleated again.
Zhevra pulled the trigger again, this time with the shotgun’s stock raised to her shoulder. The weapon gouted flame a second time and pushed on her torso. Thanking Runetha Saetedz for the automatic feed of the shotgun, she reached forward and laid an index claw on the grenade launcher’s trigger.
The beast’s neck exploded in muscle and blood as it fell a second time and stayed down after face-planting into the scrub before Zhevra. Panting in fear and at the steaming body not three meters from her, Zhevra backed away and into the jungle tree line.

“Okay, herd,” said the Suedzuk mostly to herself. “Someone decide who is the next alpha while I make a quiet exit.”

 

[The Pakkrat]

“Are you undamaged, Zhevra?” asked Vincent.

“I’m fine, Vincent.” She was not fine. She had just killed a beast that could have gored her dead in one battering action. Her spine’s chills shot up to her head at the thought.

“SIN sensors picked up an energy spike that also registered on the EM frequencies,” reported Vincent over Zhevra’s wristcomm. “Unfortunately, it is on the far side of the range near the opposite shore. Suggest you return to the ship so as to commute around the mountain range and land there. We have a supercell weather system forming on this side of the island and winds are expected by computer projection to reach hurricane force.”

“Okay, okay, Vincent,” acquiesced Zhevra. “I’ll high-tail it back to the ship. We’ll circle the island so the mountains can shield us from the stormfront.
The nimbus clouds were gathering and amassing as if dark and symbiotic, airborne organisms. Vincent pointed that when the clouds began building vertically into cumulonimbus forms, conditions would be ripe for the supercell to aggregate into a hurricane. Pressure on the barometer was dropping steadily and winds were increasing.

 

[The Pakkrat]

XXXIX. Tagnaghoutsozaeng (Gvurrdon 2123) B86A755-9
Though the crosswinds pushed on the wedge hull of the Fast Far Scout, the maneuver drives were stronger in keeping an encircling arc about the Farside island. Trees below the ship swayed in the building gusts.
“I am going to to touch down on that wider and deeper beach,” declared Zhevra. Reducing altitude, she glided at tree-top levels until the flat sands of the shore were below the gears. With a soft landing in the yielding sand, Zhevra left Vincent and Bob to guard the ship.

Above the palms, back the way the Sixth Horizon had come, the Vargr female could see the darkening skies across the lower altitude land. If her husband was not on this island, she would have to relocate to a different island soon.

Inland from the beach, the jungle stretched up the new side of the mountain faces. Zhevra continued to walk briskly just outside the foliage by remaining on the reedy sand. She had again brought her husband’s shotgun but decided to only use it on large animals like the mountain grazer that had charged her.

“Gevaudan Cannagrrh!” Zhevra called. Rounding a reaching arm of jungle foliage, she beheld a long line of disturbed sand reaching from the erasing surf up the gentle slipe of the beach and into the bushes. A boat, dragged up from the water, guessed the Suedzuk’s inner Wildside.

But from a different direction further down the beach came a scratchy, male Vargr voice which called back, “Who calls that name?” The voice came from further down the beach and from the crashing waves.

Zhevra’s head shot up from examining the rut line in sand to peer through the glare of the brightly lit beach and the reflection of the sun and its red dwarf companion on the water. Someone is out here! The Suedzuk padded across the rippled sand toward the voice.

He was walking out of the water, the male Vargr. All white and long of fur, he looked like he needed a dire trimming of pelt at a groom shop. His form was lean and gaunt, almost emaciated. The male was hunched over and appeared aged. But the white fur was what caught and held Zhevra’s attention. With his left claw covering his eyes against the remaining sunlight, the Vargr scanned about for her.

“Gevaudan Cannagrrh!” called Zhevra as she increased speed. If this elderly male was not her husband, then perhaps...

Zhevra saw that the old Vargr had Gevaudan’s heavy pistol in his right claw. She increased her pace to a run towards the aged male.

“It can’t be,” said the white male who covered his eyes with his free claw upon seeing the female Suedzuk. “Zhevra Cannagrrh is dead, Empress. I killed her with my claws and teeth. Don’t do this to me.”

Zhevra slowed to stop only yards from the hunched, elderly Vargr. She saw that he wore a loincloth, the tattered remains of a Teleportation Suit. At his neck was the signature EMP shielding collar her husband wore. At that she longed to rush the old male. “Are there any bullets left in that cannon, Gevaudan Cannagrrh? I know you know who I am.”

The male shuddered in crying sobs under the claw that hid his face. “No. I killed her,” he answered both her question and her following statement. Tears wet his furry face and slid down the glabrous augments Zhevra recognized. He believed her to be a haunting hallucination.

“Husband,” said the Suedzuk standing taller and with charisma. She took in a confident breath. “Remember this always: I love you unconditionally always,” Zhevra recited with all the heart she could throw into the command codes – no, they were instead the truth of her heart. Her left leg twitched in trying to deny her coming closer to the cowering, white Vargr she now knew to be Gevaudan Cannagrrh. “Can the Empress say that to you?” She limped across the wet sand and saw a woven fishing net, a woven reed basket and a reed sun hat on the dried sand.

Thunder rolled across the island as the storm broke on the far side of the mountains. Purple and blue clouds were brushing against the shielding mountain range. Coming close to the white Vargr who was hiding his eyes, Zhevra reached up and lightly grasped the shielding, white claw and lifted it from Gevaudan’s face. He was old, aged, perhaps in his sixties if she did not already know his true age.

“Can the Empress touch you like this, Gevaudan Cannagrrh?” Now before the hunched, white Gvegh, Zhevra caressed his opposite cheek with her free claw’s palm, supporting his face. “It is true, Gev. I am no empress, but I can be what she cannot and love you unconditionally always.”

“I’m so sorry – so sorry, Zhevra,” cried Gevaudan whose resolve failed him. He stumbled forward and fell into the Suedzuk’s arms. She could feel his shuddering body sobbing and hear his hoarse whimpering. His tail hung limp as if dead.

“It’s okay,” said the wife. “I’m here. I’m real. I’m alive. You didn’t kill me on the bridge that night four years ago. Feel my heartbeat. Can she do this? Can she prove to you that I am alive like this? Gevaudan Cannagrrh, I Zhevra am your wife and have come to take you home.” Zhevra felt Gevaudan reach up and lay his free palm on over her heart.

“I’m old, wife,” whined the elderly Pilot-Astrogator. “The Emp-, she said you would not want me like this.”

Zhevra took Gevaudan’s face in both her claws, cradling his head. She looked into his wrinkled eyes, saw those ocean blue irises, the pink skin and circuitry augments of his cheekbones. “Can she do this?” Though he smelled of fish and sea salt and was still soggy, Zhevra licked him in a slow, Vargr kiss. “I am no Empress. I don’t wear all-black anymore. But I love you unconditionally always. Your eyes are ocean blue, my love. You did have a plan that night. Your HEV is orange. Can she recall that, husband?”
Gevaudan could only shake his head and cry more in response.

“Let her pass, beloved,” said Zhevra in a low, intimate voice. “She may love the universe unconditionally with the Yonder Chilling Thought, but she can’t be me, your slave, your Chief Engineer, and your wife. Let go of the Mind Tsunami and come home.”

“Yesss,” whined the shaking elderly male. “It’s been so long. I thought - believed you were dead.”

“What do you remember of that night, Gev?”


Gevaudan sobbed uncontrollably with shaking limbs and burst out with, “Everything! I remember it all and I could not stop myself. She had me, the Empress. Only when I saw you dead on the deck and found myself alone could I think again. Oh Runetha! I hated myself, Zhevra. I hated myself right there. Before I could attack the Empress in Black again if another had entered the bridge, I had to leave. I had to do something to get rid of her.”

Zhevra hugged her husband, “Shhh, you had to expend all that psionic energy turning your eyes azure. I remember your eyes that deep crystal azure when you turned on me. I think you were so saturated with the Mind Tsunami energy that you had to use it up somehow. You tried to jaunt from the ship, while it was in jumpspace. Your eyes are ocean blue, Gevaudan Cannagrrh.”

Gevaudan broke into another fit of nervous breakdown, “I’m so sorry, Zhevra. I wish I could go back in time and had locked the bridge earlier. She was you, and I had to rid myself of her.”

Gripping him ever tighter, Zhevra leaned to him as he leaned to her. The two supported each other. It took some of the pressure off her tremoring left leg. “Hush. It’s okay. I know what the Mind Tsunami, your Empress in Black is, Gev. You aren’t the first psionic to suffer her. Psions have been disappearing, hiding, or worse before the advance of the wave. Non-Psions have felt her power to a lesser degree. I did not that night because I was unconscious. But the slaves on the ship that night did. I delivered the warning though. I am back from Regency with the finished puzzle, Gevaudan. You didn’t precipitate from jaunt. You ‘hopped’, an interstellar teleport, eight parsecs to this planet using the tremendous energy building inside you.”

“I don’t know where I am,” admitted the white male in a raspy voice. “What planet is this? It’s been more than three years,” he sniffed back tears and his clogged sinuses. Gevaudan’s ears were laid back with intense guilt and his tail was tucked in shame.