“First…how many lasers would we need to take offline for this?” Miliam asked after tossing the problem around in her head for a few minutes. Engineer tilted their head to the side, then shrugged- or at least, Miliam thought it was a shrug, but they used their wings to make the motion instead of their shoulders.

“Depends. Conduits…long. Hard access. Connections small. Easy reach. First…need one. Second. Five,” Engineer explained in what might have been the longest said of words Miliam had heard from them at once.

“If I understood that correctly…it’s hard to get at the whole cable but one has enough orichalcum for the job. The connections to the mana furnace are more accessible, but it would take more to of them?” Miliam asked for clarification. Engineer nodded. “How much longer would pulling an entire cable take?”

“It’s not just a question of how long it would take. Getting it out is the easy part. Putting it back is the problem, and it might take removing some of the plating,” Aoibhe answered for them, getting another nod from the little dragonewt.

“Would both options get us to Delta Boötis and home?”

“Different. Purity. Two jumps…best,” Engineer replied. So, the reactor needed more mana and had a different requirements for the quality of orichalcum it used. Two jumps wasn’t getting them all the way to Delta Boötis and back, so they would be losing more and more of their defense grid along the way. That wasn’t tenable.

“Aoibhe, could you check the star charts and figure out what the closest colony is? I think we’re going to have to make a pit stop,” Miliam said. How they would pay for what they needed was something they’d just have to figure out later.

“Aye, I’ll do that thing,” Aoibhe answered, leaving the engineering bay after she got a nod from Miliam.

“Engineer…go ahead and tear out an entire conduit. And, uh, work with Tessa, I guess, to figure out which one we can afford to lose?” Miliam ordered next, deciding it was better to retain more of their defensive ability now than to worry about penny pinching later.

“Aye aye, captain!” Tessa replied enthusiastically while Engineer just nodded. With that handled, Miliam headed out as well, figuring the two of them could handle it from there. She needed to decide their next course of action right now. For that she was going to need to know if there was a colony in range to begin with, though, so Miliam headed back to the bridge.

“We’ll be able to recharge as soon as Engineer is finished working, so can you set us down on an asteroid or something please, Aoibhe?” she asked as she took her seat. Min-ji was still intensely focused on her console, maintaining the ship’s cloaking, Miliam noted.

“Do you want me to do that now or after I’m done checking the charts?” Aoibhe asked, glancing over her shoulder with a raised eyebrow.

“Um…move us first,” Miliam decided, settling in to wait for more news. The Astrum Vitae began to move, pulled along by the shifting space around it towards whatever space rock Aoibhe had chosen. Landing on an asteroid wouldn’t hide them from sensors entirely, but it was somewhat like hiding a rock by putting it atop a boulder. Asteroid had enough metal content that a ship wouldn’t stand out too much, and there were too many of them in any given system to scan them all closely. It didn’t really matter that the rocks themselves were hundreds of thousands of kilometers apart at the closest.

Miliam zoned out for a while, worried about the future. Her anxieties were really starting to get to her at this point, the sudden technical issues having caused her to question her decision making abilities all over again. All Miliam could do for the next several minutes was stew over the situation, being brought back to reality only when she found Aoibhe snapping her fingers in front of her face.

“Wah!” she shouted, jerking upright in her seat.

“You awake now…?” Aoibhe asked with a raised eyebrow. “Found a colony within two jumps, but the second one is going to have to be more than five light-years. It’s called True Eden.”

“If that’s the only one, then I don’t think we have a choice.” Miliam sighed. “I suppose I should go let Abigail know about the delay. Hopefully she won’t be too upset.”

“I’ll let her know, you just try to relax a bit. You’re looking kind of tense,” Aoibhe replied, patting Miliam on the shoulder before leaving the room.

“Min-ji, you can stop now,” Miliam said after a few moments, realizing the woman was still maintaining her spell. “You’re off duty too.”

“Yes ma’am,” Min-ji replied before reclining in her seat and retrieving her grimoire. Unsurprisingly, she was going to wait for Eun-ji to be off duty as well. Normally Miliam would have left now, but she felt responsible for the current situation and being on the bridge made her feel like she was at least doing something. She stared at the plots attached to her seat for a short time before the door behind her opened. Aoibhe had returned, Abigail unexpectedly in tow.

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“Sorry for the inconvenience,” she told her client contritely.

“I expected some delays of this sort when chartering a ship in poor repair,” Abigail replied, waving off the concern. “That is not why I am here. Aoibhe has informed me of the colony we are destined for and I believe I am in possession of information on it which you require.”

“Apparently True Eden is one of those loony bins founded by religious nutjobs,” added Aoibhe with a roll of her eyes.

“Indeed. Miliam, do you perchance recall the conversation we had regarding the events following the discovery of magic?” Abigail asked, eyebrow raised.

“Yeah. Some kind of civil war over magic?” Miliam asked, seeing where this was going.

“Precisely. More specifically, the Isaiaites, a descendant religion incorporating the teachings of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, formed in opposition to magic. Their core tenet was that magic may not in any circumstances be allowed to proliferate, as it was the work of the Devil himself. Their defeat did not spell the end of the religion itself, however. True Eden is the fourth colony formed by believers of this sect after Eden, New Eden, and Final Eden all cast off their teachings over the course of generations,” Abigail explained at length.

“If they hate magic, how are they all the way out here…?” Miliam wondered aloud.

“Towards the end of the Witch Hunter Wars, the Isaiaite leadership realized they could not attain victory through mundane means and claimed they had received new light from their god informing them that magic was permissible so long as it was not used upon people. It was too little and too late, but it became an enduring part of their doctrine,” Abigail replied.

“Don’t translocation drives affect people?” Miliam asked next, confusion plain on her face.

“They have…defined…translocation drives as acting upon the space around a person much in the way a wave drive does. This is fundamentally incorrect but a loophole was needed.” Abigail’s expression said that she knew full well how ridiculous this was.

“How convenient,” Miliam replied wryly. “And why are you so familiar with this?”

“As to why I am familiar, the Isaiaites have a unique system of magic all their own that has been passed down almost unchanged for centuries. This is, incidentally, the reason they have now lost four wars. Their magic is inefficient and incorporates elements they believe will protect them from the Devil and all other manner of hostile entities. Each rebellion has utilized more and more advanced magic procured from the outside, where development of magic has proceeded apace…which brings me, at last, to my point.

“The Isaiaites are highly isolationist and will not treat with outsiders. The only way you may make contact with them would be to do so under the guise of being Isaiaites yourselves. Although they will not tolerate nonbelievers, they will welcome pilgrims to their holy land,” Abigail finished.

“That sounds…dangerous. What if we slip up?” Miliam asked, worry and a bit of fear mixed into her expression.

“I don’t think that’ll be a problem,” Aoibhe replied. “All we’ve gotta do is avoid using any magic on ourselves or other people in front of them. The fact we don’t have a lance is a stroke of good luck since they forbid that type of weapon, actually.”

“Indeed. Fundamentalist believers still reside upon the other worlds the Isaiaites have settled, and some leeway will be granted in regards to using enchanted items lacking Isaiaite anti-demon wards due to their unavailability.”

“In other words, we go in, tell them we’re pilgrims, visit the holy sites, and tell them our ship broke down and we need help repairing it. Doubt they’ll do it for free but I bet they’ve got a use for a ship with a translocation drive- most colonial defense fleets use locally built intrasystem ships,” Aoibhe summarized. Miliam rested her head on her hand, rubbing her forehead to escape an oncoming headache.

“What if they don’t have orichalcum to spare? It can’t be easy to get out here, especially if they hate everyone,” she pointed out.

“They will. Intersystem trade is mostly for luxuries. It’s too expensive to ship necessities anywhere in bulk, so they’ll have their own production. Even if they didn’t, they could get it from the other three Isaiaite colonies. They don’t follow all the teachings anymore, but the local religions are still Isaiaite sects.” What Aoibhe said made enough sense that Miliam could accept it, though she still worried about what would happen if their ruse was seen through.

But what was the alternative? Stripping every laser turret on the ship for parts until the Astrum Vitae was effectively defenseless? Although she was captain and nominally this was her decision, Miliam felt like she’d really never had a choice from the start. She sighed helplessly. All she had to do was pretend to be a cultist, right?

Suddenly, Miliam went pale. She groaned and rubbed her temples while the others looked on in concern. Glazed eyes, unwarranted conviction, dismissal of reality…essentially, she’d just be using the personality she’d had when she’d still been an egg, before she’d deprogrammed herself in college.

“What was all that about?” Aoibhe asked in concern. Miliam sighed again.

“It’s nothing. I just realized that I’m actually stupidly overqualified for the job of pretending I’m part of this cult. I think that part is going to go pretty well. So…that plan is going to have to do. Unless there’s another colony conveniently in range?” she said, expecting exactly the answer she got.

“Not within twenty light years,” Aoibhe answered.

“Thought so. In that case…we have a while before we arrive. Abigail, would you mind telling me whatever I need to know to fake being an Isaiaite?” Miliam requested, turning to Abigail. She hoped that wasn’t too much of an imposition under the circumstances, but considering Abigail’s life was on the line as well, she didn’t think it would be.

“It would be my pleasure.”