The Indra emerged from the umbral shadow of a large semi planetoid at the edge of the New Eden system. Initially colonized centuries ago by humans as they migrated from their distant homeworld. New Eden became a mecca for non magical beings and technical innovators. The Brotherhood’s foundations were deeply rooted in an old monotheistic belief system and an adherence to technology to disprove other magical deities.
While the religious element of the Brotherhood had long since died out, their devotion to technology never wavered. Technology had slowly replaced outdated monotheistic beliefs as the Brotherhoods favored god. It responded to their input, and behaved in usually predictable means. Just don’t ask anyone who works in IT. They’ll tell you it’s all powered by hamsters on wheels and hope.
The Indra remained stationary as Amara conducted cursory sensor scans. Patience before haste was a mantra Amara’s old mentor, Imrae would lecture and drill into her head for hours a day. Everything in Amara screamed to reach the planet and warn them. But they could see charging into Brotherhood airspace unannounced as an act of aggression. So they needed to be sure they would not be charging into a shit storm.
Pulses of mind magic rippled out of the ship and she could feel objects scattered within the void. Invisible objects. She felt at them with her mind, probing them like a child might handle a new toy. Feeling them out.
Defense platforms. Cloaked weapons satellites. The Brotherhoods famed Steel Curtain. A network of weapons, all laying in wait ready to ambush, would be predators. So how to convince the weapons grid they were friendly?
She leaned back from her spell console, folding her arms and thinking. Technology was always tricky to work with since it played by different rules than magic, mostly. Some things were universally constant, however. Like being a visually dependant detection grid relying on actually seeing things.
That was an easy fix. She could cloak the Indra from sight and coast by the first wave. But what else was out there? Would she be bypassing one problem for another she couldn’t fix? Luffa crouched next to her.
“You’re overthinking something again.”
Amara glanced over, brows knit. “How did you know?”
“You have this thing you do where your eyebrows scrunch together and your lips purse together. And your arms are folded.”
“I’m pouting.”
“You’re pouting.” Luffa confirmed. “So. What’s caused your moment of pouting?”
Amara nodded to the main screen. “The Brotherhood’s defensive perimeter. It’s choked full of cloaked satellites, weapons platforms and mines. We step one inch into there and we’ll be swamped with more hurt than we can manage.”
Luffa chuckled. “You sounded like Akamori just then.”
Amara’s brows furrowed. “I don’t know if I should be insulted or thankful.”
Luffa patted Amara’s shoulder comfortingly. “Thankful. He may not look it, but he’s got a touch of genius under all that buffoonish act. He’ll make a great commander and a fearsome opponent someday. Assuming he isn’t already.”
Amara nodded thoughtfully. They had been through of a crucible. Just a non stop cavalcade of crisis. Akamori was now becoming something new entirely. Worse yet, she was fearing she was undergoing a similar change. A part of her was silently thankful for the magic suppression collar. It meant that whatever Nemesis was, she could block it out. Those were problems she wasn’t sure she was ready for. Not yet.
“So. If Akamori were here, what would he suggest?” Luffa asked, tearing Amara’s mind from her brooding.
She shrugged, heaving a subdued sigh. “Well, he wouldn’t want to just bullrush in since it doesn’t fit the goal of the mission. If we can’t blind the devices, then we should remove ourselves from view. Cast a cloaking spell and pray it’s enough.”
“What if they have other means of detection?” Luffa asked.
“That was my worry too, but cloaking would at least get us closer to cross that bridge. We may get lucky.”
Luffa gave Amara a flat look until Amara conceded. “Ok, yeah. I know. Luck isn’t something we have a lot of at the moment. But a girl can hope.”
“Cloak the ship and advance us forward. We’ll see if they notice when we hit the next stage of defenses.”
Amara nodded, happy that it wasn’t her that had to make the tough decision. Leadership ill suited her. She preferred more suited minds to tackle that challenge so she could focus on other problems.
Amara focused, channeling the proper magics through the controls into the spell drive. Then the ship rippled out of view. An instant later, it was no longer visible. It perfectly mirrored all the light that came into contact with it, giving the appearance of absolute invisibility. The reality was just a highly elaborate bending of light trick capable of magic.
“There. That should screen us from visible detection.” Amara said, glancing back at Luffa.
“Good. Take us in.”
The Indra moved ahead slowly. It proceeded like a specter, unseen, unheard, and unfelt. It navigated the complex grid work of defensive emplacements with ease as Amara handled the controls. She saw what Akamori enjoyed about piloting. There was a sense of liberation in the act. Assumption of the senses of the vessel, effectively becoming it.
The cloaked corvette banked lazily left and right, and dipped and climbed with a casual grace. A ship of its size shouldn’t be able to manage. The desperate mages aboard the Indra had to collectively hope their camouflage would work. Unfortunately for them, while the Brotherhood didn’t have natural mages within their ranks, they weren’t slow learners. While the war with the Sauridius had taught them many things, chief among them was that lacking magic was in their worst interests. Ever adaptable, the Brotherhood sought the Artificers of Aeryn, a merchant guild of crafters and creators.
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What Amara had failed to detect with her initial sweep was a series of well hidden and enchanted detection arrays linked into the Brotherhood’s defense grid. The Brotherhood knew the Indra was approaching. They just hadn’t acted upon it yet, more interested in allowing the scenario to unfold for this once.
The Indra’s approach lacked the usual disregard for finesse the Brotherhood expected of the Sauridius who treated incursions more like nails to be hammered. This naturally made the Brotherhood leadership curious. Was this a new player? Friend or foe? Potentially spooking them with a response from the defense grid might spoil any chance of getting answers, so they allowed the ruse to persist. Military brass weren’t keen on sacrificing many more of their soldiers to an alliance they were rapidly viewing as non-beneficial. Relations between the Federation and the Brotherhood were rapidly souring with each lost colony in the conflict. With new Xinjia under attack, talk of abandoning the alliance had rippled throughout the troops like a poisonous whisper.
And now they had a golden opportunity. Non-Federation aligned mages were stumbling right into their doorstep. This was a prized opportunity to seize magic for themselves so they could resume the studies they’d lost so long ago. Like Nuclear power in their past, magic wasn’t unfamiliar to them, but they’d sworn off as its initial appeal had waned. More was learned about it, but for each thing learned, misinformation and doubt spread like wildfire. Now the brotherhood was mistrusting peoples desperate for answers. Almost as though they’d been manipulated into such a position by someone or someones with an agenda.
A stealth watchpost reported the Indra’s progress back to Orbital Command One, or OrbComm1. The watchpost commander, a young lieutenant who’d been posted here in part of because of her love for astrometrics, and in part because she’d told the commanding admiral’s son to go fuck himself for cheating on her while they were in the Academy. She liked to think it was because they valued her keen scientific mind. It helped her sleep easier.
“OrbComm1, this is Watchdog Delta. We’ve got eyes on the bogey. No hostile actions yet, but she dances like a ballerina. ETA at current speed and heading, fifteen mikes. How copy? Over.” There was genuine awe in Watchdog Delta’s voice. She’d seen her share of space jockeys, but this one put them all to shame. No doubt the ship had a void mage. She’d heard rumors they could reduce the mass of their craft in order to make it pull some unorthodox maneuvers.
“That’s a good copy. Watchdog Delta.” OrbComm1’s communications officer replied. She knew his voice. They’d been trading traffic a lot lately. Watchdog Delta often wondered if he was handsome. Maybe she’d ask him out?
Once the Indra reached OrbCommOne, it came to a stop just outside weapons range. By then, it was being actively tracked by a sophisticated series of interlinked sensor grids, and magical detection systems all woven together in such a way that even the Artificers guild would be interested in procuring the blueprints for. Sensing they’d been spotted, the castaway mages opted to play along as well, making no overt moves but showing interest in reaching the orbital command post.
“Ok. We’re here. So now what?”
“Well, they’ve had eyes on us since we got here. So infiltration is off the table.” Luffa said.
Amara gave her a look. “Was it ever on the table? We know nothing about what we’re up against here, and clearly Ominek didn’t care to let us in on the fact they’d see us coming.”
“It was a suicide mission, after all.” Tanak barked with a gravely laugh.
“I vote we de-cloak and announce who we are and our intentions.”
Tanak frowned. “Are we sure that’s the wisest move?”
“We haven’t got much choice. They’ve got every gun in the system trained on us. We so much as twitch funny and it’ll be the last move we make.”
“Assuming their weapons could damage us,” Tanak said.
“True. We could hold out. But for how long? And why? We came here to be honest with them. We’re in a safe position. They’re curious about us, and we might have something else we can offer them besides the magi-nukes.” Amara pointed out. “I’ve watched brotherhood ships take down adult dragons before. Kidding ourselves into thinking the Indra will hold out for long enough that we figure out a Plan B is baffling.”
“And it poisons the well if we go anywhere else looking for help.”
Amara focused a bit of magic and brought down the invisibility spell on the ship. The Indra shimmered into view before the station, glittering in the sunlight of the nearby star about 12 light minutes out. Then she wove a missive spell to link them to the station’s communications network. It would magically transmit data like a wireless carrier signal.
“This is the Indra with Captain…Luffa, and her crew. We’ve come to you to request asylum. As a token gesture of good faith, we stole several weapons of mass destruction from the Sauridius and are seeking protection from them under you.” Luffa said from in front of everyone, before glancing for support. Everyone gave her an encouraging look.
The Brotherhood commander of the station gave away no visual queues and Luffa wished she had some insight into what he was thinking. Another officer approached him from off screen and whispered something hushed into his ear. His expression hardened.
“Did you come alone?”
The question threw Luffa. Her confusion was clear in her expression. “I have my crew, but yes.” She gestured around to the other primals, Amara and Tanak.
“Then it would seem you are under pursuit by someone else, and I’m going to need some answers. Quickly.”
“Luffa. He’s right. Two squads of Talons just dropped into the system from the same umbral aperture we came out of.”
She felt the blood drain from her face as genuine fear gripped her heart. Had Ominek sold them out after all?
She split the main spell screen in half and dread set in as her stomach fell away at the sleek golden shapes that approached them in formation. They wouldn’t have long. Luffa swallowed hard and faced the station commander.
“What do you want to know?”