They spent the next few hours leaving the atmosphere of Everlasting Truth. The oranges of the planet gave way to the cool, ink black of space, stars littering the sky as far as Joseph could see. The planet itself turned into a great, orange-cream ball, a large storm curling across the northern hemisphere. Starships became mere specks in the darkness, so far away now that they didn't need to use the skylanes set up to ease traffic planetside.
“So, how are we getting to Ermen III?” Joseph asked.
“The usual way,” Becenti said. The ship began to shake a bit as Becenti clicked a few buttons. Joseph noticed he had put the disc Bulg had given them into a special slot, the holographic map of the galaxy materializing above it. A red line began tracing from the galactic core, stopping with a ping at a point somewhere in the northeastern quadrant.
“Strap yourself in,” Becenti ordered, “The first few minutes of a warp jump are the shakiest.”
And then the ship jumped. Stretching forward, the stars around them smearing into lines of light, before everything disappeared into a tunnel of alternating whites and grays. It felt like he was going down the loop of a roller coaster, and Joseph gripped the arms of his seat, teeth jittering.. After a couple of minutes, the ship normalized, settling down into a more comfortable tremble. Becenti leaned back.
“Should take a couple of days,” he said.
Joseph looked at him, “A couple of days?”
“We're traveling from the center of the galaxy to the Outer Reach. Quite literally trillions of miles away. Space is quite big, and even with the warp it can take some time to reach the destination.”
“So, what'll we do 'til then?”
“I certainly hope you brought a few books, Mr. Zheng,” Becenti said, “I personally brought a few books on the history of indigenous movements, as well as a few writings from the Nesonan philosopher Moiat the Indescribable.”
Joseph thought for a moment, “I... didn't bring anything.”
“A rookie mistake,” Becenti got up, picking through his backpack, “Always have something to do to kill time, Mr. Zheng. Most of your time spent on guild work will require travel.”
He picked up a couple of books, “Luckily, I predicted you would only bring the clothes on your back. Here.”
He gave a book to Joseph. Joseph looked down at it, “...Hamlet.”
“Hamlet is a classic,” Becenti said, “Even the Federation respects Shakespeare.”
“You don't have anything else?”
“It's either Shakespeare, indigenous uprisings against the United States that often end in despair and genocide, or writings from a philosopher on how nothing matters and we're all bound to die.”
Joseph sighed, “I'll take Shakespeare.”
“A good choice.”
***
Hours passed. There was no sun or moon to track the time. Joseph felt that same trapped feeling he'd felt back at Castle Belenus, his stomach twisting and un-twisting impatiently. Restless, he got up and paced in the back of the ship. Becenti ignored him, flipping through a thick book. Joseph stopped, staring at the older man for a few moments.
“So what's the dead plane we're going after?” he asked.
Becenti didn’t answer, flipping another page, taking out a highlighter to mark a specific passage.
“...Hello?” Joseph said.
“Let me finish my chapter, please,” Becenti responded, “Twelve more pages, and then I will answer your questions.”
Joseph sighed, thinking of what to do, tapping his foot on the ground in an annoyed rhythm. He could feel his soul rumble and start going through its circuit throughout his body. He was getting faster at it now – it only took a few seconds to get to the point that his soul would be pushed out of his body. Deciding to practice, he worked on doing the opposite – slowing his soul's movements in case he needed to cancel it out. This was easier said than done – at first, he was unsure of what exactly to do, as though he was doing a new exercise with unfamiliar equipment (and calming down had never exactly been his forte.) Then, as he worked, he found a way to relax, breathing in deeply and slowly, letting his mind wander to other things outside of his concentration. He thought of Rosemary, and how she had shown him around the city. Of Broon, the half-orc's head hung in the darkness at Whispering Rock. As the hours passed, he found he could slow his soul's circuit down to nothing, even without thinking of calm thoughts. He only needed to breathe in and out.
“Excellent work,” Becenti said.
Joseph looked up. He hadn't noticed the right hand of the guild standing over him.
“Took you long enough to finish the chapter,” Joseph said.
“Oh, I finished that chapter three hours ago,” Becenti replied, “But you seemed rather concentrated, so I decided to leave you be.”
“Just working on the soul stuff,” Joseph leaned back. His stomach growled, “What time is it?”
“Eight PM, Scuttleway time,” Becenti walked over to one of the consoles, clicking a button, “What do you want to eat?”
“What's available?”
“The Titania Amber has a replicator. We don't use it often due to the fact that the food's not exactly good, but it can make pretty much anything.”
Joseph nodded, thinking, “Noodles?”
“What kind?”
“My mom always makes banmian noodles.”
Becenti gave a warm smile at that, “Always the taste of home, eh?”
“All you people have given me are sandwiches, cookies, and wine.”
“Fair enough,” Becenti clicked the order in, and a few moments later a fork and a bowl materialized with noodles, minced pork, and slices of mushrooms. Joseph took the meal gratefully, feeling an excited sense of anticipation as he dug in. It wasn't good – almost fake, like a fast food meal – but it still tasted nostalgic.
“Are you alright?” Becenti asked.
“Yeah, I'm fine,” Joseph laughed, “Just... miss home.”
Becenti gave a nod at that, though he didn’t voice his sympathy.
***
With their meals put away, the two of them relaxed. The anxious feeling was gone now – though Joseph was sure it would return. He needed to distract himself, he realized, so he looked over at Becenti.
“So, my question.”
“Ah, yes. Your question. We are going to the space station to find a dead, lost plane.”
“Define 'dead plane.'”
“A plane that is no longer inhabited by sentient beings. There are more dead planes than living ones, to be honest.”
“Lots of history.”
“Yes,” Becenti looked past Joseph as he spoke, “The history of the multiverse extends far back, even past the dawn of human life on planes such as Earth or Prime. No one knows how long the multiverse has existed. Trillions of years, most likely. Enough time for entire societies to rise and fall a trillion times over.”
“And we're going to look to find one of those dead societies,” Joseph said.
“Correct. You'll be excited – it's thought that the plane we're trying to find is a metahuman one,” Becenti said, “There are many metahuman planes that connect to the Silver Eye Galaxy. Ancient Epochians – well, some of them, at least – had the ability to create Traveling Points, which they used extensively during their wars with the High Federation.”
“Are all Traveling Points metahuman in origin?” Joseph reasoned, “Like, they were all created by metahumans.”
“Perhaps,” Becenti said, “Though there are Traveling Points that are known to occur naturally, like the Traveling Point that connects to Earth.”
“But a lot of them could be artificial.”
“No doubt,” Becenti said, “The Silver Eye is a major node within the multiverse, home to thousands of Traveling Points across the various planets in the galaxy. It's become something of a nexus to planes around here, or as 'around here' as one can fathom with the multiverse.”
“And it's got so many because of Epochia,” Joseph said.
“Correct. Many dead planes. A few living ones, as well,” Becenti amended, “Prime. Londoa. Kelstonda, even.”
“Which also makes it easier for the Federation to rule over the various planes,” Joseph said, tracing a finger in the air absently.
“Correct, as well. The High Federation rules through words and laws, restricting trade on certain planes to ensure those planes stay in a relatively 'pristine' state. It's only when a plane achieves certain technological thresholds that various trade embargoes are lifted.”
“Seems like a smart idea,” Joseph said, “I mean, if a ton of knights on Londoa got their hands on things like firearms and planes, they could take over the entire plane pretty quickly.”
“Yes,” Becenti nodded, “Which is precisely why the High Federation is so zealous in its laws. If a state on a plane is discovered to have contraband equipment, the Federation treats the crime as though the entire plane committed it.”
Joseph paled a bit, “So, say, if Salthirn were to smuggle in one of these starships, and the Feds found out...”
“Then Scuttleway would be included in the Federation's retribution,” Becenti finished, “Such retribution would be violent and nigh-genocidal. The High Federation is ruthless.”
“They don't play.”
Becenti’s expression was inscrutable as he said, “That, they do not.”
***
The next few days passed with similar conversation. Then, early in the morning of the fifth day, Becenti woke Joseph up.
“We're about to arrive.”
Joseph pulled himself up from the bench he'd been using as a makeshift bed, “No time to shower?”
“Go ahead, if you want to smell clean while we no doubt get into firefights.”
“Live clean, die clean,” Joseph said with only a smudge of bravado. He walked into the small bathroom onboard the ship, letting sonic energy permeate through his body to clean himself up. That anxious feeling had returned. Different this time, of course, a cold sort of anticipation of what was to come. He was pulling on his jacket as the Titania Amber dropped out of warp.
A dark planet greeted them below, an orb of black iron clouds and whirling hurricanes. Ermen III was an endless storm, one that looked as though it had been raging since the planet's formation.
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“Glad we don't have to go down there,” Joseph muttered.
“There's the space station. We should reach it in a few hours,” Becenti said. He pointed out the window, a screen appearing on its surface zooming in on a small white dot on the sea of dark grays. The space station was ancient and weathered, needle-shaped, a ring running around its top.
“Right,” Joseph said, “Will we need space suits?”
“Most likely,” Becenti said, “Although, it looks like we aren't the first ones here.”
Ships were magnetized to the sides of the space station – two of them. One was beetle-like in appearance, its dark purple hull scabbed with plasma burns. The other one was a flaming wreck of greens, reds, and blues.
“No life signs onboard, though,” Becenti said, looking down at one of the consoles, “It looks like our visitors killed one another when they got inside.”
“You sure those aren't just ships that were with the station when it was abandoned?”
“No, I recognize the purple one,” Becenti said, “A Jolian cruiser. Mercenary make, by the look of it. Jolians export their children and weapons in the wars around the Federation. It should come as no surprise that they were here.”
“Well, no life signs, you said,” Joseph noted, “This is our lucky day.”
“Indeed.”
As the Titania Amber meandered her way through space, the two of them began pulling on space suits. They were form-fitting, Joseph's dark green and Becenti's a dull blue. Joseph felt exposed wearing it, even as he heard the hiss as his open-view helmet closed over him and closed up. He heard Becenti's voice crackle over the comms in the helmet.
“Comfortable?”
“I feel naked.”
“It is an interesting experience at first. To you, the suit looks like it will not survive the coldness of space. It will, however, so the first battle you face will be psychological.”
The ship was now right at the space station, hovering just around its middle section. Becenti landed her, the ship magnetizing to the outside. He walked over to the entrance. A small, plastic hallway had opened out over the door.
“Keeps the atmosphere inside the ship,” he explained, “Like an airlock.”
“You could just call it an airlock,” Joseph snarked.
“Just step through the door,” the older man said.
He did so, Becenti following him. He closed the door to the ship and, after a moment of the air escaping the plastic hallway via small holes that opened on either wall, he stepped out of the door and into space. Joseph, after a moment, followed him out, the tips of his toes tingling as they left solid ground. It was cold – almost uncomfortably so – but the suit was working. He was breathing. Space was deadly silent, as well – so quiet that he could hear his heart hammering in his chest.
“Now,” Becenti said, “You see that backpack on the back of your suit?”
“I can feel it, yeah,” Joseph replied.
“That backpack is full of gas that can propel you where you need to go. It has a built-in sensor, so you use your thoughts to activate it. Use it sparingly – any force you make will continue on until you collide with something.”
“It's not like swimming, then.”
“Not at all. If you propel yourself forward, you will continue going forward forever, or at least until you run into something that stops your motion.”
“I remember reading about this, I think,” Joseph said, “Theoretically, I'd just continue going on and on if I slipped off the space station, yeah?”
“Presumably. You could be pulled into the gravitational field of the planet, in which case you'd burn up in the atmosphere and die. So, be careful with each action you take, at least until we get inside the station.”
“Right,” Joseph could hear the panic in his voice, “Right, don't fall off. Use the backpack wisely.”
Becenti was lucky – he was already an expert. The older man flipped towards the station, the occasional blast from his backpack re-orienting him. Joseph began stumbling towards him. He pushed a bit too hard, and soon he had lost all direction, tumbling this way and that.
“Becenti!” he cried out, “Becenti!”
He felt Becenti close his hands over his shoulders. Becenti shook his head as he righted Joseph so that the space station was below them.
“Perhaps we should have trained you for this before we left,” he said.
“There's no up, there's no down...” Joseph's head was spinning, “It's... it's surprisingly hard.”
Becenti didn't reply to that. Instead, he held onto Joseph, propelling them down the length of the space station, coming upon a maintenance hatch. The door was square-shaped, with a yellow 'X' covering it.
“It looks like the door's shut tight,” he said, “Do you mind opening it up?”
“Yeah, sure thing,” Joseph replied. He began his circuit, and a moment later his soul erupted out of his back. He closed his human eyes, letting the eagle do the work as it closed great talons over the outline of the door, pulling up. The door gave way, the solid slab of metal floating out into open space.
“Good work,” Becenti said. He pushed them through the door.
“Uh, this looks like it was an airlock,” Joseph said, “If we open that door too, won't we be shunted out?”
“You assume life support is turned on,” Becenti said. Then, after a moment of consideration, he added, “However, if it is, it will make for quite the problem. Here, one moment...”
He pulled out a strange stone out of his backpack. Holding it in his hand, Joseph watched as it turned bright orange. Becenti raised his hand, clutching it and pushing it to the rent where Joseph had removed the door. The space there began shimmering, reminding Joseph of the air over an open campfire. The vibrations covered the hole like a wall, and Becenti's stone turned gray again.
“That switch there,” Becenti said, “If there's life support, then the door should open up. We'll be safe.”
“And if there's no life support?” Joseph said.
“Then the switch will do nothing. It's an automated protection system, makes sure accidents don't happen. If there's no life support, you'll have to tear this door off as well.”
“You sure?” Joseph asked.
“Yes. You'll have to trust me.”
“Alright,” Joseph floated over to the switch, and clicked it. The inner doors of the airlock shook, and began to open up. Air rushed in, pushing them into the opposite wall.
“Air, but no gravity,” Becenti commented, “Very well. Push off of the walls, Joseph. Make sure to keep yourself oriented up.”
“G-got it.”
Joseph pushed himself off, and the two of them went into the space station proper. Becenti closed the airlock doors behind them.
“What was that?” Joseph asked.
“What was what?”
“That... stone, thing. The mirages.”
Becenti simply smirked, “You tell me.”
He pushed off of the floor, propelling himself down the hallway they were in. Joseph rolled his eyes, following him.
Or attempting to follow him, pushing off of the walls, the floor, the ceiling, at some points upside down, at others his back facing Becenti...
“You really are bad at this,” Becenti said.
***
The space station was composed primarily of hallways and elevators. Becenti checked one of the computers by a door that led into what looked like a classroom. He pressed a few buttons, and the computer turned on, though its monitor was dim to the point that Joseph had to squint to make out the information that began reading across the screen.
“Very little power here,” he said, “It looks like the station entered into a lockdown mode, putting energy output at a bare minimum.”
“It hasn't run out of energy yet? Isn't it like a thousand years old?”
“Twenty thousand,” Becenti corrected, “It seems either the station has solar panels somewhere, or its energy source is self-sustaining, or the mercenaries here before us powered the station back on. Whatever it was, there's nothing we can do to change the power level where we are. We'll need to head up to the control center.”
“Where's that? In the ring on top?”
“The ring is likely an observation platform,” Becenti reasoned, “The control center would be in the center of the station, where it's more protected. Let’s go along, now.”
They decided against going up using the elevators. The station's lower power output meant that most of them were offline. Instead, they opted to use the ramps that connected each floor – ramps instead of staircases, Becenti explained, for species that had trouble going up and down stairs.
The floor immediately above them was home to a large garden room, domed and with multiple trees and plants, many of which Joseph didn't recognize save for a single large pine tree in the center of the garden.
“Why a pine tree?” he asked.
“Pine trees are native to many planes,” Becenti said, “And if this was an observational station for recording the planes of the multiverse, it would make sense that a recreational plane would have flora from the multiverse.”
“Did pines even exist on Earth or Prime way back when?” Joseph asked.
“They may have gotten it from another plane,” Becenti replied, “Evolution is… a tricky point in the multiverse. Animals can evolve into the same species - a rabbit can evolve independently from other rabbits on other planes of existence. There are theories about it that we can go over, if you wish.”
“Sometimes a pine is just a pine,” Joseph decided.
The next floor had bedrooms, with beds and desks that had been bolted to the floor. Four to a room, most of the beds were rectangular, with sheets and pillows floating around the room. A few of them were circular, filled with what seemed to be water. One of the rooms had a machine that reminded Joseph of a metal cocoon - a sleeping pod for a non-humanoid race, Becenti said.
“No straps on the beds to keep people from floating away,” the older man noted, “There should be artificial gravity here.”
“We might be able to turn it on when we get to the control center,” Joseph said.
“Your face is green, Mr. Zheng.”
“I'm not liking all of this anti-grav stuff,” Joseph queased, “But please, tell me more about how there aren't any straps on the beds.”
Becenti rolled his eyes at that.
***
They floated up the ramps for seven levels before they arrived at the control center. A hallway led to a circular room with consoles and computers littering about the place. Much of the room was also heavily damaged by recent combat. It seemed that the Jolians had met the other party here, and the interaction between the two had been violent. Bodies floated in the open air, blood streaming from various wounds – blues and greens and reds mixing together as Becenti maneuvered around them. Joseph stayed where he was, watching from the door. He didn't want to trip into one of the corpses. He felt his stomach quiver a bit as he noticed how a few of them were almost human in appearance, only with green or red skin, their faces contorted in agony.
“Christ,” he said, “It looks like one of them was impaled by shrapnel from that computer.”
“Combat is messy,” Becenti said, ignoring the floating cadavers, “Ah, here's the main computer.”
He took out a small datapad from his pocket, connecting it to the computer with a cable. A few moments passed as he stared down at the handheld device.
“Oh, this is very old. The OSes are barely compatible, and this device is several thousand years old...”
“That going to be a problem?” Joseph glanced over to where Becenti was, trying to keep his eyes off a red-skinned man floating between him and the older man.
“It's common for data scavengers to carry multiple devices like this from different eras of the Federation,” Becenti said, “I have a slicer that's slightly older, but this should work. It will take a bit of time.”
The computer he was interfaced with booted up, as did the still-working consoles around it. The ceiling began shifting, cameras replacing the metal panels with images of space outside the station.
“Time we may not have,” Becenti said, “Another ship just dropped out of warp. It's headed this way.”
He clicked a few buttons on one of the consoles, one the panels magnifying in on their target. Approaching the space station was a beautiful, shimmering vessel. It was silver in color, so polished and pristine that it reflected the stars and planet below. Yet it had on its smooth, curved hull an array of energy cannons. Many of them were powering on, turning to aim at the space station. Becenti clicked a few buttons on his watch, sighing in relief.
“I cloaked the Titania,” he said, “Otherwise that ship would have found her.”
The ship began firing on the sole remaining vessel magnetized to the station's surface. Green bolts of light flashed across space, slamming into the Jolian vessel until its hull cracked like an egg, a bellow of plasma rushing out of it.
“Who are they?” Joseph felt himself tensing.
“Visitors, tourists. I don't know,” Becenti said. He clicked a few buttons on the console, “What matters is they are most likely after the same prize.”
“They won't see the Titania through their cameras?”
“Most modern ships don't have cameras,” Becenti said, “Cameras like the ones we're using are a thing of the past. No, it's all sensor arrays now. Something our girl is cloaked against.”
“How long until your datapad finishes downloading?”
“A few minutes, perhaps. Until then, we shall have to defend the control room. No doubt they've already scanned the station itself and seen that we're here.”
“And they aren't going to just fire on us with that ship?”
“And blow the control room to smithereens? No, they'll come here on foot.”
The silver ship magnetized to the side, positioning itself next to the remains of the Jolian cruiser. A tube extended from the bottom, connecting to the surface of the ship.
“They're cutting their way in,” Becenti noted, “Smart.”
“What're we gonna do?”
“Oh, quit panicking, Mr. Zheng,” Becenti clicked a few buttons on the console, and Joseph found himself landing on the ground. The bodies in the room fell around them with a variety of sickening crunches.
“Artificial gravity's on,” Becenti said, “We'll hold this floor. There are hallways on either side of this room that lead to the elevators and ramps to the other floors. I'll take one side. You'll take the other.”
He strode over to one of the bodies, picking up a rifle. He checked it over, opening up a side port where the ammo must have been stored, before closing it up and nodding in satisfaction.
“You will likely need to kill, Mr. Zheng,” he said without emotion.
Joseph froze, “Kill?”
“Or they will kill you.”
“Okay,” Joseph breathed, “O-okay.”
He didn't feel okay. He didn't sound okay, either. This wasn't like the fight with Moriguchi, where Joseph had been completely outclassed and he had just been thinking on the fly. His soul's manifestation was strong – so strong that he could easily cut someone down with those wicked claws. Becenti had already gone to the other side of the control center, opening up the door and going into the opposite hallway.
“They'll be here any minute now,” the older man's voice said through the comms, “Get that circuit going. Good luck, Mr. Zheng.”
Joseph didn't reply. He tried to calm himself, using his breathing exercises he had used on the Titania Amber to steady himself. The soul started its circuit, before erupting to life, glowering over him, beak lowering to just over his forehead. He closed his eyes, letting his soul's sight sharpen his senses.
“I've locked down the lifts, so they'll be coming up by ramp,” Becenti informed, “Use that to your advantage. You have the high ground.”
Joseph's soul looked down at its claws. He balled them into fists. He wouldn't be slashing anyone open today. He would punch them, batter them, bruise them. Give them at least a chance at surviving. No one else needed to die on this station.
Right?
There was no one to answer that question but himself.
Joseph walked through the door.